Review #1,478: 'Assassin's Creed' (2016)

Despite numerous critical and commercial failures over the last quarter of a century, Hollywood just cannot turn away from trying to capitalise on an industry that continues to out to out-gross them. Video game adaptations have been a thing ever since Nintendo tried and catastrophically failed to bring to life the colourful world of Mario and Luigi with 1993's Super Mario Bros., and it's become a running joke ever since that there has never been, and will unlikely ever be, a decent console-to-big-screen adaptation. But the $1 billion-plus success of Capcom's Resident Evil franchise lingers in the minds of many a studio head, so pretty much every year a new cast and crew are put together to develop a game series with a promise to break the trend. 

While the likes of Prince of Persia and Rampage are perfectly serviceable fluff, they are way overshadowed by the unbearable awfulness of a Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, or a Max Payne, or whatever hot turd Uwe Boll is serving up that month. We have gone through the disappointment too many times to believe it when a director promises to stick to the source material, but eyebrows were raised when it came to the inevitable movie adaptation of Ubisoft's hugely successful Assassin's Creed series, which plunged you into a centuries-old battle between the Knights Templar and a shadowy group known as the Assassins. Not only was Justin Kurzel, director of the truly unsettling Australian drama Snowtown and Shakespeare epic Macbeth, to helm the film, but Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard, two of the most respected actors in the business, were also signed up for the leads. Could this be the movie to finally bridge the two mediums and match the success of its source material?

The short answer is no, but by no means is Assassin's Creed a complete disaster. Its main problem is that it depicts two worlds from two different periods in time, but forgets to make them both interesting. We have the Inquisition-era Madrid, where hooded assassins move stealthily through the crowd armed with daggers and their wits, as they attempt to bring down those in power who seek peace in the land through control. The Assassins also long for peace, but peace gained through freedom, and they don't want a McGuffin known as the Apple of Eden, which somehow possesses the power to block humanity's free will, falling into their hands. This war has raged on for centuries, and in the modern era - a glum grey world full of murky corridors and empty rooms - the Templar continue their search for the Apple, employing a new technology that allows people to travel into the memories of their ancestors, to track down the allusive object through the centuries. 

We spend the bulk of the time in the present day, as convicted criminal Cal Lynch (Fassbender) is saved from the electric chair by Sofia (Cotillard) and spends much of his time brooding in his cell over the murder of his mother. I get the feeling that writers Michael Lesslie, Adam Cooper and Bill Collage want to keep you in the dark about who the good guys are here, but as soon as Jeremy Irons arrives with his black turtleneck sweater, you pretty much know how this is going to play out. The plot is an odd mixture of overly complicated and incredibly stupid, and much of the screentime is spent having these characters explain it to each other and the audience, or at least those in the crowd who have never played the game (like myself). When Cal finally straps up and enter the body of his ancestor Aguilar de Nerha, the movie springs into life, although this bleached-out world of questionable special effects and wannabe-Indiana Jones action may have seemed all the more exiting by the sheer dreariness of the alternative. 

Directed by: Justin Kurzel

Starring: Michael Fassbender, Marion Cotillard, Jeremy Irons, Brendan Gleeson, Charlotte Rampling, Michael Kenneth Williams

Country: USA/France/UK/Hong Kong/Taiwan/Malta

Rating: **

Tom Gillespie

Review #1,424: 'The Ballad of Buster Scruggs' (2018)

The Coen brothers have long weaved their love of the western genre into their movies, whether it be capturing its core essence with the likes of Blood Simple and Raising Arizona, or tackling the genre head-on with No Country for Old Men and True Grit. Their latest, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, which makes its way onto Netflix after a limited theatrical release, sees the siblings hark back to the horse operas of old. Initially marked as an anthology series, it soon evolved into a feature of six unrelated stories, bound together only by the imaginary pages of the short-story book we as the viewer are supposed to be reading. The final product suffers from the same problems faced by any film attempting the portmanteau format - a couple are great, some are either frustratingly short or unnecessarily drawn-out, and at least one you'll be struggling to remember after the credits have rolled.

There's also the feeling that Buster Scruggs blows its load far too early, as the titular Ballad, featuring one of Tim Blake Nelson's best performances, struts into town on the back of a horse carrying the smoothest country singer and deadliest gunslinger in the West, and knocks it out of the park. It's a bizarre little tale that mixes the yodell-y crooning of those white hat vs. black hat genre pictures of old with bursts of the ironic, darkly humorous violence the Coens are so well known for. The tunes are wonderful, the cinematography (by Bruno Delbonnel) is ingeniously inventive (watch out for that shot from inside the guitar), and Nelson is a lively narrator. It ends too soon, and you can't help but think that a standalone feature for the sharply-dressed Buster Scruggs may have been warranted instead. The next story, Near Algodones, sees James Franco's roaming thief hold up the wrong bank and come under fire from the gun-toting teller, played by Stephen Root. It's supposed to be a funny tale of irony and karma, but ultimately feels like an afterthought in the wake of Scruggs' more well-rounded story.

Meal Ticket is more sombre in tone, following opportunistic impresario Harrison (Liam Neeson) and his performer, the legless and armless Artist, who is played with great poise by Harry Melling (Dudley Dursley from the Harry Potter films). There is a great idea here, one fraught with tragedy and sorrow, but it simply doesn't have enough time to fully develop its ideas. Slotting nicely alongside Buster Scruggs as a stand-out piece is All Gold Canyon, in which Tom Waits' grizzled prospector digs for gold in an untouched valley. It's like the opening scene of There Will Be Blood, only this also has a nice surprise in store as the weather-beaten old man searches for 'Mr. Pocket', the place in the ground holding his grand prize. The remaining two stories, The Gal Who Got Rattled and The Mortal Remains, touch on romance and horror elements, as the characters are transported by wagon train and stagecoach, respectively, to the destination that may or may not await them. They round off a mish-mash of tones and themes, and although they each have individual merits, they simply don't gel together or flow naturally. Fans will no doubt find some wonderful stuff here, as I did, but recommended only for Nelson and Waits, whose stories are up there with some of the Coens' very best.


Directed by: Ethan Coen, Joel Coen
Starring: Tim Blake Nelson, James Franco, Liam Neeson, Harry Melling, Tom Waits, Zoe Kazan, Bill Heck, Tyne Daly, Brendan Gleeson, Jonjo O'Neill
Country: USA

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie

Review #1,372: 'Mission: Impossible II' (2000)

John Woo was already a highly acclaimed director by the time he transferred his trade to Hollywood. With the likes of A Better Tomorrow, The Killer and Hard Boiled, produced in his native Hong Kong, he had earned his reputation as an action maestro, one capable of delivering a gun-fight with balletic grace, almost like watching poetry in motion. His Hollywood career started off okay with Hard Target and Broken Arrow, two forgettable if sufficiently entertaining vehicles for Jean-Claude Van Damme and John Travolta. He went up a couple of gears in 1997 with Face/Off, an outrageous thriller with two off-the-leash central performances, and it felt like Woo had finally worked out the formula of translating his chaotic brand of action and humour for American audiences. That was all before Tom Cruise suggested him for the follow-up to Brian De Palma's nifty thriller Mission: Impossible. M:I-2, as the posters branded it, not only manages to be completely hollow, but incredibly boring.

While De Palma made some controversial changes to the formula of the original TV series, the first Mission: Impossible still embraced much of what was loved about it. It was grounded in a world of espionage and secret government departments, with Tom Cruise's relatively inexperienced Ethan Hunt at the centre of the unravelling plot. Woo throws the majority of this out of the window in favour of something more flashy and violent, changing Hunt from an opportunistic rookie to a leather-jacket wearing superhero capable of gravity-defying kicks and physics-defying driving. When we first meet him, he's free-climbing in Utah, in what is the movie's only heart-pounding moment. It establishes this new Hunt as a fearless adrenaline-junkie, and when he finally makes it to the top, he is handed his next mission, should he choose to accept it, via a pair of soon-to-be self-destructed sunglasses. The mission is to track down and retrieve a deadly virus stolen by rogue IMF agent Sean Ambrose (Dougray Scott). To assist him, Hunt must also recruit professional thief Nyah Hall (Thandie Newton), who also happens to be a former flame of Ambrose.

After the baffling plot of the first Mission: Impossible, it's something of a relief that Woo chose to keep things as simple as they are here. With films like this, the story only really serves as a way to get us to the next set-piece. The major issue is that Woo and writer Robert Towne (of The Last Detail and Chinatown fame) fail to inject any life into their characters, or at least give us anyone to root for. I like Tom Cruise and have nothing but respect for his desire to do all of his own stunts, but this smirking, floppy-haired version of Ethan Hunt comes across as a bargain-bin James Bond. Dougray Scott, who is one of the blandest actors around anyway, isn't helped by his one-note villain. Ambrose is simply an evil version of Hunt, only without the hero's plot armour. By the time Ving Rhames and John Polson are brought in for the final showdown, it's all too little, too late. By this time, Mission: Impossible II has already established Hunt as a one-man army, who naturally finds the time to romance his prettiest recruit when she's not busy trying to run him off a cliff. All of this could be forgiven if the action was on point. Guns are pointed dramatically and the camera swirls in slow-motion, but not even the obligatory flying doves can save M:I-2 from yawn-inducing mediocrity. It was a smash-hit at the box-office, but it's reputation meant that it would take six years for J.J. Abrams to save the franchise from an early demise.


Directed by: John Woo
Starring: Tom Cruise, Dougray Scott, Thandie Newton, Ving Rhames, Richard Roxburgh, John Polson, Brendan Gleeson
Country: USA/Germany

Rating: **

Tom Gillespie

Review #1,316: 'Paddington 2' (2017)

Paul King's Paddington was one of the great surprises of 2014: a re-imagining of a world-famous character beloved not only to children, but to the adults who grew up reading Michael Bond's stories or watching the various television incarnations since the 1970s. Aesthetically, it shared very little in common with the charmingly old-fashioned and quaint little adventures penned by Bond and illustrated by Peggy Fortnum, but shared much of its heart. Most who saw Paddington fell quickly under its spell, which was a wonderful amalgamation of Wes Anderson and Jean-Pierre Jeunet's proudly artificial visual splendour and the stiff upper lipped playfulness of Ealing Studios. This sequel's arrival is more than welcome, if not only to make us forget what's happening out there in the real world, but to allow us to spend more time in the company of Ben Whishaw's endearingly clumsy yet optimistic bear.

In almost every way, Paddington 2 is an improvement on its predecessor. The return of King and his co-writer Simon Farnaby is a no-brainer, and they have not only grown in confidence and in their willingness to push their kooky boundaries even further, but they have fixed what was arguably a weak link first time around - the villain. Nicole Kidman had a ball as evil taxidermist Millicent Clyde, but here they have tried something less terrifying for kids in Phoenix Buchanan, a washed-up thespian who dreams of bringing his one-man show to the West End, but finds himself in humiliating dog-food television adverts instead. Casting Hugh Grant was a stroke of genius, and it's no stretch to say that this is the finest he has ever been. He's pompous and full of himself, but takes pride in his ability to disappear into his characters. His desire to spark his festering career back to life leads to the theft of a valuable pop-up book from the store of Mr. Gruber (Jim Broadbent), which holds clues to the location of a treasure chest hidden somewhere in London.

Phoenix Buchanan may steal the film, but the attention rarely strays too far from the titular hero, who is once again voiced pitch-perfectly by Whishaw. He was Colin Firth's last-minute replacement first time around when the Kingsman actor's efforts didn't quite feel right, and it's difficult to imagine any other actor behind Paddington's soft features and wide-eyed curiosity. When we first meet him, it's clear that the charming little bear's community wouldn't quite function without him. The Brown family, again played by Hugh Bonneville, Sally Hawkins, Julie Walters et al, are happily getting on with their lives, although dad Henry is experiencing a midlife crisis at work and with his ageing appearance. With Aunt Lucy's 100th birthday coming up, Paddington finds the perfect present in the pop-up book of London in Mr. Gruber's store, which he hopes will compensate for the elderly bear never being able to see the big city for herself. He starts to work odd jobs to save up for the pricey gift, but all suspicion falls on Paddington when Buchanan steals the book for himself.

He is sentenced to ten years in prison for the crime, and if that seems unnecessarily harsh, you'll understand why when you see the film. This may seem like a somewhat grim direction for a family film to take, but thanks to a mishap involving a stray red sock in the laundry room, the scenes within the jail are some the film's funniest. This is also thanks to the character of Knuckles McGinty, the fearsome chef played brilliantly by Brendan Gleeson who Paddington naturally befriends over some marmalade sandwiches. Paddington 2 is unashamedly fanciful stuff, presenting a fantasy vision of London where the sun always shines and people on the street always greet you with a smile. It's an image many foreigners will no doubt have of the capital, but there's nothing wrong with playing up to this, especially when the film's fantasy sequences are quite as wonderful as they are. Production designer Gary Williamson and animation director Pablo Grillo are a crucial part of this, and King, who always displayed a flair for the fantastical in his early TV work, surely also had a hand in Paddington 2's overall magical feel.


Directed by: Paul King
Starring: Ben Whishaw, Hugh Bonneville, Sally Hawkins, Hugh Grant, Brendan Gleeson, Julie Walters, Jim Broadbent, Tom Conti, Peter Capaldi
Country: UK/France/USA

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie

Review #1,174: 'Live by Night' (2016)

I highly doubt that many people believed that Ben Affleck would ever recover from the plethora of awful decisions he made between 2000 and 2004, when he starred in such duds as Bounce, Pearl Harbor, Daredevil and, of course, Gigli. But recover he did, and he did so from behind the camera, delivering a stream of solid thrillers such as Gone Baby Gone, The Town, and the Best Picture winner of 2012, Argo (the first film to win the prize without the director receiving a nomination). For a star on a roll, 2016 wasn't particularly pleasant for Affleck, with his superhero movies Batman v Superman and Suicide Squad, along with his action movie The Accountant, all receiving a critical hammering (although I rather enjoyed the latter). His awaited return to directorial duties is also a bust; an underwhelming, cliched gangster picture with a half-arsed performance by its lead, pulling in only $21 million from a $65 million budget.

Joe Coughlin (Affleck) returns from fighting in World War I vowing never to kill another man. A petty bank robber and the son of an Irish police chief (Brendan Gleeson), Joe finds himself pulled into the gangster lifestyle when he falls in love with Emma Gould (Sienna Miller), the girlfriend of Irish mob boss Albert White (Robert Glenister). When their affair is uncovered, she wounds up dead and Joe is thrown into prison, serving only a few years thanks to the influence of his father. He comes out a changed man; one that is eager to take revenge and ready to embrace the lifestyle he always shunned in order to get it. Joe persuades White's rival, Italian boss Maso Pescatore (Remo Girone), to let him take over business in Tampa, where the rum business is booming thanks to Prohibition, and where White is trying to carve out a piece of the action for himself.

Live by Night basically follows Joe throughout his criminal career, as he partners up with his comedy relief best friend Dion Bartolo (Chris Messina) and sets about putting his rivals out of business. Yet the biggest challenge to his reign is not the White gang, but the Ku Klux Klan, who disapprove of his doing business with black folks, and dating Cuban beauty Graciela (Zoe Saldana). The most engaging sub-plot involves Joe's relationship with the local police Chief Figgis (Chris Cooper), a man who claims to be un-corruptible, yet turns a blind eye to Joe's dirty dealings. His beautiful daughter Loretta (Elle Fanning) goes off to Hollywood to become a star, only to come back a broken woman with a heroin addiction. She finds God, and draws a huge crowd as she preaches against the sin engulfing their city, placing Joe's grand casino development under threat in the process.

Whenever Cooper and Fanning are on screen, the movie hints at the far more interesting experience it could have been. The rest is a by-the-numbers gangster flick with the familiar good man corrupted by a thirst for success and power at its centre. There is some sumptuous cinematography and some colourful costume design to distract from the mediocrity of the story and performances, and an exciting shoot-out finale, but this is nowhere near enough to make up for how utterly bland Affleck's picture is. The talents of Gleeson and Saldana are wasted in underdeveloped roles, with only Messina's affable sidekick Bartolo identifiable as a fully realised character. Affleck plays the lead as stoic and damaged, but he fails to convince of the emotional turmoil bubbling beneath the surface. While it's hardly as outright embarrassing as Warner Bros.' other crime saga flop Gangster Squad (2013), the studio obviously knew they had a stinker when Live by Night was rushed onto Blu Ray a measly two months after hitting theatres.


Directed by: Ben Affleck
Starring: Ben Affleck, Chris Messina, Zoe Saldana, Chris Cooper, Elle Fanning, Sienna Miller, Brendan Gleeson
Country: USA

Rating: **

Tom Gillespie

Review #1,016: 'In the Heart of the Sea' (2015)

When taking into account the reputation of Herman Melville's novel Moby Dick as one of the Great American Novels, it is surprising that so few directors have taken it upon themselves to adapt the epic tale of man against nature. The most famous and well-respected is John Huston's 1956 effort that starred Gregory Peck as the obsessed Captain Ahab and, dismissing the few straight-to-DVD efforts and TV movies over the past few years, it is really the only one of note. Ron Howard has also decided to side-step Melville's tricky beast in favour of the true story that inspired it, the sinking of the whaling ship Essex.

Almost as if Howard was afraid that the sight of a group of battered, starving sailors drifting would be too boring for the audience to stomach for two hours, the story begins with Melville himself (played by Ben Whishaw) paying a visit to the only remaining survivor of the Essex's doomed voyage, Thomas Nickerson (Brendan Gleeson). After a bit of nagging from his wife (Michelle Fairley) and the promise of whiskey, Nickerson soon begins spilling the tale he has kept bottled up for years, and reveals that it is not just a story of a giant, extremely peeved-off whale, but that of two men - first mate Owen Chase (Chris Hemsworth) and captain George Pollard (Benjamin Walker).

The men sitting behind the desks at the Nantucket whaling company view Chase, despite his impressive record at collecting whale oil, as a 'landsman' - someone born outside of the vast whaling family. Pollard is inexperienced and envious of Chase's reputation and popularity, and there personalities soon clash. Most is viewed through the eyes of the young Nickerson (played by Tom Holland, the new Spider-Man), and just when the two potential father figures reach a mutual understanding and finally discover whales after months at sea, they are rammed by a giant sperm whale and left hundreds of miles from shore with limited food, water and supplies.

You would think that a story so packed with sea-faring adventure and the promise of an unknown monster lurking beneath the surface would be effortlessly thrilling, but sadly In the Heart of the Sea is not. While certainly an overrated director, Ron Howard has made exciting films before, but here the action is so laced with obvious CGI that it makes it impossible to truly engage with the action. The film actually works best during its quieter moments. While peppered with survival-movie cliches and sluggish character development, its well-performed by the (mostly British) cast, particularly Walker, whose character arc pleasantly surprised me, and Holland, who is surely destined to be a star in the future. Still, we wait patiently for the film that does Meville, or the story behind his greatest work, justice.


Directed by: Ron Howard
Starring: Chris Hemsworth, Benjamin Walker, Cillian Murphy, Tom Holland, Brendan Gleeson, Ben Whishaw, Paul Anderson
Country: USA/Australia/Spain/UK/Canada

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie

Review #793: 'Edge of Tomorrow' (2014)

Despite his questionable religious beliefs, cringe-worthy talk show appearances, and all-round general creepiness, one cannot deny the raw star power of Tom Cruise, even a shocking 28 years since his breakthrough in Top Gun (1986). Here, he brings charm to an instantly dislikeable character - a cowardly, smarmy PR major who hasn't seen a second of combat in a world battling invading alien forces. His performance - possibly one of the best in his long career - shows his true range as his character goes through a highly convincing arc from pathetic rookie to fully-fledged action hero. It's easy to forget that Cruise is a highly accomplished actor, and there is no-one better out there to spear-head a blockbuster.

As humanity prepares for a surprise attack on an alien force called Mimics who have devastated many of the large cities on Earth, General Brigham (Brendan Gleeson) orders public affairs officer Major William Cage (Cruise) to cover the combat from the front lines during the assault. Objecting that his life will be placed in danger, Cage is arrested, labelled as a deserter, and wakes up handcuffed in the hands of Master Sergeant Farrell (Bill Paxton), a Southern drill instructor with a strange sense of humour. Cage is suited and booted with hi-tech armour and dropped into the battle, which turns out to be a disaster for the humans and they are overrun by the Mimics, who decimate their forces. Cage manages to kill a rare large Mimic, and is killed in return when the Mimic's acid-like blood dissolves his face.

He then wakes up handcuffed, and again meets Master Sergeant Farrell, who appears to have never met him. The day plays out like it did before, and once again Cage is dropped into the battlefield only to be killed again, this time surviving a little longer. It's on the battlefield that he meets famous soldier Rita 'Full Metal Bitch' Vrataski (Emily Blunt), who seems to recognise his ability to anticipate events and tells him to seek her out, before they are both killed again. Cage tracks her down on the base, and Rita informs him that he is stuck in a time-loop, something she experienced after a previous battle with the Mimics but has since lost due to a blood transfusion. The two start to work together, with Cage training to survive a little bit more every time he dies.

Adapted from the Japanese light novel All You Need is Kill (a title the film adopted before it changed to the generic Edge of Tomorrow - something that may have been the cause for it's underwhelming box-office performance), the film clearly takes inspiration from video games. Every time your character dies, it starts again from the beginning of the level or checkpoint, where you can use your experience to gain the skill required to complete the level. While this can be frustrating and monotonous when bashing a game controller, Edge of Tomorrow doesn't linger on the repetitiveness of Cage's day, and instead moves the story along to the point where you don't even know how many times Cage has lived the same day.

Each time, Cage learns to duck here, fire there, take a different route; and director Doug Liman revels in killing off his hero in a variety of ways to an often comedic effect. The first two-thirds of the movie are delightfully entertaining, with the Mimics proving to be inventive creations, resembling giant, tentacled tumbleweeds, and the movie wisely choosing not to get bogged down in time-loop mumbo-jumbo. Emily Blunt, one of the most charismatic and beautiful actresses working at the moment, is excellent, portraying a female lead who, for once, isn't there simply for the male hero to rescue and fall in love with, but is the key to any hopes of success. Which is all the more disappointing when the movie begins to bow to convention during the final third, as Vrataski starts to fall for our vertically-challenged protagonist.

As with most recent blockbusters, Edge of Tomorrow also struggles at the climax. The inventiveness of the Groundhog Day approach (I almost made it through the entire review without mentioning the Bill Murray classic) makes way for a familiar, simplistic climax and a roll-your-eyes bittersweet final scene, It's sad, because this could have been one of the best blockbusters in the past couple of years; a twist on the usual crash-bang-wallop alien invasion flick. It does, however, offer plenty of great action, bolstered by a fine sense of humour, and proves that Tom Cruise can still convincingly anchor a big-budget action movie, even at the ripe old age of 52.


Directed by: Doug Liman
Starring: Tom Cruise, Emily Blunt, Brendan Gleeson, Bill Paxton, Noah Taylor
Country: USA/Australia

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie

Review #789: 'Calvary' (2014)

Following 2011's wildly entertaining The Guard, John Michael McDonagh continues his dissection of Ireland with Calvary. But there's little of the former's laugh-out-loud humour, and certainly no slow-motion action set-pieces or stylish editing. Calvary feels like the work of a developing auteur, taking giant strides after a highly successful indie debut (The Guard is Ireland's most successful export ever, financially speaking), and creating a deep, meaningful film which is capable of going to some very dark places indeed. Brendan Gleeson again takes the lead, and with his performance as Father James, a good-natured priest given a week to live, he proves that he is one of Britain's acting giants.

The film begins with Father James being visited by an unseen man for a confession. "I first tasted semen when I was 7 years old," the man says, much to the priest's shock. He talks about his sexual abuse as a child at the hands of a priest, and how his desire for revenge rages inside of him. It would be no good killing a bad priest, so he's going to kill Father James instead, because he is a good man. Father James has a week to get his house in order, and is to meet his killer the following Sunday on the beach. James doesn't go to the police, and knows perfectly well who the mystery man is. Instead, he tends to his flock and cares for his suicidal daughter (Kelly Reilly), as his world begins to crumble around him.

Set in a small village in County Sligo, Father James's community is a tightly-knit one. Although the village's inhabitants show up for Mass every week, they show little but contempt and ridicule for the good Father. There's a butcher (Chris O'Dowd) who is suspected of beating up his wife (Orla O'Rourke) for openly cheating on him with an Ivorian immigrant (Issach De Bankole). There's also a surgeon (Aidan Gillen), an aggressively cynical man; a death's-door writer (M. Emmet Walsh) who wishes the end his own life whilst he is still control of it; a socially-inept young horndog (Killian Scott); a stinking-rich businessman (Dylan Moran) who is drinking himself to death; and a strange police chief (Gary Lydon) who frequently frolics with a young male prostitute (Owen Sharpe).

Their scenes play out in multi-layered conversations, slowly unravelling their own grievances with the Church, as the film tries to keep you guessing the identity of Father James's killer. But this soon loses it's importance as James's motivations for apparently willingly drifting towards his death come to the fore. It's no coincidence that the only characters who act with a mutual respect or affection for the priest aren't Irish. The well-documented abuse cases at the hands of Catholic paedophile priests has ruined the Church's reputation, and James goes through the film being mocked, threatened, and in one scene, has a lit cigarette flicked at him as a means to end a conversation.

Yet unlike last year's Philomena, this doesn't bash or condemn the Church. Ultimately, the sympathy lies with Father James, who is a decent man who tries to help people even when he's the subject of aggression. He's flawed, certainly. A recovering alcoholic, prone to violent tempers, he unknowingly neglected his daughter when his wife passed on his road to priestdom. When he comes across a little girl on a country lane for some idle chatter, her father races up and quickly ushers her away. His faith is unshaken but he cannot help embodying something so profoundly damaged and now so closely related to those unspeakable revelations. Calvary is a grand work by a director fearlessly working towards potential greatness.


Directed by: John Michael McDonagh
Starring: Brendan Gleeson, Chris O'Dowd, Kelly Reilly, Aidan Gillen, Dylan Moran, Isaach De Bankolé, M. Emmet Walsh, Orla O'Rourke
Country: Ireland/UK

Rating: *****

Tom Gillespie

Review #787: 'The Guard' (2011)

To paraphrase The Guard's FBI Agent Wendell Everett (Don Cheadle), this movie is either really motherfuckin' smart, or really motherfuckin' dumb. Having laughed my way throughout the majority of it, my feet are firmly in the former camp, with Brendan Gleeson's towering performance and writer/director John Michael McDonagh's extremely witty script make this one of the most under-appreciated movies of 2011. It is, on the surface, a simple fish out of water story crossed with a mismatched buddy comedy. But with a self awareness that brings to mind Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005), The Guard often feels like it's more intelligent than it's letting on, similar in many ways to it's morally shady protagonist.

Gerry Boyle (Gleeson) is not your everyday Garda (Gaelic for 'policeman') . As he expressionlessly watches a car load of weed-toking yoofs crash and die, he helps himself to the insides of their pockets and finds some acid, which he promptly swallows without thinking twice. He cares about his terminally ill mother, so we know he's at least not all bad. His laid-back attitude to law enforcement is threatened by the arrival of the eager Aidan McBride (Rory Keenan) from Dublin, as well as a murder that may point to the work of an occult serial killer. There's also more drugs on the streets than ever before, but Gerry enjoys those almost as much as he enjoys his hookers.

If the witty yet crass dialogue spouting from this grumpy collections of Irishmen sounds somewhat familiar, then this is probably because John Michael's brother Martin McDonagh penned and directed In Bruges (2008), which also starred Gleeson. In my opinion, The Guard is better and certainly funnier. Most of the humour stems from Gerry himself and the way he plays with the characters he interacts with as much as the audience themselves. With the news that international drug traffickers are heading to Connemara to make a multi-million (or billion, no-one seems to know) dollar deal, FBI Agent Everett arrives to brief the guard's on the situation. When the dealers appear on the projector as Liam Cunningham and Mark Strong, Gerry's response is "But I thought all drug-dealers were black?".

It may seem somewhat bad taste humour, but the way Gleeson delivers his lines, and the reaction by Cheadle (who plays the straight-man extremely well), make for comedy gold. Gerry is everything Everett despises - bigoted, ignorant - but the loathing changes to curiosity as he witnesses Gerry do some good police work and appears to be the only one who cares. Is he putting on an act to catch people off-guard? Is he really an idiot with a natural instinct for detective work? Or is he a bit both? I can forgive it's formulaic shoot-out ending for suspicion that it may be mocking the type of films it's emulating. After all, this is a fish-out-of-water-story where the main character verbally acknowledges that he's in a fish-out-of-water story. I'm sticking with really motherfuckin' smart.


Directed by: John Michael McDonagh
Starring: Brendan Gleeson, Don Cheadle, Liam Cunningham, Mark Strong, Rory Keenan, Fionnula Flanagan, Katarina Cas
Country: Ireland

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie

Review #767: 'Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire' (2005)

As we all remember, turning 14 comes with as many strange new emotions as it does the need to rebel against everything resembling authority, and Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe), fresh off his experiences battling ghostly Dementors and a werewolf, faces a brand new threat - women. Goblet of Fire, with a new director in Mike Newell, continues Alfonso Cuaron's darker and and more sinister tone, pitching Harry against a whole new range of beasts and dark wizards, but it's the section around the middle of the film - where Harry and his ever-present friends Ron (Rupert Grint) and Hermione (Emma Watson) must find dates and attend formal dance the Yule Ball - that delights the most and brings the very best out of it's still-young actors.

After a Death Eater attack at the Quidditch World Cup that leaves the 'Dark Mark' - the sigil of Lord Voldemort's followers - lighting up the smoky sky, Harry returns to Hogwarts for another year. This year however, they are being joined by overseas schools Beauxbatons of France, and Durmstrang of Bulgaria, as Hogwarts is playing host to the Triwizard Tournament, a collection of dangerous feats that pitches one pupil from each school against each other for the prize. After the champions are selected - Fleur Delacour (Clemence Poesy) for Beauxbatons, Viktor Krum (Stanislav Ianevski) for Durmstrang, and Cedric Diggory (Robert Pattinson) for Hogwarts - a fourth name is spat out - Harry Potter.

Harry swears to Dumbledore (Michael Gambon) that he did not cheat and enter his own name (as he's underage), and, being bound by a magical contract, the schools have no option but to allow him to compete. New Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher 'Mad-Eye' Moody (Brendan Gleeson) - a half-crazed ex-Auror with one magical eye that is independent of his other and which can see through the back of his own head - sets about preparing Harry for the perilous tournament. He must face dragons, sea-monsters and a seemingly endless maze to find the prize, but where Harry is, the threat of Lord Voldemort's return is always lurking.

Mike Newell and returning screenwriter Steve Kloves do an excellent job in condensing a mammoth book (about twice as large as Prisoner of Azkaban) into a coherent film. For a film so rich in action and whizz-bang CGI, it thankfully doesn't neglect the drama. Harry's friendship with Ron and Hermione is stretched, with hormones and jealousy creeping into Ron's personality, and Hermione's struggle to deal with the idiot. But it's hardly melodrama, and the Yule Ball provides the most amusing set-piece in the series, and a welcome distraction from the darkness that lurks outside.

It's the point in the series where disarming spells and defensive tricks start to prove ineffective, and people begin to die. The opening scene, which depicts an elderly muggle (played by Eric Sykes) stumbling upon Peter Pettigrew (Timothy Spall) and an undeveloped Voldemort, sees the first time the dreaded killing curse is used, and therefore sets the tone. It's also bookmarked by a thrilling climax in which (spoilers!) Voldemort finally returns in the form of a noseless Ralph Fiennes, who puts in a suitably creepy performance. It doesn't beat Azkaban as the series best entry, it's far too long and sometimes rushed for that, but it's certainly the most entertaining.


Directed by: Mike Newell
Starring: Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson, Michael Gambon, Brendan Gleeson, Robbie Coltrane, Alan Rickman, Maggie Smith, Ralph Fiennes, David Tennant
Country: UK/USA

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie

Review #415: 'Gangs of New York' (2002)

After seeing his father 'Priest' (Liam Neeson) murdered at the hands of rival gang leader Bill 'the Butcher' Cutting (Daniel Day-Lewis) 16 years before, Amsterdam Vallon (Leonardo DiCaprio) returns to the Five Points in New York seeking revenge. Not much has changed since he fled, as tension remains between the 'Natives', the Irish immigrants, the Chinese and the blacks, only Bill now rules over with an iron fist, helping corrupt politician William 'Boss' Tweed (Jim Broadbent) gain votes. With the help of old friend Johnny (Henry Thomas), Amsterdam finds himself working his way up Bill's ranks, and after thwarting an assassination attempt on Bill, Amsterdam wonders if he did it out of his desire to kill Bill himself, or a growing loyalty to his new employer.

Following a lengthy book-to-screen adaptation, Scorsese's historical epic reached the cinema screens 23 years after he bought the rights to Herbert Asbury's book The Gangs of New York: An Informal History of the Underworld, amongst stories of studio fall-outs and arguments over final cut. It seems all those years of pondering did not allow Scorsese to fine-tune his vision, and although the film looks absolutely astonishing, the result is a bit of a mess, albeit one that never gets boring. Telling such a detailed historical account of America's fist-fights for power amongst mass immigration and racial tension could not have come at a more suitable time, as the 9/11 attacks occurred during production. But Scorsese chooses to cram this in with sub-plots of political corruption, a love-story between Amsterdam and thief Jenny (Cameron Diaz), the New York Draft Riots, and the central revenge story.

Of course, the film's ultimate saving grace is Daniel Day-Lewis, who gives a theatrical, sledgehammer performance as the one eyed-monster, and his scene where he sits talking to Amsterdam with an American flag draped over his shoulders is worth a thousand Academy Awards alone. Among the wave of dodgy Oirish accents, DiCaprio's isn't that bad, pulling of a credible performance which would jump-start his close relationship with Scorsese in the years after. Amsterdam is no regular hero, he's just as violent as the next thug, and one of the most interesting aspects of the film is how Scorsese tends not to show any race or group in a particularly good light. This is America's dirty beginnings after all, and boy is it bloody - heads are bludgeoned, cheeks are torn from their face - it's probably Scorsese's most gruesome since Casino (1995).

Second time around, Gangs of New York did seem admittedly better paced and more fleshed out (I thought I might even be watching a director's cut), with the political goings-on and the various sub-plots making much more sense. But the film is still a mess, and it progresses with a taste for almost glamorising the violence. The opening scene depicting the bloody fight between the Butcher's natives and the Priest's Dead Rabbits comes with slow-motion and electric guitar music, and this punk-ish approach causes it to clash with its historical setting. However, it looks staggering. The costumes, the huge sets, and the dirt and grit, has an epic David Lean quality, almost old-fashioned in a way. Yet this is a very modern film, and perhaps a more classical approach may have benefited the film which is ultimately unfocused, but effortlessly thrilling.


Directed by: Martin Scorsese
Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Daniel Day-Lewis, Cameron Diaz, Jim Broadbent, John C. Reilly, Henry Thomas, Liam Neeson, Brendan Gleeson
Country: USA/Italy

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie