Review #1,419: 'Gothic' (1986)

The story goes that during the summer of 1816, renowned British poet and philanderer Lord Byron invited fellow poet Percy Bysshe Shelley and his wife Mary Godwin to stay at his grand Villa Diodati in Switzerland. As the weather took a nasty turn and a storm raged outside, the threesome, along with Byron's physician Dr. John Polidori and Mary's stepsister Claire Clairmont, gathered around the fire to share ghost stories. This event allegedly spawned two incredibly influential works of literature, although they didn't come from the poets. Mary Godwin, who would become Mary Shelley, released Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus in 1818, and Polidori would go on to pen The Vampyre, the first published vampire story and obvious inspiration for Bram Stoker's Dracula. It's the kind of myth rooted in fact that has filmmakers licking their lips. James Whale used this gathering as a framing device for The Bride of Frankenstein, but Ken Russell took his own idea and ran with it, and the result is a strange, psychosexual horror that fails to really fit into any discernible genre.

We begin with a group of socialites gossiping amongst themselves as they spy on Lord Byron's mansion through a telescope. I supposed this is meant to be us, the viewer, as we giddily peak behind the doors of a known rascal as he awaits the arrival of some of the most soon-to-be-revered writers in Britain. Percy (Julian Sands) and Mary (Natasha Richardson) arrive, and Byron, played by Gabriel Byrne, watches them with indifference. His mistress Claire (Myriam Cyr) and physician Polidori (Timothy Spall) are already there, enjoying the freedom of Byron's home. As the drinks start to flow, Byron start to read excerpts from Phatasmagoria, a book containing many horror stories, and the group decide to have a seance around a human skull. Immediately after, Claire has a seizure and strange events start to take place. Paintings come alive, odd noises can be heard around the house, and Polidori attempts suicide after experiencing paranoid episodes. Is Byron behind it all? Are supernatural forces really at work? Or are the literary darlings simply seeing their unpublished work come to life?

I'm a huge fan of Ken Russell and his unique, easily-distracted style of film-making, but Gothic is the first film I've seen of his that didn't quite work. He seems to have a million different directions he would like to take Gothic but heads towards all of them at same time. There are dark sexual undercurrents at play, particularly with Byron and Claire's apparently violent and toxic relationship, but they are never fully developed. It seems to have aspirations to be a horror, but Russell simply isn't disciplined enough to follow the genre rule-book. This refusal to conform can often achieve greatness, but Gothic ends up as little more than a collection of slightly camp vignettes involving characters running and screaming down corridors or making spooky statements as the thunder rumbles outside. It also isn't helped by Julian Sands' uniformly terrible performance, whose interpretation of a Romantic poet is to prance around shirtless and blubber like a child. Byrne is perfect casting as the bored poet yearning for new experiences, as is Spall as the creepy, reptilian Polidori. It also looks beautiful, from the sets to the costumes, but it isn't enough to save this from being a rare miss from Russell.


Directed by: Ken Russell
Starring: Gabriel Byrne, Julian Sands, Natasha Richardson, Myriam Cyr, Timothy Spall
Country: UK

Rating: **

Tom Gillespie

Review #1,418: 'Ivan's Childhood' (1962)

Many films have depicted the horrors of war and the loss of innocence that comes with it, but it's no coincidence that the very best tend to be viewed through the eyes of children. The big Hollywood productions tend to shy away from this angle for the simple fact that recent wars haven't been fought on their turf, leaving it to Europe and Asia to explore how war not only devastates the childhoods of youngsters, but destroys the development of their personality. Russian master Andrei Tarkovsky, making his feature debut, was keen to explore this idea in Ivan's Childhood, and the result was a work of art that can sit alongside the likes of Come and See and Grave of the Fireflies as one of the finest films to take this approach. We open in a dream, although we don't know it yet. Young Ivan  Bondarev (Nikolay Burlyaev) is enjoying happier times with his mother as birdsong plays in the background. There's a huge noise, and the expression of Ivan's mother's face suddenly changes.

We wake, with Ivan, from the dream and into the stark reality of life on the front during World War II. Ivan stumbles out of the windmill attic he's slept in and make his way across a battle-worn Soviet landscape, eventually reaching a swamp. Dodging enemy fire, the child makes it all the way across in near darkness, making contact with a small Russian platoon commanded by the young Lieutenant Galtsev (Evgeniy Zharikov). The brash and short-tempered Ivan insists that Galtsev contact headquarters to announce his arrival, while the inexperienced leader eyes the battered young soldier before him with curiosity. Eventually making the call, Galtsev is told by Lieutenant-Colonel Gryaznov (Nikolay Grinko) to give the boy a pen and paper so he can make his report on the positions of German soldiers, as well as giving Ivan a much-needed bath and hot meal. Having grown fond of Ivan, Gryaznov and his fellow soldiers aim to move him to military school, where he'll be safe from the fighting. But Ivan, after watching his family murdered before him, burns with the desire for revenge, revealing that if he is sent away he will only escape and join the local partisans.

Like all of Tarkovsky's work, there isn't really a definitive plot driving Ivan's Childhood. Instead, Tarkovsky uses the characters and setting as a means to explore deeper themes, like war, fear, rage, loss and, of course, childhood. The film flicks between dreams and reality, often leaving the viewer unaware of which state they're in, as Ivan is spurred forward by the traumatic events he has endured. He is cynical and battle-hardened like the men around him, but he is still a boy, leaping into the arms of an officer and friend like a son greeting his returning father. As Ivan, Burlyaev is tasked with playing a character torn in half, often having to switch between the two sides of his personality in the very same scene. He pulls it off miraculously, cementing his place as one of the most powerful child performances of all time. Burlyaev is able to retain a youthful demeanour while possessing the look of someone much older and wiser, the most difficult feat faced by any young performer looking to play a child forced to grow up too fast by the adult world around him. At the end, Tarkovsky leaves us haunted by images of endless death and pointless savagery, making Ivan's Childhood one of the most devastating anti-war pictures ever made.


Directed by: Andrei Tarkovsky
Starring: Nikolay Burlyaev, Valentin Zubkov, Evgeniy Zharikov, Stepan Krylov, Nikolay Grinko
Country: Soviet Union

Rating: *****

Tom Gillespie

Review #1,417: 'Choke' (2008)

If you've ever had the fortune of reading a novel by Chuck Palahniuk, the novelist behind the likes of Fight Club and Invisible Monsters, you'll know that attempting to envision the writer's nihilistic style and sketchy characters for the cinema screen is a monumental task. It takes a master director like David Fincher to make something truly wonderful, as he did with 1999's Fight Club, and to understand that simply plucking the best scenes from the book, stringing them together, and hoping it'll somehow flow, simply won't work. Choke, based on Palahniuk's 2001 novel, is written and directed by Clark Gregg, the actor now best known as Agent Coulson in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and TV's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. It's a commendable effort, and Gregg certainly gives it his all, but Choke is all over the place, and is ultimately forced to hack the complex novel into a collection of vignettes that don't really fit together.

Our protagonist is Victor Mancini, a sex addict and theme park employee whose ultimate goal seems to be to piss off anybody he comes across. His only friend is chronic masturbator Denny (Brad William Henke), a fellow underachiever who is almost saintly when compared to Victor. To his credit, Victor pays frequent visits to his hospitalised mother Ida (Anjelica Huston), although she doesn't recognise him, so Victor spends much of the time pretending to be somebody else or trying to bang any of the many nurses in the ward. If Victor wasn't already loathsome enough, he earns some extra cash on the side by pretending to choke on food at restaurants. The con is that a good Samaritan will perform the Heimlich manoeuvre on the blue-in-the-face stranger, and when the airwaves are clear and the food flies across the room, they will feel responsible for the person they have just saved. As a result, Victor frequently receives cheques from his saviours. In anybody else's hands, Victor would be too much of a scumbag to bear for 90 minutes, but he's played by Sam Rockwell, and the great underappreciated character actor somehow makes him sympathetic.

If Choke sounds like a mess, it's because that's precisely what it is. Along with everything else going on, Victor finds some comfort from the chaos in his life in the form of nurse Paige Marshall (Kelly Macdonald), who comes up with her own theory about Victor's birth when Ida reveals that there's something she hasn't told him. Despite the haphazard nature of the story, Gregg just about pulls it off by getting the very best out of his actors. Rockwell and Huston are fantastic, but that's to be expected. Henke, an actor I don't think I've seen in anything else before, gets a lot of laughs out of his loveable schlub, and is so good that it often feels like his character has the more interesting story to tell. Macdonald is charming as the nurse with her own unique approach to dealing with the strung-out relative of one of her patients, and Gregg himself, in a smaller role as Victor's brown-nosing colleague, is responsible for some of the film's funniest moments. But in the end, that's all that Choke is: a collection of funny moments. It certainly captures the idiosyncratic tone of the novel, but doesn't quite know how to fit it all the pieces together.


Directed by: Clark Gregg
Starring: Sam Rockwell, Anjelica Huston, Kelly Macdonald, Brad William Henke, Paz de la Huerta, Clark Gregg, Bijou Phillips
Country: USA

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie

Review #1,416: 'Mandy' (2018)

Horror fans were foaming at the mouth as soon as the first trailer dropped for Panos Cosmatos' Mandy - a hallucinogenic mash-up of revenge thriller and psychedelic horror featuring a Nicolas Cage well and truly off the leash. And for good reason. Whilst Mandy may not have much to offer in terms of plot and actual meaning, as a purely sensory experience, this 80's heavy metal album come-to-life will get certainly get a rise out of you, whether you're on the film's side or not. The story concerns lumberjack Red Miller (Cage) and his artist girlfriend Mandy (Andrea Riseborough), who live in peaceful solitude in a cabin in the woods. They talk of their favourite planets and never leaving their isolated home, but their happy existence is soon to be pulled away from them. Nearby, a cult led by failed musician Jeremiah Sand (Linus Roache) happen to be passing through, and once the Manson-like prophet lays his eyes on Mandy, he simply must have her.

Sand trusts his second-in-command Brother Swan (Ned Dennehy) to kidnap Mandy and bring her to him, and he does so by summoning a band of leather-draped demons who look like they've stumbled off the set of the latest Hellraiser film. They tie Mandy up and force-feed her LSD in preparation for Jeremiah's grand seduction, which includes playing her his terrible music and flashing his naked torso. When Mandy doesn't play ball, they punish her insolence in front of the bound Red, who watches in horror as his one true love is snatched away forever. They leave Red for dead, only the gruff lumberjack manages to escape to plan his bloody revenge. Handed a small arsenal of brutal weapons by his friend Caruthers (Bill Duke), Red aims to take out the bikers first, before moving on to the hippy freaks. What unfolds is a sequence of battles played out almost like a computer game, as Red cuts, chops and snaps his way up to the main target. This is the kind of film in which an early sighting of a chainsaw is of a promise of its reappearance later down the line (and it'll be way better than you expected).

If you've ever slipped on some headphones, blasted out some classic heavy metal, and dropped a shit-ton of LSD, then you'll have likely experienced something similar to Mandy. Backed by a magnificently industrial score by the late Johan Johannsson, Mandy is a trip from start to finish. The first hour moves at a crawl, moving its characters into place and easing us into this strange world of scorched red skies and masked hitmen in gimp suits, before unleashing a second hour of hardcore violence and Nic Cage at his most Nic Cage-iest. The scene in which Cage breaks down in a bathroom drinking whatever vodka he doesn't pour into his gaping wounds while not wearing trousers would usually be the stuff of unintentional comedy gold, but it's actually damn fine acting, closer to Face/Off crazy than Dog Eat Dog crazy. Little makes sense and the characters spit hokey dialogue like something out of the fantasy novels Mandy loves so much, but the whole experience is so cerebral and in-your-face that it's difficult not to get swept up into the madness. It will divide most down the middle, between those who will find the pace and intensity off-putting and those who will appreciate the VHS-murkiness of it all. Personally, I'm somewhere in between. At two hours, it's too long, but there's a breathtaking 100-minute movie in there somewhere.


Directed by: Panos Cosmatos
Starring: Nicolas Cage, Andrea Riseborough, Linus Roache, Ned Dennehy, Richard Brake, Bill Duke
Country: USA/Belgium/UK

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie

Review #1,415: 'Crimson Peak' (2015)

If you were to task both critics and general audiences with naming their favourite active directors, I would place a bet on Guillermo del Toro being the first name on the lips of many. The Mexican monster-lover has the unique ability to juggle both passion projects that clearly mean a lot to the filmmaker, and large-scale blockbusters to appease the studios, and this one-for-me, one-for-you approach has allowed to him to bring to the screen some incredibly personal stories which would have otherwise been left to linger in the director's imagination. So for every The Devil's Backbone, we got a Hellboy, and for every Pan's Labyrinth, we got a Pacific Rim. 2015's Crimson Peak was del Toro's first attempt at blending these two styles. Movie lovers could admire the breathtaking visuals and attention to detail, while the general audience could enjoy a juicy gothic mystery featuring some of the industry's most attractive stars. The result is a very mixed bag.

In turn-of-the-century New York, heiress Edith Cushing (Mia Wasikowska) dreams of becoming an author, but finds herself dissuaded at every turn by the men holding the power. Her father, wealthy businessman Carter (Jim Beaver), is visited by English travelling salesman Thomas Sharpe (Tom Hiddleston), who is seeking investment for his clay-mining machinery. The dashing bachelor is shut down by Carter, but catches the eye of Edith, and two begin a romantic affair. When Carter dies, Edith marries Thomas and travels to his home Allerdale Hall in Cumberland, a decaying mansion dubbed 'Crimson Peak' due to the red clay oozing up from the ground. Joining them will be Thomas' ice-cold sister Lucille (Jessica Chastain), who seems to harbour a resentment for her brother's new wife. But Crimson Peak has stories to tell, and Edith's unexplained connection to the spirit world means that she is frequently visited by hideous tormented ghosts carrying warnings. Back in the U.S., former suitor Dr. McMichael (Charlie Hunnam) is conducting his own research into the Sharpes and their shady history.

Del Toro has always excelled at building tangible worlds which seem to live and breath alongside the characters, and the rotting interiors of Allerdale Hall is one of the director's greatest achievements. Lush with exquisite detail, the house pulses with menace, tormenting Edith with locked doors and taps that spurt red before running clear. There's even a hole in the ceiling that allows snow to gather at the bottom of the main staircase, and the splashes of bold colour evoke the likes of Mario Bava, Dario Argento and Hammer. It's a feast for the senses, and it's just enough to distract from the mediocrity of the main story and the inclusion of CGI spectres. The mystery unravels quite beautifully, but the problem is that you'll already be two or three steps ahead. Nothing that happens in Crimson Peak will come as a surprise, especially after you've quickly realised that anyone with an English accent can't be trusted. The film loses its physicality somewhat when attempting to deliver the scares, as twisted ghosts crawl and squeal their way towards Edith. Computer-generated apparitions will never be scary, and Crimson Peak packs way more impact when catching you off guard with moments of extreme violence that will make you wince and cry out without averting your gaze. Rank this somewhere above Pacific Rim and below Hellboy II.


Directed by: Guillermo del Toro
Starring: Mia Wasikowska, Tom Hiddleston, Jessica Chastain, Charlie Hunnam, Jim Beaver, Burn Gorman
Country: Canada/USA

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie

Review #1,414: 'The Incredibles' (2004)

Earlier this year, when Disney finally completed their takeover of 21st Century Fox, Marvel fans rejoiced at the idea of the X-Men and the Fantastic Four finally being brought into the fold and into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. After the silly, family-friendly Fantastic Four we got back in 2005 and its only-slightly-better sequel in 2006, Josh Trank's much-anticipated 2015 reboot failed spectacularly, causing Fox to shelve the tainted franchise indefinitely. Since Kevin Feige and the MCU can seemingly do no wrong, we will finally be getting an interpretation worthy of Marvel's first family. What most fans didn't realise however, is that we already had a great Fantastic Four movie, only it wasn't made by Marvel and didn't feature the likes of Mr. Fantastic and the Human Torch. No, I'm not referring to Roger Corman's 1994 disaster, but the one made by Pixar Studios called The Incredibles, which is still to this day one of the greatest superhero movies of all time.

The world has been blessed with the arrival of superheroes: super-powered beings who dress up in masks and tights, battling crime in their spare time to the adoration of a grateful public. But with the rise of superheroes comes the rise of supervillains, all with equally outlandish costumes, nicknames and powers. Public opinion suddenly shifts when famous hero Mr. Incredible (Craig T. Nelson) saves a man from suicide, and the lawsuits start to hit the caped crusaders. In response, the government starts the Superhero Relocation Program, designed to hide the supers in society and keep their crime-fighting antics at bay. Years later, Mr. Incredible is living a dull suburban existence with his wife Elastigirl (Holly Hunter) and their three children Violent (Sarah Vowell), Dash (Spencer Fox), and baby Jack-Jack. His work at an insurance company brings him no joy, so he helps the vulnerable to find loopholes in the company's policies to ensure they pay out, and spends some nights with old buddy Frozone (Samuel L. Jackson) listening to a police radio. But life seems to have meaning once again when he is contacted by a mysterious woman named Mirage (Elizabeth Pena), who offers the overweight lug a top-secret mission on a secret island base.

Pixar is famous not only for the quality of their movies, but for how their products can be loved by anybody in any age group. Children will enjoy the bright colours and spectacular action, adults will appreciate the sly wit, and just about everybody will fall for the heart. Yet despite its somewhat glossy appearance, The Incredibles is Pixar at its most mature. While the film does gift its characters super-strength, super-speed and invisibility, The Incredibles is really about dysfunction and the trappings of family life and a 9 to 5 job. Mr. Incredible and Elastigirl have reached crisis point, with the latter left to dealt with children only just discovering their powers while the former is off daydreaming about the glory days. It's what drives the drama, and is ultimately what makes you hold your breath when they are in danger or want to punch the air when they suit up to face their foe. Such an honest depiction of marital life doesn't make for depressing viewing however, with writer/director Brad Bird mixing in some fine slapstick humour and the mic-dropping costume designer Edna Mode (voiced by Bird himself). 14 years after its release, it still remains one of Pixar's finest, and Bird finds the perfect balance of comedy, drama and action as he did with his other animated classic, The Iron Giant.


Directed by: Brad Bird
Voices: Craig T. Nelson, Holly Hunter, Sarah Vowell, Spencer Fox, Jason Lee, Samuel L. Jackson, Elizabeth Peña
Country: USA

Rating: *****

Tom Gillespie

Review #1,413: 'The Passion of Anna' (1969)

By the mid-1960's, Swedish filmmaker Ingmar Bergman had already established himself as one of the true masters of cinema. He had unleashed the likes of Wild Strawberries, The Seventh Seal, Through a Glass Darkly and - one of my personal favourites - the criminally underrated Sawdust and Tinsel, all sombre black-and-white masterpieces the director would be remembered for. 1966 saw Bergman kick off a series of films where he would experiment with cinematic form, while still exploring his favourite themes of memory, love and madness. This resulted in arguably his finest achievement, Persona, and he would go on to make the likes of Hour of the Wolf, Shame and The Passion of Anna. Bergman frequently commented on his own pictures, citing The Passion of Anna as one of his greatest failures. While it may not be on the same level as his best work, the raw emotion of Anna cannot be ignored or indeed forgotten, so I'll have to wholeheartedly disagree with the great man on this one.

The story concerns ex-convict and estranged husband Andreas Winkleman (Max von Sydow), who has isolated himself on a Swedish island (actually Bergman's own) and only occasionally socialising with the handful of locals spread across the land. One day he is approached by the beautiful but unhinged Anna (Liv Ullmann), a widow who now walks on a crutch following the car crash that took the lives of her husband and son. She wants to use Andreas' phone, and the hermit is happy to oblige. Only he can't resist eavesdropping on the conversation, which results in Anna hanging up the phone in anger and accidentally (or purposefully?) leaving her bag behind. This leads to a dinner involving married couple Eva (Bibi Andersson) and Elis Vergerus (Erland Josephson), who are both going through their own mental anguish. Eva is an insomniac who has been unfaithful in the past, and Elis is a pompous misanthrope who hoards photographs he takes of everyone he meets. Andreas and Anna start a passionless affair, but their shady pasts are destined to resurface. The island is also struck by a serial animal killer, who attempts to hang a dog before butchering cattle and setting a barn on fire. 

Bergman isn't known to be a 'fun' director, and The Passion of Anna is no different. There are sweeping monologues to camera and existential conversations over dinner. Much of this will be lost on most viewers, including myself, but there is something undeniably hypnotic watching Bergman's favourite actors spewing psychological observations or recollecting strange, nonsensical dreams. Bergman also opts to intercut the film with interviews of the actors talking about their characters, in what appears to be spontaneous behind-the-scenes footage. These sections were in fact scripted, and although the actors do well masking this fact, this experimental approach only interrupts the story. The director himself has also voiced his regret for leaving something in he knew wouldn't work. Still, merely solid Bergman would be the highlight of most director's back catalogues. Bergman explores people's tendency to fall back into previous cycles of behaviour, and how memory can be corrupted by both time and wishful-thinking. Anna frequently recalls her perfectly balanced marriage with a man she shared an unbreakable bond with, but we know from Elis that her husband embarked on an affair with Eva. The final shot leaves many questions unanswered, and we are left to ponder them for ourselves. Despite the confusing manner with which the story is told, we are left with a kind of unspoken understanding.


Directed by: Ingmar Bergman
Starring: Max von Sydow, Liv Ullmann, Bibi Andersson, Erland Josephson, Erik Hell
Country: Sweden

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie

Review #1,412: 'Predator 2' (1990)

John McTiernan's Predator introduced a new horror icon. With its flowing dreadlocks, formidable size, arsenal of deadly, otherworldly weapons, and a face that can only be described as "one ugly motherfucker," the Predator quickly garnered a legion of fans, who were all the more titillated by the idea that the creature could in fact exist in the same universe as the xenomorphs from the Alien franchise. It hardly had the critics salivating, but Predator quickly became a cult classic, and is now considered one of the finest action films of the 80's. The follow-up, released three years later, is considerably less impressive. Stephen Hopkins' Predator isn't a bad film by any stretch of the imagination, but is about as middle-of-the-road as sequels come. It's sufficiently action-packed and certainly violent enough to appease the horror crowd, but ultimately this is a re-hash of the first film with the action transported from the jungles of South America to the urban jungle of a near-future Los Angeles.

It's 1997, and L.A. has become a playground for violent gangs. Shoot-outs occur in the streets in broad daylight, and the warring Colombian and Jamaican gangs don't hesitate to take down as many cops as they can. Lieutenant Mike Harrigan (Danny Glover) is perhaps the city's best hope: a plays-by-his-own-rules type who will always lead the charge into the gunfire. When a group of Colombian thugs turn up massacred by something of considerable size and strength, Harrigan makes it his personal mission to take down this mysterious hostile. The Predator is back in town on safari, and it seems that both gang members and the police are on its hit list. Harrigan and his crew - Danny Archuleta (Ruben Blades), Leona Cantrell (Maria Conchita Alonso) and Jerry Lambert (Bill Paxton) - know that something is amiss when they discover an alien artefact hidden among the carnage, and especially when secretive F.B.I. agent Peter Keyes (Gary Busey) starts sniffing around. As the bodies of his friends and enemies start to pile up, Harrigan will stop at nothing to take the extraterrestrial down, but how can he outwit a foe that has him outgunned and outsmarted?

The lack of any kind of new story means that Predator 2 lives and dies by its action. Thankfully, there is plenty of it, and it's about as gory as they come. Spines are torn from their body, hearts are ripped out of chests, and in a particularly disturbing moment, the Predator buffs the skull of his latest victim to display in its trophy room. No matter how predictable the story becomes or how ridiculous the dialogue is, nobody could claim that Predator 2 is boring. But action doesn't equal tension, and this sequel misses the mystery of the first film, when the threat was always lurking out of sight, watching his clueless target stagger about in harsh terrain. Here, the Predator jumps straight into the mix, hacking, shooting and impaling anyone in its way. It also misses the presence of Arnold Schwarzenegger and his occasional tongue-in-cheek quips. The Governator was no Laurence Olivier, but his presence is undeniable. As watchable as Glover is, who here is more akin to Lethal Weapon's Riggs than his very own Murtaugh, he ain't no Arnie. It also doesn't help that he is one of the stupidest cops ever to grace the screen.  It's lazy and forgettable, but dumb and fun.


Directed by: Stephen Hopkins
Starring: Danny Glover, Gary Busey, Kevin Peter Hall, Maria Conchita Alonso, Rubén Blades, Bill Paxton, Robert Davi, Adam Baldwin
Country: USA

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie

Review #1,411: 'Ramrod' (1947)

Feuding landowners have always been a popular subject matter for the old-school B-movie westerns, and on face value Andre De Toth's Ramrod appears to be cut from very familiar material. The presence of co-stars Joel McCrea and Veronica Lake no doubt attracted punters charmed six years earlier by their performances in Preston Sturges' masterpiece Sullivan's Travels, and they would be forgiven if they thought they were in for some light-hearted white hat vs. black hat cowboy fun, with a little bit of romance sprinkled in for good measure. In fact, Ramrod couldn't be further away from Sturges' romp in terms of tone, with De Toth revelling in the cynicism of all but one of its central characters. Based on a story by legendary Western author Luke Short, this is a tough, twisty horse opera that pushes its characters into morally murky territory, sharing more in common with the film noir genre than the tropes of a western.

As the film opens, we are already at the boiling point of a conflict between powerful ranch owner Frank Ivey (Preston Foster) and sheepherder Walt Shipley (Ian MacDonald). Walt wants to bring sheep to the land, a big problem in cattle country. Caught in the middle of the feud is Connie Dickason (Lake), the beautiful and headstrong daughter of rancher Ben (Charles Ruggles). Her father wants Connie to marry Ivey, but she detests his bullying, violent manner and prefers to marry Walt instead. As it turns out, Walt doesn't have the stomach for a fight and flees town, leaving his Circle 66 ranch to Connie. Rather than caving to Ivey's demands for the land, Connie hires the stoic Dave Nash (McCrea) as her 'ramrod', or foreman, who feels indebted to Walt for taking him in when he was at his lowest. Dave accepts, but only on the promise that he is allowed to deal with Ivey peacefully, and without resorting to violence. He hires the free-spirited Bill Schell (Don DeFore) as back-up, but as Ivey and his gang employ increasingly brutal methods and Connie loses patience with Dave's restraint, alliances are forged and broken as the conflict spirals out of control.

Despite the magic they made together working with Sturges, I've never been particularly fond of either McCrea or Lake as actors. They have the screen presence, certainly, but they can both come across as empty shells. They are undoubtedly the weakest aspect of Ramrod, a film that is otherwise riveting from start to finish. The story is complicated enough to hold your interest for the duration, with supporting characters emerging to play a more important role that you were expecting, and revealing hidden layers that provide plenty of twists and turns. Indeed, Ramrod would be pretty pedestrian if Dave's methods proved to be the only way, and as his grip on the situation loosens when the back-stabbing and dirty dealings start to play out, the film heads into pure film noir territory. As the bodies start to pile up and the gun-fire becomes more frequent, De Toth forces his characters down some incredibly dark paths and doesn't wimp out of the difficult corners he backs them into. This is tough and exciting stuff, made all the more interesting by the way De Toth toys with the myth of black against white. The weakness of the leads is countered by some excellent supporting players, in particular Foster and DeFore.


Directed by: André De Toth
Starring: Joel McCrea, Veronica Lake, Don DeFore, Donald Crisp, Preston Foster, Arleen Whelan, Charles Ruggles, Lloyd Bridges
Country: USA

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie

Review #1,410: 'All That Heaven Allows' (1955)

German-born film maker Douglas Sirk grew up watching the ground-breaking expressionist films his country pioneered in the 20's and 30's, when movies like The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and Nosferatu were making full use of shadow techniques and angular sets that were as wonderfully warped as the minds of their characters. After fleeing the Nazis with his Jewish wife, Sirk - born Hans Detlef Sierck - worked in Europe before arriving in Hollywood, where he would ultimately become remembered for his ravishing melodramas. One of his most popular, All That Heaven Allows, saw Sirk fully embracing the expressionist pictures of his birth country, adapting these techniques for 1950's Americana, and employing them to expose the ugly underbelly of a Technicolor world he would make equally as beautiful.

The middle-aged Cary Scott (Jane Wyman) is still trying to make sense of life after the death of her husband. Her children, who insist she purchases a television to fill up her spare time, are all grown up and pursuing careers of their own, while her friends at the stuffy country club seem unhealthily invested in finding her a new husband. There's no shortage of men lining up to declare their interest, but the only man to truly catch her eye is the dashing Ron Kirby (Rock Hudson), the gardener who tends to the neighbourhood's shrubs and bushes. He's certainly handsome and charming enough, but Ron is below Cary's social status, favouring a care-free life with close companions and building whatever he needs with his own hands. This doesn't bother Cary, and if anything is the reason she falls completely in love with him. But everybody around her takes offence at a widow shacking up with a younger man, and look down their noses at a man who doesn't fit in with their ideal social balance.

Wyman is superb as a woman who knows her heart's desire, but hesitates at the idea of upsetting those holding up the foundations of a privileged life. It isn't that she doesn't want to leave a life of dull conversations and social gossip - on the contrary she is profoundly bored with it - but it's all that she knows. Having been ushered into this world by her late husband, the thought of a life without assurances is simply terrifying. Her own children even turn their backs at the thought of a younger man seducing their mother, and see Ron as a threat to their inheritance. Sirk brings this conflict to life with lashings of vivid reds and blues, reflecting both mood and temperament, as Cary desperately struggles to contain the waves of uproar lapping through her community. As the gossips bicker and the older single men puff out their chests, Sirk dissects the seemingly harmonious and postcard-perfect family unit of the Eisenhower-era, and finds an ugly heart beating beneath. It's the kind of thing David Lynch would explore more overtly a couple of decades later, employing the same soap-opera sheen as Sirk does here to give the world an even more vacuous feel. All That Heavens Allows is also a gorgeous and engrossing love story, lending joy to what is otherwise a damning social commentary.


Directed by: Douglas Sirk
Starring: Jane Wyman, Rock Hudson, Agnes Moorehead, Conrad Nagel, Virginia Grey, Gloria Talbott, William Reynolds
Country: USA

Rating: *****

Tom Gillespie

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 #1,408: '22 July' (2018)

British writer and director Paul Greengrass has spent half of his whole career documenting real life tragedies with equal amounts of verve and respect. The likes of Bloody Sunday, United 93 and Captain Phillips were equally difficult to watch and to look away from, paying tribute to those caught up the real-life events, who are likely still living with the traumatic memories, yet delivering an emotional, visceral cinematic experience at the same time. The two styles should contradict each other, but they really don't, and it's what makes Greengrass a special film-maker. But even he couldn't escape the controversy that came with his latest film, 22 July, a re-telling of the 2011 terrorist attack on Norway's Utoya island, an event still fresh in the minds of anybody old enough to remember the news reports. Is the film simply too soon? And does a Brit even have the right to try and make sense of a Norwegian tragedy?

22 July arrives mere months after Erik Poppe's Utoya: July 22, a Norwegian production that placed a fictionalised character at the centre of the massacre as it unfolds in real-time using one long take. Poppe's movie was even more controversial, raising questions about the ethics of applying such cinematic flair to an event that still feels like an open wound to many. Greengrass is more concerned with the aftermath: how Norway reacted as a country and how the actions of Anders Behring Breivik are still felt throughout the world. The massacre itself, which took the lives of 69 people attending a Labour Party youth camp, is mercifully short, but undeniably horrifying. One attendee in particular stands out: the bright, articulate and well-liked Viljar (Jonas Strand Gravli). We first meet him delivering a short speech about the ethnic diversity of his own town, speaking out in favour of everything Breivik hates. At the same time Breivik, played with a haunting steeliness by Anders Danielsen Lie, has posted his online manifesto and is fitting a home-made bomb to a van outside the Prime Minister's office. Whilst on his journey to Utoya, Breivik had already murdered 8 people.

Viljar survives the attack but is left blind in one eye and with bullet fragments lodged dangerously close to his brain. While Breivik is processed through the courts, Viljar provides a much-needed ground-level view. Through Viljar, 22 July also finds its emotional beats, as his physical and emotional recovery builds towards a final confrontation in court, where Breivik is also granted the opportunity to say his piece. The system may have given Breivik some time in the spotlight, Greengrass certainly doesn't, at least not in the way the delusional, self-styled "leader of men" no doubt envisioned. It commends both due process and Norway's refusal to allow events to descend into a circus. As a result, Breivik is systematically broken down and disarmed, and if the film is ultimately about our truly dark times, some satisfaction can be gained by watching a monster stripped of his delusions of grandeur. Greengrass trips up with his decision to shoot the film in accented English, going half in the right direction by casting unknown Norwegian actors but stopping short of full immersion. For such an otherwise authentic document, it's a baffling decision, but 22 July is still brave, powerful film-making that reminds us with genuine concern of what little has changed since that day seven years ago.


Directed by: Paul Greengrass
Starring: Anders Danielsen Lie, Jonas Strand Gravli, Jon Øigarden, Maria Bock, Thorbjørn Harr
Country: Norway/Iceland/USA

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie

Review #1,407: 'Poltergeist III' (1988)

The promotion and subsequent release of Poltergeist III was overshadowed by the death of 12 year-old star and face of the franchise Heather O'Rourke, from cardiac arrest and septic shock brought on by a misdiagnosed intestinal stenosis. The studio, who understandably wanted to avoid any claims that they may be looking to take advantage of such a devastating tragedy, kept advertising to a minimum, although they had previously pressured director Gary Sherman into completing the film against his wishes. Poltergeist III was a critical and commercial flop, putting an end to the franchise that should have really stopped with Tobe Hooper's original. A lack of promotion cannot be blamed entirely though, as the rushed final edit is an incoherent mess with precious few links to the mythology established in the first two entries. They should have known they were in trouble when original stars JoBeth Williams and Craig T. Nelson turned down the chance to return.

In an attempt to freshen up the series, the action is moved from a suburban home to a luxury skyscraper: A 100-story colossus complete with its own mall and art gallery. In charge of the tower is Bruce Gardner (Tom Skerritt), the new husband of Patricia (Nancy Allen) - the sister of JoBeth William's character. As well as having to adapt to newly married life, Pat is also having to deal with her daughter from a previous marriage, Donna (Lara Flynn Boyle), so the last thing she needs is the arrival of spooky Carol Anne (O'Rourke), who seems to bring trouble with her wherever she goes. I don't recall an explanation given for why the Freeling family would suddenly send the daughter they almost lost twice to an auntie they've never mentioned, but the script by Sherman and Brian Taggert isn't concerned with making too much sense. It's happy to simply drag out the franchise as far as it will go and ignore what made the previous films so popular with audiences. The Freelings always fought off the supernatural forces at play with their unbreakable family bond, but Poltergeist III sidesteps establishing this newly family unit in favour of lazy jump shocks.

The Gardner's don't seem particularly adept at taking care of a traumatised 12 year-old either, happily leaving her in the care of their irresponsible teenage daughter and enlisting her in a special school, where sceptical psychiatrist Dr. Seaton (Richard Fire) believes the spooky events experienced by Carol Anne and the people around her are brought on by some kind of mass hypnosis. This leaves plenty of time for Carol Anne to be harassed by Reverend Kane (Nathan Davis, replacing the late Julian Beck), who still wants her to lead them all into the light. The film quickly dissolves away into a series of set-pieces plucked at random from Cinema's Big Book of Characters in Peril, involving falling through ice and killer cars revving in the underground car park. Without the family bond so purposefully developed over the course of the last two films, these moments lack any dramatic weight. Sherman would prefer to have the characters yell each other's names repeatedly at the expense of actual dialogue, and in one case is happy to toss away one supporting character without any explanation at all. On the positive side, there are some fantastic 'in camera' effects deployed as the spirits use mirrors to communicate with the living world, and the presence of Zelda Rubinstein and Tom Skerritt's moustache is always a pleasure.


Directed by: Gary Sherman
Starring: Tom Skerritt, Nancy Allen, Heather O'Rourke, Zelda Rubinstein, Lara Flynn Boyle
Country: USA

Rating: **

Tom Gillespie

Review #1,406: 'Upgrade' (2018)

Leigh Whannell's Upgrade feels like the type of film made for Netflix; a sort of mid-level science-fiction story constructed around one intriguing idea, and bulked up with elements from other, better genre movies. It's also the type of film I would consider for a few seconds whilst flicking through my Netflix queue, before opting for something else with a more compelling premise. Set in the very-near future, the film's main hook comes from a game-changing microchip that, when surgically planted in a willing - or unwilling host - allows body and foreign body to communicate with each other. Of course, it doesn't stop there. The implant can also turn down your nerve endings so you don't feel pain, and - with the host's permission - can fully operate your body and turn you into a hand-to-hand master. This comes in handy for grease monkey Grey Trace (Logan Marshall-Green) when the plot demands he seeks revenge on some baddies.

As well as possessing one of cinema's all-time most ridiculous names, Grey spends his time fixing classic muscle cars and drinking beer. This near-future is complete with iHomes and self-driving cars, but Grey is far more comfortable getting his hands dirty. His wife Asha (Melanie Vallejo), on the other hand, works for one of the big tech companies and has fully embraced this new digital, hands-free world. Opposites do attract however, and Grey invites his wife along to the isolated home of tech genius Eron Keen (Harrison Gilbertson), his most high-profile customer. Eron, who is clearly inspired by Elon Musk, is withdrawn, strange and undeniably brilliant, and also eager to show off his latest invention: a microchip he dubs "a new, better brain." On the journey home, their car experiences a catastrophic error, sending the couple down dark streets before crashing and overturning. Injured, they are then preyed upon a gang of masked criminals, who murder Asha and cripple Grey. Waking up paralysed from the neck down and understandably angry, Grey is offered a solution when Eron makes a rare public appearance at the hospital.

If all of this sounds familiar, it's because you've seen it before in countless other movies. Upgrade's greatest achievement is that it doesn't make you wish you were watching something else, and instead pulls you along into its world. This is mainly down to some spectacular action scenes, which combine well-choreographed hand-to-hand fighting with some nifty camerawork, which bends and turns along with Grey as he dishes out violence with a look of both confusion and excitement splashed cross his face. There's something hilarious about a body acting independently of the face, and Whannell wisely chooses to play up these moments. Marshall-Green is often unfairly referred to as a bargain-bin Tom Hardy (who is currently dealing with his own parasitic second personality in Venom), and while he fails to convince as a leading man, he's clearly enjoying himself. Produced by Blumhouse Productions, who churn out huge hits with incredibly modest budgets, Upgrade is infused with a grainy, B-movie aesthetic that give it an exploitation vibe and slightly grimy feel. I mean that as a compliment, and it's a shame that the excitement generated by the outrageous action scenes couldn't be replicated in the generic beats of the main story.


Directed by: Leigh Whannell
Starring: Logan Marshall-Green, Melanie Vallejo, Harrison Gilbertson, Betty Gabriel, Benedict Hardie
Country: Australia

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie

Review #1,405: 'Escape from Alcatraz' (1979)

Before their falling out, director Don Siegel and actor Clint Eastwood made some great films together, beginning with Coogan's Bluff in 1968 and ending with arguably their finest work, Escape from Alcatraz in 1979. Like Eastwood's character Frank Morris, Escape from Alcatraz is lean and no-nonsense, set completely within the walls of the infamous island prison. It's also a masterpiece of visual storytelling, with Siegel displaying a skill for capturing the routine of life in Alcatraz, from the small individual cells to the mundane work cycles, all combining to create an overall sense of hopelessness for those destined to rot away on the Rock. Morris has been placed there because he has escaped from every other prison he's been sent to, and nobody escapes from Alcatraz. He is quickly informed by a fellow inmate that should you even manage to get out of your cell, it's a mile away from land and the cold will kill you before the next prisoner count.

This revelation would crush the souls of most men, but Morris simply sees it as another challenge to overcome and quickly starts to plan a break-out. It will take time however, so he must endure the harshness of prison life in the meantime. Alcatraz is a place of punishment, not rehabilitation, and the quietly sadistic warden, played by Patrick McGoohan, appears to be proud of the prison's reputation of making good prisoners, not citizens. We are gradually introduced to the other inmates: There's the eccentric Litmus (Frank Ronzio), who convinces a new arrival that he is actually Al Capone, artist and amateur botanist 'Doc' Dalton (Roberts Blossom), black librarian English (Paul Benjamin), and eventually Morris' old acquaintances and brothers Clarence (Jack Thibeau) and John Anglin (Fred Ward). Morris quickly makes an enemy in Wolf (Bruce M. Fischer), when he clobbers the would-be rapist for making advances in the shower room. With Wolf waiting impatiently in solitary for revenge and the threat of a cell move looming, Morris steps up his efforts, finding hope in the crumbling concrete around the grille in his cell.

The escape itself is a magnificent, meticulously researched sequence that arrives at the climax, but before that we are ushered into the harsh realities of prison life, and what it takes to survive and maintain your sanity in such brutal surroundings. Siegel skilfully builds dramatic tension in a suffocating, cramped confinement. Alcatraz was no ordinary prison. It was an intricate machine designed to crush the spirits of those serving time, where a luxury could be taken away in an instant for the pettiest of reasons, leaving you with nothing but walls and your thoughts. Siegel doesn't necessarily side with the prisoners - with one exception, they all certainly deserve to be locked up - but he is keen to point out that such mental abuse doesn't do anybody, especially society, any good. This sense of injustice is certainly what seems to be driving Morris, and you'll be willing him on when the date is finally set. The escape is actually relatively straight-forward, but Siegel makes it nail-biting nonetheless. This also fits in with the whole docudrama feel, sticking closely to how it actually went down back in 1962. The ending eerily lets you ponder their fate for yourselves. They were never seen again, nor were their bodies discovered.


Directed by: Don Siegel
Starring: Clint Eastwood, Patrick McGoohan, Roberts Blossom, Jack Thibeau, Fred Ward, Paul Benjamin, Larry Hankin
Country: USA

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie