It was only a matter of time before BBC documentary film-maker Louis Theroux made the leap from the small screen to the big. With his unique brand of investigative journalism and interview techniques, as well as a splash of oddball charm, Theroux managed to put his subjects at ease in his presence and allow them to reveal startling inner truths. Much like Werner Herzog, he is fascinated by the weird, and seemed to carry weirdness with him wherever he goes (within minutes, Theroux randomly comes across a bikini-clad Paz de la Huerta who offers her services for the film). So when he announced that his next focus would be on the closed-off world of scientology, it didn't come as much surprise. However, the timing of it did.
A decade ago, the majority of the general public may have only heard the term 'scientology' in relation to Hollywood stars such as Tom Cruise and John Travolta, but many were unaware of just how bizarre and brutal their beliefs and institutional set-up truly is. A hilarious and enlightening episode of South Park later, combined with Alex Gibney's revelatory and in-depth feature-length documentary Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief (2015), and the lid has been lifted on David Miscavige and his rule of tyranny. Does Theroux have anything new to say on the controversial 'religion'? Not at all. In fact, the only thing saving his debut feature from being a complete misfire is the way he approaches the subject, along with some genuinely spooky imagery.
Rather than regurgitating Gibney and with the knowledge that he was going to get nowhere with the incredibly secretive organisation, Theroux has chosen to hire actors to play out archive interviews of Miscavige and Tom Cruise in the hope of persuading former Scientology enforcer Marty Rathbun (who accompanies Theroux for most of the film) to open up about his experiences. This technique was so successfully and devastatingly used in Joshua Oppenheimer's The Act of Killing (2012), but Rathbun remains a frustratingly closed-off figure, and eventually flips when Theroux asks one probing question too many. The most entertaining scenes involve Theroux's clashes with various members of the group but they offer little other than to remind just how loopy these people are. John Dower's film is certainly funny and entertaining, but lacking originality and insight (although I feel I must highlight the performance of Andrew Perez as Miscavige, who is electrifying).
Although the emergence of the superhero genre and the re-emergence of the Star Wars franchise as a global phenomenon have turned audience's attentions towards conflict on a more galactic scale, film-makers still find a fascination with World War II and the smaller-scale, almost forgotten acts of heroism that occurred amidst the bloody madness. Whether it be soldiers on the front-line or the chess-playing at the very top, audiences also remain keen, and their frequent presence at the big Awards suggests that there is still a wealth of material to explore. The story of Operation Anthropoidhas been told before, but never with such a grasp of the scale of these men's mission, and all the horror and hesitation that comes with it.
Sean Ellis' Anthropoid chooses to focus on two men - Josef Gabcik (Cillian Murphy) and Jan Kubis (Jamie Dornan) - from Czechoslovakia's government (now in exile) as they are parachuted back into their homeland during the German occupation. That same night, they are taken in by two fellow freedom fighters who offers them shelter from the harsh weather. They turn out to be betrayers and blood is spilled before Gabcik and Kubis flee to Prague. The stock footage shown on early establishes the context: With Czechoslovakia left without allies following the Munich Agreement, the Nazis quickly invaded. crushing any acts of rebellion with swift executions and routinely torturing suspects for information. Czechoslovakia was a very dangerous place to be in 1939.
Our two heroes have arrived in their homeland with one goal - to execute Reinhard Heydrich, the high-ranking Nazi official who masterminded the Final Solution and was dubbed the 'Butcher of Prague'. They touch base with their fellow freedom fighters, who all have a clear picture of the repercussions the country will face should the operation go ahead. This was never an assassination intended the win the war, but to make a global statement of their intent to fight the oppressive threat. It may be for the greater good, but it also means that thousands will die. This conflict is reflected in the two main characters. Gabcik is steely-eyed and determined to follow his orders through no matter what the consequences, while Kubis is the younger romantic, hoping to live long enough to see a better world.
Anthropoid is keen to study the effects such selfless heroism can have on a person, and the men many and women taking part in the operation do so with shaky hands, self-doubt and trepidation. Ellis keeps things incredibly reserved and low-key for much of the built-up, perhaps a little too much, but this time is spent enveloping you its paranoid and dangerous world, where a slip of the tongue in the presence of the wrong person could mean torture and brutal death. I must admit that I wasn't familiar with the ins-and-outs of the story before going into the film, so the climactic stand-off against a hail of Nazi bullets and pipe bombs in the Orthodox Cathedral was an exciting and emotional experience. It's all shot with a grainy, brown-y tinge by Ellis, who also acts as cinematographer, and helps to give the film a lived-in feel, avoiding the ugly sheen that plagues many a period piece.
Reuniting with his Lone Survivor (2013) leading man Mark Wahlberg and telling another true-life tale of down-to-earth, blue-collar guys caught up in a horrendous, avoidable situation, Peter Berg tackles the events leading up to and during the explosion of the titular Deepwater Horizon Mobile Drilling Unit and the subsequent offshore oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. Berg opts to tell the story in the mould of a classic disaster movie, introducing the various characters that are inevitably destined to be caught up in the chaos, before delivering the movie's big set-piece; a massive, devastating explosion of fire and oil, dramatically and realistically brought to life by the 85%-to-scale set. While it makes for an entertaining and exciting picture (hardly necessities for a true-life tragedy), it misses the opportunity to explore the bigger picture.
Returning to Deepwater Horizon after shore leave, engineer Mike Williams (Wahlberg) arrives at the floating rig to find that not all the workers are happy or comfortable with the actions of the company men. Mike and respected supervisor Mr. Jimmy (Kurt Russell) are shocked to learn that the men responsible for conducting a pressure test have been sent home early under the orders of BP man Vidrine (John Malkovich), without carrying out the routine safety inspections. A lot of the dialogue is naturalistic but muffled, meaning that the necessary exposition required to understand the workings of the rig and the reasons for the pending disaster can confuse. One of the opening scenes sees Mike explain his job to his young daughter who is preparing for a class talk. She seemed to get it but I didn't, but it's clear enough that something isn't quite right.
Berg's decision to keep the CGI trickery to an absolute minimum certainly pays off, and allows cinematographer Enrique Chediak to capture the sheer scale of the event to full effect. While there are some invisible special effects at work, the whole ordeal feels entirely real, bolstered by some terrifying, Oscar-nominated sound editing. Yet in aiming to deliver an action movie so focused on the immediacy of the event and the swift actions of those on board, it loses sight of the bigger picture at play. Namely, the unforgivable misconduct and irresponsibility of BP, who endangered the life of every man and woman on board in fear of being behind schedule, and the resulting oil spill which devastated wildlife and could be seen from space. For me at least, that sounds like a more interesting and engrossing movie. Still, Berg's picture is well made, handsomely performed, and, most importantly, doesn't feel superficial.
Audiences are obsessed with superheroes these days. Perhaps it's down to these caped crusaders offering a more straightforward answer to crime and corruption or the genre's lack of grey morals in our increasingly confusing world, but it's nearly impossible to avoid coming across a meta-human of some description in the multiplexes. While he may not have been bitten by a radioactive spider or possess the mutant gene, Ben Affleck's Christian Wolff is every inch a superhero. His power, as he describes it, is high-functioning autism, which means that he makes sure everything in view is at its proper angle before tucking into a meal, and tends to freak out when he doesn't see something through to the very end. Oh, and he's also a master of hand-to-hand combat and owns an arsenal of weapons so ridiculously huge that even Chuck Norris would blush at the sight of it.
Gavin O'Connor's The Accountant begins by introducing us to Wolff, who at first appears to live a low-key life for a small-town accountancy firm, eating dinner alone every night in what is clearly a strict routine. He's also a mathematical genius, using his skills as a mental calculator to cook the books for some of the world's wealthiest and most dangerous criminal organisations. His latest job is to audit the books of expanding corporation Living Robotics, whose low-level employee Dana (Anna Kendrick) has found numerous discrepancies when conducting her own audit. Christian ignores Dana's months of work and finds the missing money overnight, turning the office windows into a huge equation (seemingly the go-to quirk for movie geniuses). The company's CEO Lamar Blackburn (John Lithgow) decides it's case closed when the chief financial offers turns up dead the next day, apparently of a deliberate insulin overdose.
There's also much more going on away from the central character. Ray King (J.K. Simmons), a director at the Treasury Department, knows of Christian's alias as the 'Accountant', and has pictures to prove his association with some incredibly powerful and scary men. He blackmails data analyst Marybeth (Cynthia Addai-Robinson) into assisting him after exposing her petty criminal past, with only the photos and a few known alias to work from. An unnervingly charming hitman named Brax, whose motivations and true intentions are kept hazy at best, keeps popping up every now and then, and he is played marvellously by Jon Bernthal. There's also Christian's backstory to get through - the discovery of his 'disability', his strict military father who wants to toughen his son up so he can function in the real world, and his combat training. It's a hell of a lot to cram into 2 hours and 8 minutes, and this would be frustrating were in not for the distraction of the movie's willingness to take its character into such increasingly preposterous situations.
To put you in the picture, Christian Wolff is the combination of two of Affleck's buddy Matt Damon's most iconic characters: Jason Bourne and Will Hunting - although Bourne was never so eager to shoot people in the face. It could certainly be argued that this is Affleck's fourth outing as a superhero (after Daredevil, Superman and Batman), and at times he may as well be donning the cowl as he effortlessly punches and blasts his way through hoards of bad guys. After all, it's been theorised that Bruce Wayne suffers from a form of autism. The action is incredible at times; a mixture of The Raid's Pencak silat and John Wick's hyper-stylised gun porn. Yet, 'entertaining' is all that The Accountant aspires to be, and any suggestions of a more studios portrayal of autism raised during the quieter and more humorous first half gives way to generic audience-pleasing. It survives on its tantalising and original premise and the strength of its lead's subtle performance, and I would certainly watch a follow-up.
Movie fans were predictably up in arms when the announcement was made that John Sturges' beloved 1960 action western The Magnificent Seven was to be remade by Antoine Fuqua, a director who has arguably only made one decent film in his career. Familiar claims of Hollywood running out of ideas and calls for the 'classics' to be left well and truly alone echoed across internet message boards, despite remakes having existed since cinema began and the fact that Sturges' film was itself a remake of Akira Kurosawa's samurai masterpiece Yojimbo (1961). The resulting movie is a perfectly enjoyable and action-packed couple of hours, although ironically lacking in magnificence. The Adequate Seven would have been a more appropriate, albeit less catchy, title.
Fuqua's film treads much of the same ground as Yul Brynner, Steve McQueen, Robert Vaughan et al did fifty-odd years ago. Denzel Washington takes on the role Brynner previously embodied, and he strikes a cool and formidable figure as Chisolm, despite sticking out like a sore thumb in the post-Civil War Wild West (although nobody brings it up). He is approached by the beautiful widower Emma Cullen (Haley Bennett) to help save her town from feudal landowner Bartholomew Bogue (Peter Sarsgaard) and his small army of enforcers, who have just murdered Emma's husband. Either for the bag of gold on offer or just for the sake of doing the right thing, Chisolm agrees to take the job, and begins recruiting his own gang of former acquaintances, lovable rogues and dangerous outlaws.
Hollywood finally seems to be catching up with the ethnic diversity so prominent in the U.S., and The Magnificent Seven reflects this wonderfully. As well as casting a black lead relatively unheard of in the genre, Chisolm rounds up Mexican Vasquez (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo), Korean knife-expert Billy Rocks (Byung-hun Lee) and, after befriending him by eating the heart of slain beast, also brings in Native American Red Harvest (Martin Sensmeier). Making up the rest of the group are Josh Faraday (Chris Pratt doing his best impression of Star Lord), a cocky gambler with the gift of the quick draw; Goodnight Robicheaux (Ethan Hawke), an alcoholic former soldier with a shaky hand and shakier nerves; and Jack Horne (Vincent D'Onofrio), the hulking, grey-haired, God-fearing frontiersman who is given the role of comic relief.
For most of its 2 hour 13 minute running time, The Magnificent Seven struggles to decide what kind of film it wants to be. On one hand, it's a western in the classic mould, all thigh-slapping and talkin' tough. Yet with the many over-the-top set-pieces on show, it also seems to have aspirations to be a shut-down-your-brain blockbuster, even pitting Red Harvest one-on-one against the bad guys' Native American in what is the movie's most ridiculous scene. It also hints at deeper ideas, and touches on themes of race with the lightest of brushes, just enough to make you ponder how good this film really could have been given the cast at the director's disposal. If it's an entertaining slice of action complete with strong performances across the board, then this certainly delivers. However, if you're looking for an absorbing genre piece and one that justifies its own existence, then you may become frustrated with Sargaard's sleepy-eyed scenery chewing. Insert pun on title here.
Contrary to many an assumption, Tower of London is actually not a horror film, despite the dark and miserable English castle setting, the sight of Boris Karloff as club-footed executioner Mord, and the presence of Rowland V. Lee - a director perhaps best known for Son of Frankenstein (also released in 1939) - behind the camera. There's also the existence of Roger Corman's low-budget effort of the same name, which emphasised the horror and pushed genre legend Vincent Price (who also appears here in a smaller role) into the central role as the deformed, scheming Richard III. In fact, Lee's Tower of London is a historical drama, borrowing much from Shakespeare's Richard III but somewhat confusingly leaving out much of the detail.
Edward IV (Ian Hunter) sits comfortably on the throne of England after defeating King Henry VI (Miles Mander) and imprisoning him in the Tower of London. The feeble-minded former king wears a paper crown and lives in the hope that his son will return from exile in France to reclaim his crown. Edward enjoys combat practice with his formidable and cunning brother Richard, Duke of Gloucester (Basil Rathbone), while their soft, drunken younger brother the Duke of Clarence (Price) watches on enviously. Richard is an incredibly capable leader of men, but is way behind in the line of succession. He keeps a mini theatre hidden away where he plans to remove everybody in his way, and despite the many rivals who could challenge him for the crown, the hunchbacked prince will stop at nothing until he is seated on the throne.
Although not a horror, Tower of London certainly looks like one. The huge set created for the film became a staple of Universal, and the dark, chilling castle could be seen in many genre pieces produced by the studio in the following years. There's also a few brutal but bloodless murders, almost always involving Karloff's Mord, who is the closest thing the film has to a monster. Yet for the most part, this is more akin to Shakespeare, performed by a ridiculous wealth of acting talent. There are great turns by Hunter, Mander, Price (in only his fourth role) and Barbara O'Neil as Queen Elyzabeth, but the film belongs to Rathbone and Karloff, with the former even eclipsing Laurence Olivier's arguably hammy thesping in the 1955 film. Packing what is an incredibly complex tale into 90 minutes can confuse matters, but this is an entertaining, somewhat lighter alternative to Shakespeare's infinitely more grandiose work.
By the time the 300-mile wide alien spacecraft appears in the skies and touches down on our world, it had become quite clear that Independence Day: Resurgence, the belated sequel to the beloved 1996 disaster movie, was here simply for our money. For anyone expecting anything else but lifeless CGI akin to a video-game cut-scene and actors with less charisma than the beers I felt myself needing to consume throughout this complete waste of time and money will be sorely disappointed, but hardly surprised. The original Independence Day was just as daft and just as stupid, yet it had a charming innocence about it, which possibly stemmed from the sight of famous landmarks being obliterated before 9/11 made it slightly uncomfortable to watch some mindless carnage. It also had Will Smith, who probably read the script for Resurgence and decided that it was so bad that he opted to do Suicide Squad instead. Just like in real life, 20 years have past since those gigantic spaceships destroyed a host of major cities before being taken down by the combined efforts of... well, America. Just like in Alan Moore's Watchmen, the devastation caused by the alien race has brought humanity together, putting their differences aside to fight a common enemy. There's also been some amazing leaps in technology thanks to the debris left by the alien crafts, and a space station on the moon acts as humanity's first line of defence against another invasion. David Levinson (Jeff Goldblum) is now one of the top figures in alien research, and when he meets up with African war-lord Umbutu (Deobia Oparei) in 'Central Africa', discovers that the defeated aliens sent a telepathic distress signal to their home planet 20 years ago. Umbutu receives some of these messages due to his close encounters with the creatures, as does former President Thomas Whitmore (Bill Pullman) and Dr. Brakish Okun (Brent Spiner).
Of the new arrivals, there's the cocky and hunky hot-shot pilot Jake Morrison who, when we first meet him, is using his cockiness and hunkyness to save the space station from catastrophe. He is played by Liam Hemsworth, an actor I find utterly boring even in his better roles, who is clearly here for an easy payday since the script requires him to do little more than shout a defiant "aaaaaaaagh!" every time he faces danger in the cockpit. Jake is caught in some kind of squabble with Dylan Hiller (Jessie T. Usher), the son of Will Smith's character in the first film. Independence Day turned the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air into one the most bankable A-listers in the business, but Resurgence certainly won't be doing the same for Usher. He is one of many forgettable new faces in a packed ensemble which also includes President Whitmore's daughter (Maika Monroe), the current lady President (Sela Ward), the competent General Adams (William Fichtner), and Levinson's former flame Dr. Catherine Marceaux (Charlotte Gainsbourg in one of the greatest ever "what the hell am I doing here?" performances).
While I recognise that development only occurred sporadically throughout the last 20 years, the best that the 5 (yes, 5) screenwriters behind Independence Day: Resurgence could come up with is to simply remake virtually everything that came before. There are shots of people gazing into the sky, landmarks turning into balls of flame, a dog-fight during which the enemies' weakness is exposed, a rousing Presidential speech which Pullman half-arses here, and Jeff Goldblum doing his Jeff Goldblum thang. The Force Awakens (2015) was criticised for doing the same, but at least it introduced a whole new bunch of likeable characters and exciting set-pieces to distract us from this obvious flaw. Here, we get wise-cracks by Jake as millions of people die around him, and a climax that feels like the boss level from a computer game. And all without Will Smith. Simply put, Roland Emmerich's sequel is a boring, soulless ejaculation of digital nonsense that cares about nothing but filling its pockets with the cash of the unsuspecting.
The sheer volume of prolific writer/director/actor Woody Allen's back catalogue means that any new work will always have audiences comparing them to his earlier, more universally-acclaimed pictures. Born in 1935, it has been over fifty years since his first peek behind the camera with What's Up, Tiger Lily? (1966), and he still pumps out roughly a film per year. The declining quality doesn't help either, with (before Midnight in Paris) his only truly excellent film being the incredibly sexy Vicky Christina Barcelona (2008) since 1999's charming Sweet and Lowdown. Perhaps he had the idea for years, but it felt like Allen may be having a sly pop at the nostalgia-fiends feeding off his past glories with Midnight in Paris, a heart-warming and funny exploration of a writer pining for a bygone age.
Gil Pender (Owen Wilson) is a successful Hollywood screenwriter holidaying in Paris with his fiancee Inez (Rachel McAdams). He is also struggling with his first novel, about a man working in a nostalgia shop, and his bride-to-be isn't helping matters by insisting they spend time with her rich, conservative parents and her annoying, know-it-all friend Paul (Michael Sheen). Gil feels like he belongs in a different decade, namely 1920's Paris, where the likes of F. Scott Fitzgerald and Salvador Dali enjoyed decadent parties and frequented the boisterous bars. On a walk one night, Gil is approach by an old-fashioned taxi as the clock strikes midnight, and the passengers beckon him to join them. Soon enough, he is chatting with the likes of Fitzgerald (Tom Hiddleston) and his wife Zelda (Alison Pill), as Cole Porter (Yves Heck) plays piano.
As Gil's nightly visits to the 1920's play out, a wealth of famous faces bring other famous faces to life. The likes of Ernest Hemingway (Corey Stoll), Gertrude Stein (Kathy Bates) and Dali (Adrien Brody) all brush shoulders with the awestruck writer, as well as the mysterious Adriana (Marion Cotillard), a muse of Picasso who catches his eye. The fantastic performances aside - Stoll is a particular revelation - Paris itself is a star of the movie, akin to what Allen did may times with his New York-set films. It's certainly overly-romanticised, but this only serves to heighten Gil's sense of wonder, and he is hopeless romantic after all. Midnight in Paris is Allen's wittiest, warmest and most effortlessly entertaining films since 1994's Bullets Over Broadway. It may be difficult to avoid comparing this to the director's classic works, but Midnight in Paris sits easily as one of his best.
Hammer Films have a lot to thank writer Nigel Kneale and his most popular character Bernard Quatermass for. When the BBC originally broadcast The Quatermass Experiment to a terrified audience, Hammer producer Anthony Hinds saw the potential for a movie adaptation and quickly snapped up the rights. At the time, Hammer were enjoying modest success making low-budget second features, but 1955's The Quatermass Xperiment (named so to highlight the X rating dished out by the BBFC), known as The Creeping Unknown in the U.S., became a hit and put the company's name on the cinematic map. Quatermass 2 (a.k.a. Enemy From Space)followed shortly after, and the rest is history.
It seems like they were saving the best for last, and waited a whopping 10 years to deliver it. When skeletal remains are dug up during an extension to the London Underground, Palaeontologist Dr. Mathew Roney (James Donald) is called in, who concludes that the remains are that of an ancient race of 'apemen', possibly from 5 million years ago. Bernard Quatermass (Andrew Keir) disagrees however, and when further digging reveals a large metallic object, he believes it may be of alien origin. Colonel Breen (Game of Thrones' Julian Glover) insists that it is an unexploded bomb from World War II, and refutes Quatermass' claims. As the mystery unfolds, the discovery may lead to shocking revelations regarding man's evolution, and one that we are not ready to face. Quatermass and the Pit may feature some incredibly dated effects, but this is sci-fi as complex and intellectual as 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968); a film it is often compared to. Based on the six-part series, Pit's main issue is the difficulty in condensing hours' worth of material into a 98-minute movie, hitting the audience with one theory and revelation after another. But great sci-fi is primarily built on a singular great idea, and this is up there with the best. While the twists and turns are often a struggle to keep up with, the frantic pace created by the lack of running time means that we're kept on the edge of our seats for the duration. Keir is also an improvement on American Brian Donlevy (who played the professor in the previous two films), infusing Quatermass with warmth and a distinct Britishness.
What I remember about Roland Emmerich's Independence Day as I child is the cheesy one-liners, that Presidential speech that has everymen and war heroes alike puffing out their chest with patriotism, and a portrayal of a world where America acts as the sole voice of reason to a bunch of lesser powers who fully embrace their own stereotype. I always hated it, and could not fathom why the movie had gathered such a loyal army of fans throughout the years, even amongst critics. The film was, and still is, very much a modern-day blockbuster, but watching it again 15 or so years later, it now seems wonderfully old-fashioned.
Dismissing the more studious, and admittedly more intelligent, first contact movies of the 1970s as liberal wishful thinking, Independence Day harks back to the alien invasion pictures of the 50s, where a more us-against-them approach catered to the Cold War-influenced paranoia of the time, and squared-jawed heroes, loony scientists and military personnel alike put their heads together to defeat a force from outer space. Here, we get Will Smith as Captain Steven Hiller, a hotshot pilot who manages to capture one of the tentacled martians after a disastrous dogfight; Jeff Goldblum as David Levinson, a genius satellite technician who uncovers the aliens' plans; and Bill Pullman as President Thomas Whitmore, a young ex-pilot going through an image crisis.
The posters and trailers focused on the image of the giant alien ship looming over major American cities, and indeed the moments of catastrophic destruction (usually of famous landmarks) and giant energy beams still manage to amaze, with the special effects still holding up 20 years later. Yet the movie spends most of its time at ground level, and crams it with enough characters and side-stories to fill another 3 films. The three central, intertwining stories aside, we also have a sub-plots involving Hiller's wife Jasmine (Vivica A. Fox) encountering the wounded First Lady (Mary McDonnell), and a boozed-up crop duster played by Randy Quaid, whose claims of alien abduction have made him a laughing stock. Throw in Robert Loggia, Judd Hirsch, Harvey Fierstein and Brent Spiner, and there's enough going on to make your head spin.
Yet Independence Day manages to burst through the convolution by sheer force, delivering a story that is simplistic, ham-fisted and very stupid, but never unspectacular. The three leads help make their characters memorable and incredibly likeable with charisma alone, as the script never allows them to be anything more than an archetype. It's the very definition of big, dumb and fun, and was a bit of a game-changer in its day. Disaster movie audiences were no longer satisfied unless they witnessed carnage on a global level, and blockbusters today are still trying to replicate the success of 'ID4', including the director himself, who tried and failed on an astronomic level with the utterly atrocious 2012 (2009). I didn't see it coming, but my opinion of Independence Day has completely changed. Perhaps the movie's age gives it a nostalgic charm it never had before, so I'm hardly anticipating the sequel.
After the cult success of Steven Soderbergh's Magic Mike (2012) - a loose adaptation of star Channing Tatum's experiences as a stripper (or male entertainer) early on in his career - it was of little surprise when a follow-up was announced. What made the first movie such a surprising success was the way it mixed the flashy dance moves with genuine character development, making for a touching and oddly sweet experience that also touched on themes such as the economy and the American Dream. For XXL, the focus seems to be solely on giving the audience what they want, and that means more abs, biceps and bulges.
However, this all means a half-arsed story-line that quickly finds a way to get 'Magic' Mike (Tatum) back with his gyrating buddies. The end of the first film saw Mike abandon the life he was never truly happy with and realising his dream of starting his own company selling custom-made furniture. The company is either struggling or about to take off, but it's clear that Mike is still unfulfilled, and when he receives a phone message from Tarzan (Kevin Nash), he is soon enough on the road to a stripper convention with 'Big Dick' Richie (Joe Manganiello), Ken (Matt Bomer), Tito (Adam Rodriguez) and Tobias (Gabriel Inglesias). That's generally it. Magic Mike XXL's main issue is that the story seems to fumble around trying to come up with interesting places to take its characters.
Very much a road movie at heart, the group find themselves encountering new characters along the way. With Cody Horn not returning (her disappearance is rather unconvincingly explained,) the love interest this time around is Zoe (Amber Heard), a gorgeous bohemian-type who doesn't seem to be put of by Mike's distinctly douchebag-y dress sense. There's also Andie MacDowell as a horny Southern lady who, along with her wine-guzzling friends, indulge in a private party. Mike also hooks up with his old friend/lover/colleague Rome (Jada Pinkett Smith), a sort-of stripper madame who hosts a house to entertain the ladies, and whose employees include the smooth-talking Andre (future young Lando Calrissian Donald Glover). There is sadly no return for Matthew McConaughey as Dallas or Alex Pettyfer as The Kid, who have apparently both eloped to Europe chasing a lucrative stripping deal. Gregory Jacobs also replaces Soderbergh as director.
The new characters provide to be little more than a distraction from the meandering plot, which forces Mike and his pals into a few moments of utter tedium. When the film stays with the guys and just allows them to shoot the shit, it's actually very funny, and leads to the best scene of both movies by letting a pilled-up Richie loose on a grumpy-looking gas station clerk. By trying to do more by giving each character their own emotional arc, it actually holds back a film that would be better served giving the audience even more of what they really came for, stripping. Even for a straight male, the dance scenes are electrifying, with the climax delivering an all-out dance-a-thon that allows each character their moment to shine. It made me smile between the dull moments, but this is ultimately forgettable stuff.
Making a point of eschewing the typical Hollywood formula for historical reenactment, Free State of Jones is an incredibly sober and stoic document chronicling the plight of a rag-tag bunch of farmers, Civil War deserters and escaped slaves who group together in the Mississippi swamps to fight the Confederate army who are taxing the poor in order to keep the rich fat and prosperous. After years of glossing over their bloody history, American film-makers now seem eager to depict the grim time of slavery and how it tore the country apart, no doubt reacting to the endless news stories of racially motivated violence, which seems to be on the rise in our fearful, paranoid society.
Writer/director Gary Ross (of Pleasantville (1998) and The Hunger Games (2012) fame) takes the subject matter so seriously that he has made less of a movie than a dramatised documentary, going as far as creating a website dedicated to explaining the historical and political context of the movie, as well as highlighting just how close to real-life the film veers. Apart from an opening battle in the trenches, where Confederate medic Newton 'Newt' Knight (Matthew McConaughey) finally loses faith in the South's cause, and a gun-fight between the rebels and a band of Dixie soldiers, the film is incredibly light on set-pieces, instead choosing to give a history lesson to the detriment of character development and emotional investment.
Newt's desertion places a target on his back, so he escapes into the Mississippi swamps where no army can touch him. He is helped by slave Rachel (Gugu Mbatha-Raw), while his wife Serena (Keri Russell) packs up and leaves after the constant having taxing by Confederate soldiers leaves her unable to support herself. Newt comes across a group of escaped slaves, bonding with Moses (Mahershala Ali) who is shackled by a horrific, pronged neck brace, and soon enough they are joined by poor folk unable to cope with the Army's constant harassment, and more deserters who have realised that they are fighting a rich man's war. With some smuggled-in weapons, the unlikely comrades choose to fight back, establishing the 'Free State of Jones', where any man is welcome and gets to eat what he grows.
Eager to draw parallels to the modern-day (the film occasionally switches to a court-case 80 years after the war involving Newt's great-great-great grandson) and highlighting a neglected chapter of American history, Free State of Jones clearly has its heart in the right place. Yet Ross is so clearly wary of causing offence in our overly-sensitive times, that the film becomes an emotional wasteland. McConaughey is terrific as the salt-of-the-earth leader, but his character is never allowed to develop beyond the odd motivational speech or moment of defiance. The film is strangely observational, making the drama about the rebellion rather than the rebels themselves. resulting in an absence of emotional investment when the more personal sub-plots play out. That said, it's incredibly well-made and authentic-looking, and I felt thoroughly educated afterwards.
As all fans of exploitation cinema will know, there were many, many blaxploitation movies released during the 1970s after Melvin van Peebles left an incredibly impression on black audiences with Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song in 1971. While many are rather enjoyable in a comical way, few works of blaxploitation were actually any good. Tony Award-nominated Broadway director Gilbert Moses' Willie Dynamite is incredibly under-seen, but is one of the genre's most impressive works, shunning the usual hyper-stylised, lightly comic beats in favour of something more serious and dramatic, while also touching on themes such as black identity, racism and police corruption.
New York pimp Willie Dynamite (Roscoe Orman) has built himself a mini-empire, training his girls to work like a production line to maximise profits and keep his many customers happy. While his clothes are utterly outlandish (there are some of most ridiculous outfits ever seen in the genre here), Willie ain't no lovable scamp like Super Fly (1972), but a real piece of shit; he regularly threatens his girls with violence, underpays them, and fails to offer any help when they get themselves arrested. When he's late to turn up to court for his most recent arrival Pashen (Joyce Walker), prostitute-turned-social worker Cora (Diana Sands) takes a particular interest, and becomes intent on rescuing Willie's girls and ending his reign of terror.
For a genre normally so rich in exploitative traits, Willie Dynamite contains no nudity and little violence, earning its adult rating instead for language and drug use. The lack of sex and action scenes leaves plenty of room for drama and character building, and Willie's journey to discovering his place in society and ultimately redeeming himself is all the more engrossing for it. Anyone familiar with Sesame Street will be left shocked at the sight of Orman wearing some of the most garish costumes ever committed to celluloid and trying to keep his bitches in check, and it's a very convincing performance. But it is in fact Diana Sands, who sadly died shortly after filming, who steals the film as the force of nature with a gentle side. Ripe for re-discovery, there's much more to Willie Dynamite than I would have ever expected. Now, bring me some scratch.
13 years after Ricky Gervais' iconic comic creation David Brent bowed out in hilarious style with The Office Christmas special, the now-former manager of Slough's Wernham-Hogg paper merchants returns for one last swansong. Nearly cancelled during its second season due to low ratings, The Office has gone on to be one of Britain's biggest comedy exports, claiming award after award and making stars of writers Gervais and Stephen Merchant. It is one of those rare examples of a series ending precisely when it should and not being dragged out as long as its popularity remained, and this is a belief shared by most of its devout fans.
So, fans were naturally worried when Gervais announced that he would re-visit the "extraordinary, ordinary man" he claimed he had retired for a feature-length movie. With any sitcom-turned-movie, there is the concern that making the leap from a successful 30-minute format to a 90 minute movie that people would be willing to pay to see just won't work. The trend of sending its characters off for a holiday in the hope of generating enough laughs so the audience won't notice the lack of originality rarely pays off, but Gervais, working here without Merchant, makes an effort to dodge cliches and does a decent job in exploring other areas of his goateed alter-ego. Ultimately however, Life on the Road doesn't have the energy or ideas to sustain its running time.
For long periods of the first half, there are enough laughs to keep things ticking over. Brent is now working as a travelling salesman for bathroom supply company Lavichem, but realising he isn't getting any younger, he decides to make one last stab at fame with his band Foregone Conclusion and go on tour. By moving the action from the office to the open road, Gervais has offered Brent the opportunity to offend and embarrass a whole new set of people. His band mates can't stand him, the sound engineer only agrees to tag along when Brent regrettably promises to pay double his normal wage, and his rapper 'protege' Dom (Ben Bailey Smith - normally known by his stage name Doc Brown) hopes to make it on his own. It's soon clear why - songs such as 'Native American' and 'Please Don't Make Fun of the Disableds' leave the audience horrified.
Gervais steps back into the drab suits and trademark goatee with ease, ensuring that the to-camera mugging, nervous chuckle and overbite are all present and correct. He even manages to inspire sympathy for a man who manages to even drop a drunken N-bomb, as we learn of his previous battle with depression and anxiety over loses his treasured job at Wernham-Hogg. But there are long stretches where the film doesn't generate any laughs, and memories of the innovative, landmark comedy series make it seem like watching a once-great sportsman slowly deteriorate with age when they should have retired long ago. The Office already had its perfect ending, so it begs the question as to why Gervais felt the need to don the Brent mask once again. While it hardly tarnishes the legacy, Life on the Road feels like a pointless last hurrah that nobody was asking for.
Long before pornography of every kind was but a thumb-swipe away, the industry was defined as scuzzy video stores and grimy peep shows; low-budget productions headed by open-shirted, bling-covered gangsters who were out to make a fast buck. Written and directed by Taxi Driver scribe Paul Schrader, Hardcore, also known as The Hardcore Life, forces its God-fearing hero into a repulsive world of sleaze, prostitution, and, most ridiculously, murder. Now almost 40 years old, Hardcore's portrayal of an industry that can now be discussed without such social stigma attached has certainly dated, but still packs a punch thanks to a terrific central performance.
Dutch Calvinist Jake Van Dorn (George C. Scott) leads a well-respected life as a prosperous business man in Grand Rapids, Michigan. A single father, he lives alone with his daughter Kristen (Ilah Davis) and surrounds himself with his Church-going friends, working hard to establish himself as a functioning member of the community. His life is turned upside down when he gets a phone call informing him that Kristen has gone missing during a school trip. Receiving little help from the police, Jake hires private investigator Andy Mast (Peter Boyle), who quickly spots the young girl's face in a low-budget porn film. Feeling that Andy isn't quite up for the job, Jake immerses himself in the industry in the hope of finding clues to his daughter's location, posing as an amateur director looking to get a new project off the ground.
Hardcore has a lot going for it, especially the central performance from Scott, whose reaction to seeing his daughter defiled on film is one of the film's most powerful moments. Schrader's script tries to unravel Jake's character slowly as he digs deeper into this unknown world, but the subtle, interesting hints spotted throughout are left frustratingly unexplored. Essentially a film of clashing morals, Schrader does a good job capturing the grimy look and feel of sticky-walled private screening-rooms and poorly-disguised brothels, bringing the two worlds together in Jake's relationship with hooker Niki (Season Hubley). Taking its themes very seriously, this is a bold and honest piece of work that sadly falls apart during the climax, where it seems like a whole new movie begins and ends simultaneously.
A decade ago, the majority of the general public may have only heard the term 'scientology' in relation to Hollywood stars such as Tom Cruise and John Travolta, but many were unaware of just how bizarre and brutal their beliefs and institutional set-up truly is. A hilarious and enlightening episode of South Park later, combined with Alex Gibney's revelatory and in-depth feature-length documentary Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief (2015), and the lid has been lifted on David Miscavige and his rule of tyranny. Does Theroux have anything new to say on the controversial 'religion'? Not at all. In fact, the only thing saving his debut feature from being a complete misfire is the way he approaches the subject, along with some genuinely spooky imagery.
