Review #799: 'Lone Survivor' (2013)

Like 2004's excellent, melancholy Friday Night Lights (and the TV series that followed), Peter Berg injects Lone Survivor with the same sense of camaraderie, as a band of brothers go to near-impossible lengths to carry out the task at hand. But where Lights took place on the football pitch, Lone Survivor is set amongst the unforgivable terrain of the Hindu Kush region of Afghanistan. Based on sniper Martin Luttrell's book (here he is played by Mark Wahlberg), the events that took place in June 2005 was one of the most gruelling acts of warfare ever recorded.

After receiving orders to execute Ahmad Shah, a Taliban leader responsible for deaths of over a dozen marines, a Navy SEAL's unit headed by Erik Kristensen (Eric Bana) plan for a quick operation. Luttrell, team leader Michael Murphy (Taylor Kitsch), sniper 'Ax' Axelson (Ben Foster) and communications specialist Danny Dietz (Emile Hirsch) are picked for the job, and are dropped onto a steep and jagged Afghan hillside. They locate their target, but after experiencing some communication problems, come across a Taliban sheep-herder and two children. After deciding to obey the rules of engagement and let them go, they are soon pursued by a small army, who rain bullets and rockets down upon them.

Starting with the same twangly-guitar music that steeped Friday Night Lights so beautifully and richly in atmosphere, the film begins with heavy in shots of sunsets, our heroes staring at photographs of their loved ones. and cracking wise over dinner. It doesn't do much to help us distinguish one from the other (apart from the fact they are all recognisable faces), but it does establish a sense of foreboding doom. The opening scene depicts a bullet-ridden and near-dead Luttrell before skipping back in time, so the outcome of a film called 'Lone Survivor' leaves little ambiguity. And when the bullets start to fly, Peter Berg shows us one of the most brutal and realistic depictions of war even put on film.

The four are shot, blown up, and in the most wince-inducing scenes, thrown down a hillside of sharp rocks and thick trees, where we get to experience every impact and every bone broken. It's an endless array of loud violence, and when you finally think it's over as Luttrell is aided by Afghan villagers, they still more to come. It's in the later scenes when the film becomes less a serious study of warfare and bravery, and becomes more of a Hollywood movie. There's a lot added in these scenes that didn't happen in real life, and it feels like an unnecessary attempt to appease an audience used to more traditional action-movie climaxes. But for the most part, this is thrilling, and quite moving, stuff.


Directed by: Peter Berg
Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Taylor Kitsch, Ben Foster, Emile Hirsch, Eric Bana
Country: USA

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie

Review #557: 'Savages' (2012)

Two childhood friends, Chon (Taylor Kitsch) and Ben (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) run a highly profitable business in Laguna Beach, California, where they share everything including their girlfriend O (Blake Lively). Chon, an ex-Navy SEAL, is the muscle, and Ben, a highly skilled botanist, is the brains. After a few years of hard work, they now grow and sell the most powerful strain of marijuana in the world. When they are sent a video depicting a mass chain-saw murder by Lado (Benicio Del Toro), they move to meet a powerful Mexican cartel ran by honcho Elena (Salma Hayek). Against the advice of CIA insider Dennis (John Travolta), Chon and Ben refuse the cartel an offer of partnership and plan to flee to Indonesia the next day. Unimpressed by the insult, Lado and his crew abduct O, forcing them into a three-year business deal, but Chon and Ben have other ideas.

Treading relatively unfamiliar ground, Oliver Stone's latest film is most akin to his sleazy 1997 neo-noir U-Turn, employing cinematographer Dan Mindel to create a violent yet sun-bleached world of torture, corruption, and sleazy Mexicans. The film begins with a group of masked unknowns being decapitated with a chain-saw, captured on shaky hand-held footage, and the film doesn't let up. The hulking Lado represents the physical side of the drugs business, and we later see him murder a lawyer and his wife in cold blood. But where the film is most impressive is when dealing with the tactical side of the situation, with Chon and Ben refusing to back down, and employing their own means of negotiation while Elena continues her wave of intimidation. It is these twists and turns that keep the film interesting, and while I found myself not really caring who gets out of it alive, the execution kept me on my toes.

The ensemble of unrelatable and despicable characters is the main weakness of the film, with none of the large cast standing out as the focal point of the movie. Chon is suitably stoic as the much-needed physical presence in Chon and Ben's business, but it is Ben who provides the only remotely sympathetic character, a naive botany genius that is as horrified at the violence that unfolds before him as we are. The narration is provided by O, who after explaining her romantic situation with Chon and Ben admits that we are probably thinking "slut!", and she's right. Why would I care about a beautiful spoilt rich-girl living off the riches of two criminals? The performances are outstanding throughout, however. Del Toro proves genuinely terrifying straight from the off as we witness just what his character is capable of, but, surprisingly, it is Travolta's slimy CIA agent that impresses most. His panicked actions provide some amusement, and the scene with his dying wife is genuinely moving. Savages is not particularly original, intelligent or innovative, but it is two hours of exciting, if often unpleasant, entertainment.


Directed by: Oliver Stone
Starring: Taylor Kitsch, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Blake Lively, Benicio Del Toro, Salma Hayek, John Travolta, Emile Hirsch
Country: USA

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie

Review #532: 'Killer Joe' (2011)

Texan drug-dealer Chris (Emile Hirsch) lands himself in hot water, owing money to a gang of big-time criminals. After being refused money by his father Ansel (Thomas Haden Church), Chris comes up with a plot to have his mother murdered, collecting the life insurance money that he believes will pass to his sister Dottie (Juno Temple). To do the deed, they hire police detective and part-time contract killer 'Killer' Joe (Matthew McConaughey). Unable to pay his fees up front, Joe decides to take Dottie as collateral, who he asks to spend the night with, until the debt is paid.

Killer Joe's poster tagline reads 'A totally twisted, deep-fried, Texas redneck trailer park murder story', and really, that's precisely what it is. The central families sheer utter repulsiveness becomes the comedy vein that prevails throughout the plot, as we are greeted by Sharla (Gina Gershon), Ansel's second wife, opening her trailer door to reveal her hairy bush to a disgusted Chris. But Chris's loud-mouthed ineptness, Ansel's zombie-like idiocy, and Sharla's blatant man-eating are neutralised by Juno Temple's strange, quirky presence, and her submissive relationship with Killer Joe that is as unsettling as it is oddly sweet. It's a quite amazing performance, and her scenes with an almost equally impressive McConaughey provide the film's highlights.

If the film has a definite strong point, it is in the performances. While the aforementioned Temple and McConaughey will steal the plaudits, Haden Church's dumb, lurch-like performance reminds us why he was Oscar-nominated for the sublime Sideways (2004), providing a sympathetic character amongst Chris's waster and Sharla's trailer trash whore. It's a shame that the plot can't match the performances, and although the story takes a back-seat to the mish-mash of human monsters, this really could have been a whole lot more. This is Coen Brothers territory, taking place in that sweaty world of the Deep South, full of smoky bars, rusty trailers, cowboy hats, motorbikes and overweight, middle-aged men in vests, a modern-day noir world ripe with possibilities, one that I feel has been slightly wasted here.

But if you've ever wondered if a film's climatic scene would ever involved a woman performing fellatio on a chicken drumstick, then here is your answer. Killer Joe's final frames will undoubtedly divide audiences between those who get director William Friedkin's intentions to take things to Jacobian absurdity, to those who will feel it as a silly contradiction to the film early, more subtle black humour. It's a splurge of extreme, uncomfortable violence with a sprinkling of farce, as the true psychological unbalance of Killer Joe becomes evident. Myself, I found it rather hilarious, and it managed to cement what is really an average film with only spatters of inspiration into my memory.


Directed by: William Friedkin
Starring: Matthew McConaughey, Emile Hirsch, Juno Temple, Thomas Haden Church, Gina Gershon
Country: USA

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie

Review #2: 'Taking Woodstock' (2009)

It's seems remarkable to me that such a massive historic event as the one portrayed in Ang Lee's Taking Woodstock has largely been ignored in the movies, when it included many giants of the industry and took place in one of the most beloved era's in our recent history. The event I'm referring to is, of course, the legendary Woodstock Festival in 1969. The Festival was documented in the epic 1970 documentary Woodstock, but Lee's film concentrates on the creation of the Festival, the resistance the creators were faced with by the townspeople, and the dedication that the protagonist Elliot Teichberg had in what he saw as putting money into his poor parents pockets and back into the town's economy.

Teichberg (played with ease by stand-up comic Demetri Martin) is a successful interior designer and President of the Chamber of Commerce who spends most of his time handing his parents money so they can keep running their shit-hole motel, in which his miser mother tries to saves money by turning the bed sheets over rather than actually washing them. His long-suffering father spends his days in a semi-daze after years of living with his Russian-born wife who accuses anyone in her path of being an anti-Semite and reminds them of her struggle escaping from the Nazi's during WWII.

When Teichberg overhears that the original location to hold the Festival falls through due to opposition from the town members, he uses his permit (purchased for $1 for his usual small arts festival for the theatre troupe that lives in his barn) to lure the organisers to Woodstock and obtains permission to have free reign to use the acres of land owned by dairy-farmer Max Lasgur (the ever-brilliant Eugene Levy). He is aided by festival organiser Michael Lang (Jonathan Groff) and transvestite Vilma, who, being played by giant Liev Schreiber, looks ridiculous in a blond wig, but played to fantastic comic effect.

There are both strengths and weaknesses for the film, unfortunately a lot more of the latter. The film beautifully captures the era without going overboard, and it wisely keeps the focus on the main character's plight to make the concert work rather than shifting to the concert itself. But, while the character of Teichberg is interesting himself, his relationship with his mother and father takes up most of the film's focus, and it just isn't either convincing or interesting enough. His mother is uptight and unappreciative of her son's input in the family business, spending years saving any money she can while her son goes broke and the business suffers. It's a storyline that's been covered many times before and offers nothing new, although played well by the ever-reliable Imelda Staunton. Thank God, then, for the sweet relationship that develops between father Jake (Henry Goodman) and Schreiber's character, with the former fully engaging with the swarm of hippies on their motel and finding a new dimension and meaning to his life.

I must admit I was expecting more from a director of the magnitude of Ang Lee, capturing the same kind of magic found in Cameron Crowe's Almost Famous (2000), but it's never quite funny, dramatic or engaging enough. Many scenes fall flat, such as a spectacularly unfunny scene where Teichberg's parents eat 'special' brownies given to them by Vilma and proceed to dance and laugh with their son before stumbling into their bedroom and falling asleep. And the inclusion of Emile Hirsch's character - an isolated and paranoid Vietnam veteran who is struggling to fit back into home life - is just poorly written and wholly unconvincing.

Maybe I'm being a bit too harsh, or maybe I just expect more from Ang Lee. It is elevated by good performances by Martin and Schreiber. It also has a few nice moments - namely when we experience a screaming crowd turn into waves of psychedelic lights through the eyes of an acid-influenced Teichberg. An easy film to watch, but disappointingly run-of-the-mill.


Directed by: Ang Lee
Starring: Demetri Martin, Imelda Staunton, Henry Goodman, Liev Schreiber, Emile Hirsch, Paul Dano
Country: USA

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie