Review #886: 'Kingsman: The Secret Service' (2014)

Manners. Maketh. Man. So says the dapperly-dressed secret agent Harry Hart (Colin Firth), right before he bars all exits and proceeds to glass, stab and maim an assortment of goons in that most British of locales, the pub. Kingsman, the latest film from Layer Cake (2004) and X-Men: First Class (2011) director Matthew Vaughn, and his second collaboration with comic-book writer Mark Millar (after 2010's Kick-Ass), is both completely preposterous and ridiculously entertaining, simultaneously mocking and paying homage to the traditional idea of Britishness in an ever-changing society, and no doubt infuriating many a Daily Mail reader in the process.

Harry Hart, a Harry Palmer-like gent, is a Kingsman; a highly secretive and unaligned ring of spies and agents who dress sharply and certainly know their manners. After an operation to rescue Professor Arnold (Mark Hamill) from a possible kidnapping plot sees one Kingsman agent disposed of in a particularly gruesome fashion, Harry is tasked with finding a replacement to fill the spot. The son of a former agent who saved Harry's life years previously, Eggsy (Taron Egerton), is now growing up in a council flat with his layabout mother and abusive stepfather. After a joyride lands him in the police station, Eggsy calls the number on the back of a Kingsman medal given to him by Harry when he was a child, and he is bailed.

Harry enters Eggsy into the trials to become a Kingsman agent along with a bunch of upper-class toffs who refer to Eggsy as a 'pleb'. The group of youngsters must perform a series of tasks under the watchful eye of Merlin (Mark Strong), involving escaping from a flooded room and shooting a dog in the head. Meanwhile, Harry investigates links from recent strange events to internet billionaire Richmond Valentine (Samuel L. Jackson), a flamboyant man with a lisp and a fondness for wearing caps indoors. whose upcoming deal to offer SIM cards with free calls and internet to everybody for free reeks of conspiracy and may be related to an incident involving an exploding head.

When Harry and Valentine have their inevitable face-to-face sit-down moment, the two munch on Big Macs at Valentine's hideously decorated mansion while discussing the joys of the ludicrous Bond movies of old, when things weren't taken so seriously. Kingsman is an obvious Bond pastiche, with deadly gadgets, a henchman wielding an unconventional weapon (in this case - knives for feet), and an outrageous villain. It even comes as a surprise when Firth fails to raise an eyebrow while delivering a double entendre. It shows that these kinds of movies can still be fun without the shadow of uber-seriousness seen in the Daniel Craig Bond's and the recent Bourne movies lurking overhead, while telling the people who will be inevitably offended by the spurts of shocking violence to get a grip and remember that it's only a movie.

However, it did little to prepare me for the movie's key set-piece, which involves a church in Kentucky inhabited by a group of bigoted, right-wing religious types - and Harry - indulge in what can only be described as a pub-brawl massacre. I have never witnessed a scene that would usually be portrayed as a tragedy executed with such glee, with Lynyrd Skynyrd's Free Bird blaring out while men and women are stabbed, shot, bludgeoned, set on fire and, in one particularly grisly moment, get slammed into a wall so hard it snaps their spine in two. It seems to go on and on, but it's an absolutely thrilling moment stocked full of cartoon violence, and will no doubt making some viewers expecting a light and funny experience wholly uncomfortable in the process.

It's sadly not all great. Eggsy's recruitment and training is formulaic and none of the tasks are particularly original or clever. This period of the film also keeps Eggsy and Harry apart for most of it, when their few scenes crackle with chemistry. But ultimately, Kingsman is an intriguing experience. bending to generic tropes while seemingly playing by its own rules. Firth displays a comedic willingness rarely seen and Egerton, who has popped up from nowhere, is a real find as the swaggering Eggsy, a baseball-cap wearing yoof who calls people 'bruv', who in most actors hands would have come across as extremely annoying. Kingsman dabbles in enough extreme violence to cause most viewers to question what they really enjoy seeing on screen, and it's a throwback with a modern twist, celebrating the days when movies could be fun, inexplicable and inconsequential, Just don't watch it with your nan.


Directed by: Matthew Vaughn
Starring: Colin Firth, Taron Egerton, Samuel L. Jackson, Mark Strong, Sofia Boutella, Michael Caine
Country: UK

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie

Review #885: 'Tyson' (2008)

'Iron' Mike Tyson is a man mainly defined by his media portrayals and the various controversial incidents that plagued his boxing career and his life post-retirement, such as biting Evander Holyfield's ear during a hot-tempered slugging session, and his conviction for the rape of Desiree Washington. James Toback's documentary makes no attempt to give both sides of the story, but instead focuses the camera on Tyson himself, slumped in a chair at his home, and let him tell his own story. It becomes clear from the get-go that the youngest heavyweight champion in boxing history is a man plagued by demons, stemming from his troubled childhood.

Early on, Tyson describes an incident where he was beaten up by a larger bully and was unable to fight back, and another that saw one his pigeons killed in front of him for no reason at all. This childhood trauma could have left him shaken, but it instead turned him into a man terrified at the thought of humiliation, and determined that it never happens again. After some petty crime landed him in prison, he began to fight, and his potential prowess saw him eventually in the hands of Cus D'Amato, a man Tyson clearly loved and respected with every fibre of his being. D'Amato helped turn Tyson into a beast of a man, lightning-fast and ferociously strong, capable of beating an opponent before he even stepped into the ring.

After he won the belt, Tyson's life became hedonistic; full of drugs, orgies and violence. He describes achieving worldwide stardom at the age of 20 as a blessing and a curse, and the people - or "leeches" - who immediately surrounded him as leading him down a dark path (he calls Don King a "reptilian motherfucker,"). He also calls himself a leech for letting himself get sucked in, and frequently recognises his own flaws. Speaking with his famous high-pitched lisp, he comes across as a humble man; his monologues are mumbled and full of mispronunciations, but occasionally eloquent. His lust for women, mental instability, violent temperament and fear of fear itself explains his actions, but Tyson never attempts to use them as an excuse. We don't need another side of the story, as he dresses himself down better than anyone else can, helping Tyson to become a very human portrayal of a man often thought of as a monster.


Directed by: James Toback
Starring: Mike Tyson
Country: USA/France

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie

Review #884: 'Frankenstein' (1931)

Boris Karloff's monster in James Whale's magnificent horror milestone Frankenstein is one of the most iconic images in cinema. Originally a role set for Bela Lugosi after the huge success of Dracula earlier the same year, the image of the monster, dead-eyed with electrodes protruding from his neck, is once seen and never forgotten. The make-up is now industry standard for any Frankenstein production despite being virtually nothing like the one described in Mary Shelley's novel. But this makes it easy to forget that Frankenstein is also a great piece of cinema - gothic, shocking and genuinely moving.

Henry Frankenstein (Colin Clive) has locked himself away in his desolate laboratory in order to work on his grand experiment - to reanimate life and playing God in the process. His assistant, the hunchback Fritz (Dwight Frye), steals the a brain of a dead convict for the final piece of Frankenstein's macabre creation. His fiancée Elizabeth (Mae Clarke) is concerned by his lengthy absence and goes to visit her husband-to-be, and witnesses the birth of his monster. Repulsed and ashamed by what he has done, Frankenstein leaves his lab to be married, only for the monster, terrified and confused, to escape and head into town.

Lugosi's withdrawal from the picture was a true blessing, as Karloff's stirring physical performance really drives home the film's themes. The monster at first seems to be searching for a father, or someone to guide him, and he reaches up into the light of the sky in wonder. It's only once he is abused by Fritz that he becomes violent, and obviously scared. Colin Clive is also very good, depicting Frankenstein as a man driven mad by desire and knowledge, only to feel genuine remorse and guilt over his actions. The film has been so influential that Whale's take on Frankenstein has almost become canon, with almost every adaptation that followed relatively ignoring Shelley's text completely. A true horror classic.


Directed by: James Whale
Starring: Colin Clive, Mae Clarke, Boris Karloff, John Boles, Edward Van Sloan, Dwight Frye
Country: USA

Rating: *****

Tom Gillespie

Review #883: 'Chappie' (2015)

Ever since South African director Neill Blomkamp's breakthrough District 9 (2009), great things have been expected. Although I personally believe his debut to be somewhat overrated, paying homage to great sci-fi movies perhaps once too often, it was certainly a breath of fresh air with it's parable of apartheid South Africa and its unconventional anti-hero. His follow-up, 2013's Elysium, was underwhelming, but it was making a point somewhere amidst it's kinky cybernetics and gaping plot-holes. His latest, Chappie, is an improvement, but Blomkamp again fails to live up to wunderkind label.

Set in a near-future Johannesburg, the streets are policed by a super-efficient robot force, causing crime rates to plunge and sending criminals scampering whenever they rear their metallic faces. Created by the not-so-shady corporation Tetravaal, headed by an underused Sigourney Weaver, employee and engineering prodigy Deon (Dev Patel) manages to create artificial intelligence and steals a damaged robot headed for the scrap heap to experiment with. However, on his way home he is kidnapped by a group of local gangsters - Ninja, Yo-Landi and Yankie (The Walking Dead's Jose Pablo Cantillo) - who force Deon to programme the droid to help them with a heist that will pay-off a angry kingpin.

And so Chappie is born; a robot who must learn everything like a child, albeit at a far advanced speed, and who not only possesses the ability to think and talk, but to create. Yo-Landi plays the role of mother, encouraging Chappie to express himself with art, but Ninja wants to turn him into the ultimate gangster - pimp-roll, bling and casual nose-wipe to end sentences included. But fellow Tetravaal employee Vincent (Hugh Jackman), an ex-solider jealous of Deon's accomplishments, has other ideas, attempting to sabotage Chappie at every turn in order to get his own inferior hulking droid greenlit by the company and sent out into the streets.

Chappie received an unfair panning from the critics and underperformed at the box-office. Yet there's plenty to be enjoyed in the film's occasional eccentric streaks, namely in the casting of Ninja and Yo-Landi, members of South African rap group Die Antwoord. They can't act for shit, but are at least an interesting alternative to the usual science-fiction stock characters, helping make their ridiculous persona's somewhat likeable. Chappie himself, played by Blomkamp regular Sharlto Copley in motion-capture, has been compared to Jar-Jar Binks in some reviews and comments I've read. While he is sometimes slightly grating, his childish naivety is endearing, and invites sympathy when he is routinely abused and manipulated by the few people around him.

Yet Blomkamp seems to struggle with coming up with an original narrative. His films always seem to end up with the hero facing off against some one-note and extremely angry bad guy, pumped up by machinery or a big-ass weapon, and its no different here. It feels like Jackman's character was thrown into the mix for no other reason than to give Chappie a nemesis. Jackman himself, demonstrating one of cinema's all-time horrendous mullets, doesn't convince either. The privatisation of the police and the positive and negatives of tampering with A.I., as well as the struggles of parenthood, are crammed in and rushed over without really answering any of the many questions it poses. As a piece of entertainment, it provides all the thrills and spills required, but any deeper meditations tend to fall flat.


Directed by: Neill Blomkamp
Starring: Sharlto Copley, Dev Patel, Ninja, Yo-Landi Visser, Jose Pablo Cantillo, Hugh Jackman, Sigourney Weaver
Country: USA/Mexico

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie

Review #882: 'Le Grand Jeu' (1934)

A lot of movie-goers will agree that Alfred Hitchcock's finest work is his seminal 1958 masterpiece Vertigo. But 20 years earlier French director Jacques Feyder, fleeing from Hollywood when he failed to come to an agreement with MGM on new projects, returned to his home country and made Le Grand Jeu, the tale of a broken man falling in love with the doppelgänger of his gold-digging former lover. It's certainly an inferior work to Vertigo, but the themes of obsession and the growing psychological torment of its lead must have surely been an inspiration to the Master of Suspense.

Playboy Pierre (Pierre Richard-Willm) has it all - fast cars, the finest clothes and a beautiful girl, Florence (Marie Bell), who shares his lust for the finer things in life. Their extravagances almost bring his family's business to ruin, so Pierre is exiled to avoid further embarrassment, minus Florence who cannot turn her back on the world of luxury she has become so accustomed to. Distraught, Pierre joins the Foreign Legion in North Africa, where he lives content though the work is hard. On leave, he stays at a hotel/brothel ran by the sleazy and unsavoury Clement (Charles Vanel), and his no-nonsense wife Blanche (Francoise Rosay), who reads Tarot cards in her spare time. One night, Pierre spots a prostitute who is a dead ringer for Florence, and so begins his obsession.

Le Grand Jeu is slow, slightly over-long and often remarkably depressing. It's also a beautifully filmed example of French poetic realism, with the African setting providing a sweaty, claustrophobic atmosphere. There's a naturalism to the performances that was way ahead of what they doing in Hollywood at the time. Feyder also employs the effective tactic of casting Marie Bell in separate roles with one of her character's being dubbed over, causing an unsettling effect when combined with Bell's impressive performances as both socialite seductress and down-beaten night-club singer/party girl. It's a shame that the plot is laid out early on when Pierre has his fortune told as main plot points naturally become inevitabilities, but Le Grand Jeu is often immaculately crafted cinema.


Directed by: Jacques Feyder
Starring: Pierre Richard-Willm, Marie Bell, Charles Vanel, Georges Pitoëff, Françoise Rosay
Country: France

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie

Review #881: 'Transformers: The Movie' (1986)

I was enticed into watching Transformers: The Movie after watching an episode of the surprisingly funny The Goldbergs, currently airing for the first time in the UK. In the episode, the physically underdeveloped nerd of the family watches in awe as the movie version of his favourite weekend cartoon plays out across the cinema screen. His face soon turns to sheer horror when his beloved heroes are routinely blown away by the evil Decepticons, and I was immediately transported back in time. Not only does the bespectacled Adam Goldberg (played by Sean Giambrone) remind me of my older brother, but I instantly recalled my own horror at seeing the likes of Ratchet, Ironhide and Prowl being casually blown to pieces.

Your enjoyment of Transformers: The Movie really depends on whether you roll your eyes or clap your hands like a child at the sound of un-ironic 80's cheese blaring over sketchy animation of giant robots. No will claim that this is a work of high art or even narratively consistent, but if you're even remotely invested in the ensemble of Autobots, the ensuing blood-bath (oil-bath?) will still no doubt be shocking. Characters are dismembered, decapitated and shot execution-style. Casual viewers or newcomers may have trouble distinguishing one Transformer from the next (something that the live-action Michael Bay movies struggle with), but the relentless carnage at least makes for a refreshing experience to the usual child-friendly fare.

It also has Unicron, the big bad guy who is so huge he transforms into a planet. Voiced by Orson Welles in one of his last feature films, his operatic, ham-fisted growl combined with that opening tune still has the ability to give me chills. While Unicron commits planetary genocide in the opening moments, Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen) plans an all-out assault on the Decepticons. Prime's opposite number Megatron (Frank Welker) hears of the plans and attacks first, leaving the Autobots scattered and on the defensive. Following an attack on Autobot City, the Autbots flee with Megatron wounded and blasted into outer space. But Unicron wants the Matrix, a talisman of great power currently in the hands of Autobot Ultra Magnus (Robert Stack), and so re-creates Megatron as Galvatron (Leonard Nimoy) to recover it.

The narrative consists of little more than one action scene after the next, full of explosions, gun-play, and fan-favourites the Dinobots cracking-wise. While these moments are generally entertaining and lovingly realised, they soon become quite tiresome. When good guy Hot Rod (Judd Nelson) lands on planet Junk and is attacked by the motorcycle-riding natives led by Wreck-Gar (Eric Idle), I just longed for some of them to sit down and have a conversation. This leads to a disappointingly underwhelming climax as Hot Rod, Galvatron and Unicron finally face-off. The animation is rather jittery but incredibly stylish, in a style seemingly lost with modern-day cartoons. I may be nit-picking, but it's only because I believe that Transformers: The Movie deserves to be taken seriously, and although it's far from perfect, it will always retain a place in the hearts of us children of the 80's.


Directed by: Nelson Shin
Voices: Judd Nelson, Peter Cullen, Frank Welker, Leonard Nimoy, Orson Welles, Eric Idle
Country: USA/Japan

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie

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

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

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

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


Directed by: Alex Gibney
Country: USA/UK

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie

Review #879: ''71' (2014)

There have been precious few movies focusing on the Troubles in Northern Ireland - the conflict between the Nationalists and Loyalists that spread itself sporadically over four decades. The one film that comes immediately to mind is Paul Greengrass's deeply upsetting and infuriating Bloody Sunday (2002), and '71 shares much in common aesthetically. The grainy shaky-cam is omnipresent, and the violence is quick, ugly and brutal. Yet while Greengrass opted to let the true-life story tell itself and avoided making any overt political statements (though it's understandably clear where his sympathy lies), '71 makes a point of showing the many factions fighting and politicking with each other - often scheming within their own parties.

New army recruit Gary Hook (Jack O'Connell) says goodbye to his younger brother, who resides in care, before his battalion is shipped off to a particularly volatile area of Belfast in 1971. Whilst providing back-up during a neighbourhood search for firearms, Gary is separated from his squad after a crowd gathers and tempers start to ignite. Left beaten and bloodied after seeing one of his friends shot dead at close range by a group of Catholic Nationalists, Gary flees and must navigate his way through the streets armed only with a knife. As news of his disappearance spreads throughout the Loyalists, Nationalists and a shady MRF unit led by the creepy Captain Browning (Sean Harris), Gary finds his life in mortal danger from all sides, but finds help in the unlikeliest of places.

'71 is faced with the dangerous possibility of forging fictional entertainment out of a terrible, and relatively recent event, and coming out of it all looking rather insensitive. However, director Yann Demange, making an incredibly mature debut feature, is wise enough to cover the Troubles from all sides. Apart from a select few - including father and daughter Eamon and Brigid (played by Richard Dormer and Charlie Murphy) who take pity on Gary and tend to his many wounds - nobody comes out of it all looking particularly good. Every side has their own agenda, and it usually results in violence. And amidst all the chaos there's Gary, a young lad bewildered by his new surroundings and too inexperienced to properly handle the situation, finding himself become a political pawn as he fights for his life.

As a nail-biter, it's positively riveting. There's a moment that will make you jump out of your seat, but the action is never exploitative. When our leading man finds himself on his knees with a gun to the back of his head, his body convulses with shock and fear, elevating him from your typical movie hero to a real human being. O'Connell, though his character doesn't have much time between attempted assassinations and screaming in pain to say much, continues to impress following his breakthrough in 2013 with Starred Up. It's an extremely physical performance, and O'Connell is shockingly good at looking in genuine pain. Although it sometimes goes a bit overboard - the burning cars at the end of every street and the ever-present roaming aggressors make it seem like an Irish Dawn of the Dead meets Escape from New York - '71 will leave you exhausted, exhilarated and possibly more educated.


Directed by: Yann Demange
Starring: Jack O'Connell, Sam Reid, Sean Harris, Charlie Murphy, Richard Dormer
Country: UK

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie

Review #878: 'Cinderella' (1950)

Walt Disney's Cinderella, directed by Clyde Geronimi, Wilfred Jackson and Hamilton Luske, reinvigorated the House of Mouse's box-office power after the devastation of World War II, while at the same time marking the end of their 'golden era'. This was, critically, their final 'classic' film (although fans of Beauty and the Beast (1991) and The Lion King (1994) may disagree), and some of the art on display here is some of the finest animation Disney has ever produced. It also helped Walt Disney's huge ambitions, which was to take Disney to the new medium of television, bring children's dreams vividly to life by opening Disney World in 1971, and for Disney to become a global franchise in its own right.

Cinderella (voiced by Ilene Woods) spends her days and nights tending to the many needs of her two bitter stepsisters, Drizella (Rhoda Williams) and Anastasia (Lucille Bliss), and her wicked stepmother Lady Tremaine (the wonderful Eleanor Audley, who would later voice Maleficent in Sleeping Beauty nine years later). When it is announced that the King (Luis Van Rooten) has organised a ball, inviting every maiden in the land to attend in a search to find a bride for his son Prince Charming (William Phipps and Mike Douglas), Lady Tremaine gives her blessing for Cinderella to attend. However, on the night of the ball, Cinderella's stepsisters destroy her dress, leaving her distraught and humiliated. But with the help of her Fairy Godmother (Verna Felton), she gets to attend the ball with the help of a pumpkin carriage, some mice-turned-horses, and a pair of glass slippers.

The main draw of Cinderella, apart from the gorgeous animation, is the lead character herself, who is a truly sympathetic character and far less annoying that the usual Disney princesses. Tremaine and her daughters are truly ghastly creations, and their cat Lucifer - responsible for many laugh-out-loud moments as he tumbles with the mischievous residing mice - is no better. It's the plight of Cinderella that gives the film its backbone and emotional edge, rather than relying on musical numbers (though there are a few catchy tunes) and scenes of soppy romance, In fact, Prince Charming barely appears, but when he does it is short and all the more magical for it. It's also very funny, with the ensemble of animals on show providing many inspired comic set-pieces. Deserving of respect from both fans of animation and fans of classical film-making.


Directed by: Clyde Geronimi, Wilfred Jackson, Hamilton Luske
Voices: Ilene Woods, Eleanor Audley, Verna Felton, Rhoda Williams, Lucille Bliss, Luis Van Rooten, James MacDonald
Country: USA

Rating: *****

Tom Gillespie

Review #877: 'Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief' (2015)

For anyone who has read Lawrence Wright's book of the same name from which Going Clear is based, or whoever has seen the South Park episode Trapped in the Closet, the subject of Scientology and the insane 'beliefs' of its dwindling members will have no doubt inspired many a conversation, as well as a state of utter dumbfounderment. Alex Gibney's thoroughly-researched and extremely enlightening documentary doesn't add a great deal of new information that couldn't previously be found with a few keywords in Google, but it does condense a detailed undressing of its subject into a thrilling 2 hours, and puts this dangerous cult on a huge stage for the whole world to see.

Gibney seems the perfect film-maker to pull this story apart and try to examine how one book by a prolific science fiction author and his subsequent God complex managed to draw in so many to create one of the most powerful 'religions' in America. As the talking-heads tell us (spoken by the likes of former Scientologists Paul Haggis, Mike Rinder, Jason Beghe and Marty Rathbun), they were lured into the promise of complete emotional detox, achieved by undergoing a series of 'auditing' sessions, in which the subject confesses his or her sins while an E-meter monitors their emotions. To progress along the various stages of the path to total clarity a payment is required, until they've paid enough to read the truth - that an intergalactic dictator named Xenu brought his people to Earth, dropped them into volcanoes and nuked them, and the spirits of these aliens pass into our bodies which cause spiritual and emotional harm.

As Paul Haggis delicately puts it as he describes reading this for the first time - "What the fuck!?". That anyone would believe this complete nonsense dreamt up by a writer of pulp fiction (never mind paying for the privilege) is an obvious topic of fascination for Wright and Gibney. To help us understand, we are given a mini-biography of church founder L. Ron Hubbard. Eerily familiar to anyone who saw Philip Seymour Hoffman's performance in The Master (2012), Hubbard was a charismatic, magnetic story-teller, but also an increasingly unhinged maniac, prone to violence and psychological manipulation, who became addicted to his new position as a prophet. Scientology was an abusive cult even at this point in time (slave labour and humiliating punishments were not uncommon), but when Scientology lost its founder, the ambitious and paranoid David Miscavige took over.

This is when the church became extremely dangerous, garnering power enough to take on the IRS for tax-exempt status and win, and throw most of its high-ranking members into a set of double-wide trailers known as 'The Hole' where they have fake confessions beaten out of them and are kept sometimes for years under constant observation. It's a gob-smacking story of threats, violence and manipulation that will leave many with fists clenched, and Gibney certainly knows how to tell a detailed story at an exhilarating pace. He even manages to squeeze some sympathy out of Hubbard and the followers of Scientology, portraying the former as a man clearly degenerating into a state of complete madness as the years went by. The refusal to participate by the likes of Miscavige, Tom Cruise and John Travolta speaks volumes about this institution and its increasing paranoia, so it's about time they put on a pedestal for the entire world to see. Reports suggesting that membership numbers have dwindled to 50,000 (it was previously in the millions) means that the film at least ends on a positive note.


Directed by: Alex Gibney
Starring: Lawrence Wright, Mike Rinder, Marty Rathbun, Paul Haggis, Jason Beghe
Country: USA

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie