Review #1,398: 'Sicario 2: Soldado' (2018)

Denis Villeneuve's Sicario was one of the most memorable thrillers of 2015, but it wasn't a film that exactly cried out for a sequel. Nevertheless, talk of a follow-up has been batted around ever since its release, with Villeneuve originally attached to direct. He dropped out to follow his childhood dream of directing Blade Runner 2049 however, with Italian director Stefano Sollima eventually signing on to helm the next chapter in the story of former sicario turned vengeful assassin Alejandro, played with a trademark steeliness by Benicio Del Toro. Original writer Taylor Sheridan was back on board to further explore the moral and social decay on both sides of the border, themes he had tackled before in the likes of Hell or High Water or his directorial debut Wind River. But there seems to be something missing from Sicario 2: Soldado, particularly the way Villeneuve questioned the ethics of the manner in which the US dished out its unique brand of justice.

The first Sicario brought us into this world of shady government agencies and barbaric Mexican drug cartels through the eyes of Emily Blunt's rookie, but she is nowhere to be seen here. This leaves us with cocky, flip-flop wearing CIA agent Matt Graver (Josh Brolin), who is brought in by the Department of Defence to combat the drug cartels who, by definition, are now considered terrorists. Targets are easier to execute when they are distracted, so Graver suggests instigating a war between the two dominant cartels and profit from the ensuing chaos. Taking out the leaders will only breed more splintered cartels so, with the freedom to operate without rules, Graver employs black operative Alejandro Gillick to help him and his team kidnap the daughter of a cartel kingpin, Isabel Reyes (Isabela Moner). All goes to plan until the team are betrayed by the Mexican police, leaving Alejandro stranded in the desert with Isabel and Graver on the receiving end of a roasting from his incredibly pissed-off superiors.

Villeneuve and Blunt aren't the only ones who don't return: cinematographer Roger Deakins and composer Johann Johannsoon (who passed away earlier this year) are also absent. Thankfully, their replacements Dariusz Wolski and Hildur Guðnadottir are able to replicate the same sweltering, doom-laden atmosphere of the first, as well as injecting some of their own sense of dread and tension into the film's ambience. Del Toro is once again a dazzling presence, managing to find the shred of humanity left in a brutal character still emotionally devastated by his family's murder and hungry for vengeance. Brolin is a highly charismatic actor, but while we get to see the occasional twinkle in his eye, Sollima's questionable stance seemingly in favour of the gung-ho tactics employed by the American forces relegates Graver to a one-note character. Soldado misses Villeneuve's concern for the consequences of such careless tactics and the limits of American intervention overseas, but the action scenes are executed unflinchingly with nerve-shredding realism. Soldado chooses to end with an invitation for at least one more chapter in this story, and while the desire to tell a complete story with time and care is admirable, Soldado feels oddly unfinished as a result.


Directed by: Stefano Sollima
Starring: Benicio Del Toro, Josh Brolin, Isabela Moner, Jeffrey Donovan, Elijah Rodriguez, Catherine Keener, Matthew Modine, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Shea Whigham
Country: USA/Mexico

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie

Review #1,397: 'Catfight' (2016)

As the title may suggest, the story of Onur Tukel's Catfight revolves around two women beating each other to a bloody pulp. It's where the film finds its most laughs, and these scenes - played out over the years like a modern-day The Duellists - don't pull their punches, although the frequent smackdowns are imagined in a very slapstick-y style, complete with over-the-top slappy sounds effects. The first of these fights takes place at a pompous party in a Manhattan apartment, where suit-wearing types are toasting a big deal that will serve them well in an upcoming war. It's where down-on-her-luck artist Ashley (Anne Heche) is helping her girlfriend Lisa (Alicia Silverstone) cater and serve drinks, and where she encounters trophy wife Veronica (Sandra Oh) for the first time in decades. Veronica's passive-aggressive snootiness is too much for Ashley, and they end up beating tens tons of shit out of each other in a stairwell.

It's the first of three encounters between the ladies over the course of the film, and it leaves Veronica in a coma for the next two years. When she finally wakes up, she is hit by the news that both her husband and son are dead, and all of her money has been drained by hospital care and a downturn in the economy brought on by the ongoing war. Ashley, on the other hand, is doing incredibly well for herself. Her angry and confrontational art has suddenly become popular in these troubled times, and she milks it for all it's worth. Yes, Catfight is set in an alternate near-future, where the U.S. are engaged in a bloody conflict that has seen the draft reinstated and where everybody seems to be a special kind of terrible person. We are kept up-to-date over the years by a talk show that everyone seems to watch, complete with a comedy monologue to-camera which always ends with a fart gag. It's a grotesque reality, and the film aims its jabs at the left, the right, the rich, and the poor, and even finds time to giggle at crazy doomsday preppers and those stupid enough to buy crappy art.

It's original satire that may catch you off-guard if you don't know to expect going into the film, but it's also awkwardly on-the-nose. We loathe Veronica but come to sympathise with her when she is stripped of her family and assets and is forced to stay with her former help, and the same then happens with Ashley in reverse. Their stories mirror each other almost scene-by-scene, and while I'm sure the director felt that such an approach would be clever and off-the-wall, it comes across as plain lazy writing. There's no subtlety to the way the film executes its satire, and while this may be the point given the way the central characters go at each other like rabid dogs, it blunts the film's edge and gives it a lighter, almost cartoonish feel. Catfight works best when it allows the darkness to creep in, especially when Oh and Heche are simply allowed to spit venom at each other. It's saved by the strength of the performances, with Oh turning in an especially terrific performance and again questioning why she can't seem to land bigger roles. Catfight is an interesting story told with immaturity and a heavy hand, but with a touch more seasoning, Tukel could be one for the future.


Directed by: Onur Tukel
Starring: Sandra Oh, Anne Heche, Alicia Silverstone, Amy Hill, Myra Lucretia Taylor, Ariel Kavoussi
Country: USA

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie

Review #1,396: 'No Way Out' (1950)

Despite possessing all the handsome features expected of a male star in the 1950s, actor Richard Widmark ended up playing some of the most loathsome and outright disgusting characters of his era. After his star-making turn in Henry Hathaway's terrific Kiss of Death, Widmark found himself typecast as villains and anti-heroes in the subsequent years, before reinventing himself as a hero later in life. Looking back at Widmark's career, his performances are savage even by today's standards, and he perhaps never played a character so utterly vile as that of mobster Ray Biddle in Joseph L. Mankiewicz's No Way Out. Biddle is both gangster and racist, the worst type of person, and starts the film being wheeled into a hospital with his brother after a robbery gone wrong.

The Biddle brothers have both been injured in a shoot-out with the police, but elder brother Johnny (Dick Paxton) is more seriously ill than it would appear. Tasked with taking care of the hoodlums is Dr. Luther Books (Sidney Poitier), an intern who has just earned his license to practise medicine and the first African-American doctor to work at the hospital. Concerned with Johnny's slurred speech and erratic behaviour, Brooks suspects a brain tumour and starts a spinal tap, only to be bombarded with racist abuse from Ray. Johnny dies soon after, and Ray naturally accuses Brooks of murder. After consulting with chief medical resident Dr. Wharton (Stephen McNally), they both agree on the diagnosis, and also that an autopsy is the only way to know for certain. But state laws only permit an autopsy with a family member's approval, and Ray isn't going to give it. With racial tension across the city brewing, Brooks and Wharton visit Ray's ex-wife Edie (Linda Darnell) in the hope that she can make Ray see sense.

By keeping the majority of the story within the hospital setting, Mankiewicz and co-writer Lesser Samuels (who would go on to pen the great Ace in the Hole for Billy Wilder) keep the animosity at a personal level. The film would go on to earn an Oscar nomination for Best Writing, Story and Screenplay. Brooks must remain stone-faced as he is abused by Ray after genuinely trying to save his brother's life, and Poitier is magnificent in an very early role. His relationship with Ray, who refuses to see sense even when given proof, is incredibly raw even by contemporary standards. Ray is the catalyst for the trouble at the film's centre, and his actions cause a rippling effect throughout the surrounding neighbourhoods, with the inhabitants of an-all black area gearing up for a fight with the whites from Ray's neck of the woods. This highlights the fact that the themes the film is keen to explore aren't just confined to the hospital, but represent a problem of a much wider scale. It's a film that is sadly still relevant today, over 60 years later, and Widmark's ferocity only makes the experience all the more powerful.


Directed by: Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Starring: Richard Widmark, Sidney Poitier, Linda Darnell, Stephen McNally, Harry Bellaver
Country: USA

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie

Review #1,395: 'Monkey Shines' (1988)

Only the very best directors can take a flimsy story and make the most out of it, and this is precisely the case with Monkey Shines, adapted by George A. Romero from the novel by Michael Stewart. Of course, Romero is best known for Night of the Living Dead and it's spectacularly gory follow-up Dawn of the Dead, but Monkey Shines actually takes a surprisingly careful, reserved approach to this tale of a killer monkey, and takes the time to slowly develop the relationship between the central character and his simian helper. The film begins with Allan, played by Jason Beghe, a former track champion who clearly takes his workout routines incredibly seriously, packing his back pack with rocks and leaving the house for a morning jog with the sun barely risen. His active lifestyle is quickly cut short when he is hit by a bus, and wakes up days later as a quadriplegic.

When he returns home assisted by a mouth-operated wheelchair, his friends and family have all gathered to welcome him but nothing will ever be the same again. His shallow girlfriend Linda (Janine Turner), who fears her life will now be dominated by looking after her partner, has shacked up with Allan's unbearably smug surgeon Dr. Wiseman (Stanley Tucci with a head of hair), and his scientist best friend Geoffrey Fisher (John Pankow) is a junkie who shows up late for the welcome party. But Fisher, who has been experimenting on Capuchins by injecting them with human brain tissue, may have the solution to Allan's problems. After consulting with Melanie Parker (Kate McNeil) - an expert in assigning quadriplegics with monkey helpers - Fisher supplies Allan with his star pupil, 'Ella' (who is actually voiced by Frank Welker). The two hit it off immediately, and the bond between them becomes so strong that Ella can seemingly predict Allan's needs before he even asks (or points his laser pen).

Ella doesn't solve all of Allan's problems however, and Allan still vents his frustration at his uncaring nurse and her annoying bird, as well as his overbearing mother (Joyce Van Patten), who insists on sticking her nose in where it's not wanted. What follows would sound preposterous on paper, but Romero keeps the story engrossing and oddly believable by refusing to give into excess. The delightful exploding heads and exposed innards of his zombie movies simply wouldn't work here, although the film does offer a violent and shocking ending. This is on a similar low key to Romero's vampire masterpiece Martin, and the director's keen eye for character building leaves us fully invested in the man-and-monkey relationship, despite the bloody trail left in their wake. There's a truly great 90 minute film here, but Monkey Shines runs at just shy of two hours, occasionally losing focus to shift the action to Fisher's strained relationship with his boss (Stephen Root) or Allan's mother's insistence on moving in, both sub-plots that don't really lead anywhere and stretch the film out longer than it needs to be. But with Romero's passing just last year, Monkey Shines is a great reminder that the horror icon didn't only deliver in the zombie genre.


Directed by: George A. Romero
Starring: Jason Beghe, John Pankow, Kate McNeil, Joyce Van Patten, Christine Forrest, Stephen Root, Stanley Tucci, Janine Turner
Country: USA

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie

Review #1,394: 'Solo: A Star Wars Story' (2018)

During the countless times I watched George Lucas' original Star Wars trilogy as a child, teenager and adult, I don't recall ever wondering how Han Solo became the sarcastic, smirking smuggler that definitely shot first. Ever since Disney acquired Lucasfilm and announced that not only would they be continuing the story that began back in 1977 but would also be giving some of the fan-favourite supporting characters their very own spin-offs, there's been a split in the fandom between those gagging for anything Star Wars related on the big screen again and those opposed to a project that would both render the many beloved novels set in the Star Wars universe as un-canon, and undermine the story already told. Rian Johnson's The Last Jedi is either loved or hated (I loved it), but the one announcement that brought all the fans together in united opposition was Han Solo's very own spin-off, which would be set in the past and not feature the man who helped make the character so iconic, Harrison Ford.

You may not care just how Han won the Millennium Falcon from Lando Calrissian, or how he met Chewbacca, or how he got his hands on that cool blaster, or how he made the Kessel Run in under 12 parsecs - but Solo: A Star Wars Story is going to tell you anyway. While this isn't necessarily a bad thing, it does give Solo a sense of weightlessness and the feeling of a filler episode in the middle of television series with too many episodes. With such little stakes at play, the success of Solo comes down to the charm of its actors, and the casting of Alden Ehrenreich was a very shrewd move indeed. He isn't a famous name, or even a pronounceable one, but his scene-stealing performance in 2016's Hail, Caesar!, where he managed to overshadow the likes of George Clooney, Tilda Swinton, John Brolin and Ralph Fiennes, bristled with star quality. Harrison Ford could never be replaced and Ehrenreich seems to know that, so while every now and then you get a glimmer of Ford's smile and his iconic one-handed shooting stance, Ehrenreich makes the role his own, replicating the charisma and infusing it with a youthful innocence.

We first meet Han hot-wiring cars on Corellia, an awful planet where orphaned children are forced to steal for slug-like gang-boss Lady Proxima (voiced by Linda Hunt). With their lives in danger from the local gangs, Han and his lady friend Qi'ra (Emilia Clarke) decide to make a break for it, but at the airport they are separated, with Han fleeing to join the Imperial Navy and Qi'ra taken away by her pursuers. Three years later, Han is serving in the Military after being kicked out of the Flight Academy, fighting as an infantryman on a planet called Mimban. There he encounters a gang of criminals posing as Imperial soldiers led by the enigmatic Tobias Beckett (Woody Harrelson) and attempts to blackmail them into letting him join them. Instead, he is thrown into a pit for desertion, where he meets the formidable Chewbacca (Joonas Suotamo). They escape and manage to convince Beckett to enlist them for a job to steal a shipment of coaxium. Now officially an outlaw, Han is brought into a dangerous world controlled by a criminal syndicate called Crimson Dawn. Beckett answers directly to crime boss Dryden Vos (Paul Bettany), whose favourite advisor is a young lieutenant named Qi'ra.

Solo likely won't convince those soured by The Last Jedi or especially those who failed to see any potential in Han Solo origin movie in the first place, but it may be a nice, if forgettable, surprise for some. Like the other 'Star Wars Story', Rogue One, Solo was hit with numerous problems during production, the most notable being the firing of Phil Lord and Christopher Miller and the subsequent hiring of Ron Howard. Star Wars has always been a rule-bound universe, and Lord and Miller's loose, improvised style was perhaps too much for studio executives looking for a guaranteed hit. Howard was a reliable, safe choice, but one has to wonder how much fun Solo could have been in the hands of those responsible for 21 Jump Street and The LEGO Movie. What we have is a perfectly entertaining adventure movie that is surprisingly coherent given the patchwork built into it, but nothing worthy of the Star Wars banner. History will remember the film as the first Star Wars flop, and will cause historians to wonder why they didn't choose to given Donald Glover's Lando his own movie instead. On a positive note that will no doubt unite the fan-base, a box-office return of south of $400 million seem to have woken Disney executives up to the idea that there is such a thing as too much, too soon.


Directed by: Ron Howard
Starring: Alden Ehrenreich, Joonas Suotamo, Woody Harrelson, Emilia Clarke, Donald Glover, Thandie Newton, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Paul Bettany
Country: USA

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie

Review #1,393: 'A Prayer Before Dawn' (2017)

Opening with a shot of the muscly, pale-skinned and heaving back of our protagonist, Jean-Stephane Sauvaire's A Prayer Before Dawn - his first feature since the eye-opening Johnny Mad Dog in 2008 - begins and ends with British newcomer Joe Cole, and the talented young actor dominates every scene in between. Best known for his role in Peaky Blinders, Cole delivers a performance of pure ferocity, and if there's any justice, this will do for him what the likes of Bronson and Starred Up did, respectively, for then up-and-comers Tom Hardy and Jack O'Connell. Based on Billy Moore's brutal memoirs of his time served in one of Thailand's most unrelenting penitentiaries, the film tracks his journey from the only Westerner in his cell with a target on his back to Muay Thai champion. While it may dabble in the tropes of the prison and boxing genres, it never really relaxes into either, making for an unsettling and visceral two hours.

Rather than opting for a comfortable, straight-forward narrative, Sauvaire prefers to capture the sweaty, overbearing atmosphere of Moore's new lodgings, heightening the sound design so every breath sounds like it's coming from your own head, and every punch rattles your brain. David Ungaro's cinematography makes the most of the tight, damp spaces, as the inmate's bodies pile over each other like sardines in their overcrowded cells. The film feels almost like an invasion of your personal space, and the fact that Billy sticks out like a sore thumb only increases the feeling that danger lurks around every corner. Billy's physicality and willingness to fight may save him from regular beatings and even earn him a level of respect amongst his heavily-tattooed, dead-eyed cell-mates, but he is still forced to watch the gang-rape of a young newcomer to remind the Westerner of his place. Although the story leads up to a climactic fight, it avoids cliche by offering no sense of build-up. Billy simply must fight in order to survive the night and battle his own pent-up demons.

Without a main character to carry your interest, A Prayer Before Dawn may be too much to bear. But Billy, whose reasons for being in Thailand in the first place and dealing the drugs that landed him in the slammer aren't explored, is a true force. Never asking for your sympathy, Billy struggles with heroin addiction - fed to him by a prison guard played by Only God Forgives' Vithaya Pansringarm - and is more than willing to beat somebody half to death to earn his fix. The rage that drives him comes from deep within, and his anger and self-destruction carries us along with him. Even when he is finally allowed to train in the gym, thanks for a routine cigarette bribe, his tendency to self-sabotage sees him almost screw up everything he's worked for. Billy also finds solace in a ladyboy named Fame (Pornchanok Mabklang), who is in prison for murdering her father and is kept in a separate part of the prison for obvious reasons. They form a bond through shared feelings of misplacement, and these scenes offer a reprieve from the unrelenting harshness of Billy's everyday routine. It's a tough watch, but there's always much to admire in a film that can leave you so mentally and physically exhausted.


Directed by: Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire
Starring: Joe Cole, Pornchanok Mabklang, Vithaya Pansringarm, Panya Yimmumphai
Country: UK/France/China/Cambodia/USA

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie

Review #1,392: 'American Animals' (2018)

For decades the movies have taught us how the perfect heist goes down. You need a group of big personalities - all experts in a required field - an intricate plan, blueprints to map out the target, and the best gadgets a cheeky crook can buy. And of course, you need a handsome, charismatic leader, usually in the form of a Frank Sinatra, George Clooney or Sandra Bullock. Yes, a director such as Steven Soderbergh knows how to deliver a robbery with style, panache and a sense of fun, but the real world operates a little differently. American Animals, based on the theft of some rare and valuable books from the Transylvania University library by four kids who seemingly had no reason to dare such a feat, has great fun combining these two worlds. Director Bart Layton, who warmed up with 2012's true crime documentary The Imposter, relays this tale as both documentary and dramatic reconstruction, like Touching the Void but with more interaction between the actors and real-life subjects.

It sounds like "look at me" film-making, and it arguably is, but the film is stitched together so wonderfully that you can only sit back and admire the swagger of it all. The world Layton captures is incredibly dark indeed, one of degrading fraternity initiation ceremonies and endless supermarkets isles lined with colourful food packaging designed to create the illusion of choice. At least, that's how our two protagonists - anti-heroes may be the more suitable term - see it. Spencer Reinhard (Barry Keoghan) is a talented art student who feels like there must be more to life than this. His best friend Warren Lipka (Evan Peters), the joint-smoking loudmouth who is up for anything, feels very much the same, only he's way more angry about it. During a routine tour of the University library, Spencer learns that the lightly-guarded building houses the valuable The Birds of America by John James Aubudon, and only a nice old lady is there to watch over it. Stealing it should be easy, so Spencer confides in Warren, who quickly takes the lead in planning and executing the audacious heist.

There's a wonderful moment during American Animals where the foursome (Jared Abrahamson's Eric Borsuk and Blake Jenner's Chas Allen are also drafted later on) imagine their plan playing out. It's like ballet, with every cabinet opening with ease and every book gathered up falling gently into their bags. And of course, they're all wearing tuxedos. Earlier on we see Spencer and Warren doing research, only people don't write books about the perfect robberies they've carried out, so they're left with movies. The likes of Rififii, The Killing and Reservoir Dogs are their textbooks, so it's no surprise when they're caught off-guard when the reality of the situation smacks them in the face. The biggest obstacle is the nice old lady, Betty Jean Gooch (the always-great Ann Dowd), who they imagine will fall gracefully into an unconscious state after a zap from a taser. In reality, she kicked, screamed and wet herself, but the boys carried on with their plan anyway. With the real Spencer, Warren, Eric and Chas telling their own stories to camera, American Animals could have run the risk of softening or even glamorising this story, but Layton is careful to point out the consequences, and the rippling effect it had on everybody caught up in it. It's an astonishing piece of work that ramps up the tension to unbearable levels, crafted by a film-maker keen to breathe new life into a well-worn genre.


Directed by: Bart Layton
Starring: Evan Peters, Barry Keoghan, Jared Abrahamson, Blake Jenner, Ann Dowd, Udo Kier
Country: UK/USA

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie

Review #1,391: 'Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom' (2018)

Everybody's favourite mathematician, Dr. Ian Malcolm, warned misguided entrepreneur John Hammond 25 years ago of the perils of playing god and re-awakening dinosaurs from their extinct slumber. Of course, he was right, and the result was a personal childhood favourite. What he didn't foresee were the increasingly numbing sequels that would follow in the wake of Steven Spielberg's 1993 classic, which serve as a reminder not only of Spielberg's magical touch (let's pretend he wasn't responsible for The Lost World), but that general audiences will happily hand over their money to watch the same thing again and again. Jurassic World was unbelievably stupid, but its slightly schlocky attitude managed to scrape it a pass. Somehow, it became the third highest-grossing film of all time, so a sequel, or a trilogy (why not?), was quickly set in motion. Despite attracting a fantastic director in J.A. Bayona, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom is the dullest entry since Jurassic Park III and manages, once again, to somehow make dinosaurs boring.

In the wake of a devastating volcanic eruption on Isla Nublar, Jeff Goldblum's Ian Malcolm is back to warn the U.S. Senate that rescuing the soon-to-be-lava-toast dinosaurs could have devastating repercussions for humanity, and once again states his belief that such unnatural tampering should have never been attempted in the first place. Protesters have gathered across the country in an attempt to convince the government that these creatures deserve another chance, and just when you think the film will serve as an allegory of our own mistreatment of the planet, the action zips across to Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard), who has set up a fundraiser to rescue the animals. The efforts of Claire and her cronies Zia (Daniella Pineda) and Franklin (Justice Smith) have failed to raise enough cash, but things look up when Claire is invited to the estate of Benjamin Lockwood (James Cromwell), John Hammond's former partner. Lockwood and his slickly-dressed aide Eli Mills (Rafe Spall) reveal a plan to rescue as many dinosaurs as they can and transport them to another island facility, where they will live in isolation and peace.

As soon as you set eyes on the mercenary team led by Ted Levin's Ken Wheatley, you'll have figured out exactly where the story is going and what everyone's motives are. Mills' combination of slicked-back hair and friendly demeanour is a dead giveaway, and Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom continues Hollywood's recent obsession with the amoral corporate bad guy. Wheatley's is Pete Postlethwaite's character from The Lost World, only without the gravitas and sense of backstory. Of course, their plan is to steal the dinosaurs and sell them on the black market, backed by Toby Jones' millionaire auctioneer Gunnar Eversol. They've also been working on their own little project, the Indoraptor, the genetically-modified brainchild of mad scientist Dr. Wu (BD Wong). Thank God then, that amidst all of this mess emerges the lovable face of Chris Pratt, dressed in manly clothes and building a manly house. Pratt's Owen Grady and Claire ended Jurassic World as a happy couple, but they have since drifted apart, presumably because Owen only plays by his own manly rules. They are reunited because Claire wants him on Isla Nublar, and we remember what little chemistry they share. But Pratt is charismatic and hugely likeable, a true movie star should he ever find a decent role outside of Guardians of the Galaxy.

What makes Jurassic World: Fallen Kimgdom so unforgivably dull is the sheer lack of care taken with the set-pieces. One thrilling struggle under water - shot with one impressively long take - aside, Bayona and writers Derek Connolly and Colin Trevorrow don't seem particularly interested in exploring fresh ways to pit man against dinosaur. The opening scene, shot in near darkness, sees an unfortunate soul stalked and gobbled up by one of the predators, but the piece is crafted with such lazy editing and unimaginative build-up that it barely raises the heartbeat. For a director who conjured such wonderful atmospheres in The Orphanage and A Monster Calls, Fallen Kingdom is glaringly hollow, and the whole thing reeks of movie-making by committee. The dinosaurs relocation from jungle to Mills' underground laboratory - a labyrinth of corridors, control rooms and difficult-to-close dumbwaiters - is the only thing that really passes for invention, and it's a relief not have to watch the characters hunted in the jungle once again. The ending leaves the future of Hammond's dinosaurs as something to be explored in the next film, but there is little doubt that this franchise will strut on for many years to come. My investment in it, however, has all but vanished entirely.


Directed by: J.A. Bayona
Starring: Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Rafe Spall, Justice Smith, Daniella Pineda, James Cromwell, Toby Jones, Ted Levine, Jeff Goldblum
Country: USA

Rating: **

Tom Gillespie

Review #1,390: 'Gotti' (2018)

If you've ever seen 2015's Entourage, you'll likely recall a scene in which Jeremy Piven's super-agent Ari Gold sits down to watch the directorial debut of movie superstar Vincent Chase. He sits clenching his teeth because he knows it's going to be awful, and when we get to see a snippet of Chase's garish futuristic monstrosity, we know it to. Only in this consequence-free world of naked ladies and supercars, the film is actually a masterpiece. You get a similar feeling when watching Gotti, the biopic of the Teflon Don directed by Entourage star Kevin Connolly. One can picture Connolly, surrounded by his boys, viewing the final cut in the editing room for the first time and high-fiving his entourage bros with a sense of clueless triumph. Gotti is an utter travesty, a half-baked film student's daydream seen through a haze of weed smoke which loosely throws together a few lines they might remember from Gotti's Wikipedia page.

John Travolta plays John Gotti, and with a decent script and a competent director behind him, this may have been one of the roles of his career. Instead, we get a sluggish performance that barely skims the surface of one of the most notorious and powerful figures in mafia history. We meet him grey and in jail, taking in a visit from his son John Jr. (Spencer Rocco Lofranco), whose book the film is based on. Jr., a made man himself, wants to take a plea deal offered by the police, but rolling over for the government is as despicable as being a rat in the old man's books. This offers John Sr. the chance to reflect on his life and decisions, so the film jumps back in time to remind us how Gotti rose from gangster soldier to the boss of bosses. Only Connolly isn't interested in telling a coherent story, choosing instead to throw in a bunch of seemingly random moments you may expect to be reconstructed on a Discovery Channel documentary. There's a mob hit here, a domestic argument there, and every now and then Gotti will say something to his son about respect and manhood.

I'm not particularly fond of biopics as it goes, but I can't recall ever leaving a film feeling like I know even less about its subject matter than I did when I came in. Rather than peeling away Gotti's layers to understand what motivated the man behind the dapper suits, Connolly stages scene after scene of unconnected action and wiseguy rambling, like a man raised on the work of Martin Scorsese and who may have seen The Sopranos at some point in his life, but without a grasp on what made those works of art so absorbing. If this isn't bad enough, Gotti is peppered with a near-constant soundtrack of songs apparently plucked out of the air. An over-reliance on music is always a telltale sign of a director without vision, but it's especially grating here, with everything from Dean Martin to Duran Duran to Pitbull thrown in for good measure. It ends with real footage of Gotti's funeral in 2002, intercut with regular folk beaming about how good the gangster was for the community. He may have been just that, only we wouldn't know it from this film. After almost 2 hours of brooding, murder and terrible parenting, these final moments only leave a bad taste in the mouth. We may someday get a good movie about John Gotti, but for now we'd be better served watching Jim Abrahams' Mafia!.


Directed by: Kevin Connolly
Starring: John Travolta, Spencer Rocco Lofranco, Kelly Preston, Pruitt Taylor Vince, Stacy Keach
Country: Canada/USA

Rating: *

Tom Gillespie

Review #1,389: 'Street Angel' (1928)

By the late 20s, director Frank Borzage was really starting to find his rhythm. He was always prolific and his films were largely successful, but his unique brand of romanticism was starting to take inspiration from German Expression and, in particular, the work of F.W. Murnau. The late 20s saw him direct 7th Heaven, Street Angel and Lucky Star - all huge successes, and all starring the glamorous pair of actors Janet Gaynor and Charles Farrell. These movies helped establish Borzage as a champion of the lower classes, where he would find "human souls made great by love and adversity." Street Angel was of his finest and most unjustly forgotten pictures, and while it boasts a Naples setting described as "laughter-loving, careless, sordid," Borzage is keen to highlight how a decent and honest person can be left humiliated and shunned by society for a moment of sheer desperation born out of poverty.

The film introduces our heroine Angela (Ganyor) as she is receiving some devastating news from the local doctor: her desperately sick mother will die without urgent medical treatment, only Angela is so poor that she can't afford the medicine required to make her mother better. With seemingly no other option, Angela takes to the streets to solicit men, and when that doesn't work, she looks to thievery. She is caught red-handed, and is charged not only for attempted theft, but also for prostitution, becoming the 'street angel' of the title. The court sentences her to a year of hard labour, but knowing her mother is alone and dying, Angel manages to escape custody. On her return home, she finds her mother already dead, draping her lifeless arms around her in a desperate plea for affection. With the police now hunting her, Angela joins up with a travelling circus, who welcome the beautiful lady with open arms, despite her recent run-ins with the law.

Time with the circus folk toughens Angela up. She vows to go on fighting, and turns her back on the idea of love. If you've ever seen a romantic movie then you'll know where the story is going, and soon enough a young artist named Gino (Farrell) has his head turned by the charming tightrope walker. They fall in love, but an accident means the couple must return to Naples, a city which threatens to expose Angela's past and send her back to jail. The story is predictable enough, but Borzage finds real poetry in this tale of two lovers brought together by fate. Murnau's Sunrise had been released just a year before, and Borzage had clearly taken notice. From a purely visual standpoint, Street Angel is one of the most innovative movies of its time. The camera feels constantly in motion as it navigates Angel's treacherous path with a looming sense of unease, and settles down to savour the small beautiful moments of Angela and Gino's romance. It all leads to a breathtaking final scene that takes place in a world of deceptive shadows and fog, a moment which may bring our lead characters together again for the final time. It's the work of cinematographers Paul Ivano and Ernest Palmer, and it's one of the most splendid sights in silent cinema.


Directed by: Frank Borzage
Starring: Janet Gaynor, Charles Farrell, Natalie Kingston, Henry Armetta
Country: USA

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie

Review #1,388: 'Predator' (1987)

31 years after its original release, it's hard to believe that there was once a time when John McTiernan's Predator wasn't revered as one of the best action movies of the modern era. Critics savaged the film, although now even the stuffiest of critics cannot deny its shamelessly muscly, bullet-spraying, blood-spattering charm. Predator is now held in as equally high regard as McTiernan's other action classic Die Hard - released the following year - and featured Arnold Schwarzenegger at the very top of his game. This was long before the Austrian hulk made a swerve into politics and became the self-parody he is today. The premise is almost offensively simple, but the execution makes this one of the most effortlessly enjoyable action movies of the 1980s. McTiernan knows exactly how to tear a jungle apart with gunfire, and set up his disposable supporting characters for a grisly death. 

Special Forces major Dutch Schaefer (Schwarzenegger) is "choppahed" into South America, where is he given a mission to rescue an official who has fallen into the hands of some insurgents. Schaefer and his team - played by Bill Duke, Jesse Ventura, Sonny Landham, Richard Chaves and Shane Black - are met by Schaefer's old Army buddy Dillon (Carl Weathers), and the two greet each other in the most 80s way possible by flexing their oiled and oversized muscles in a manly handshake. As the team venture further into the jungle, it becomes clear that Dillon isn't telling the whole story, and the mission becomes even more difficult when they capture a female hostage named Anna (Elpidia Carrillo). Yet this is far from their biggest problem, as on their tail is an alien with the ability to camouflage itself and see with thermal imaging, backed by an arsenal of powerful extra-terrestrial gadgets and a healthy appetite for the hunt. With the group being picked off one by one by this formidable enemy, Schaefer must get to the extraction point before he becomes another skull in the beast's growing collection of trophies.

The plot can be compared to countless B-movies throughout the years, but what worked for Alien also works for Predator. Take a simple premise, add some budget, bind it together with some good old-fashioned decent film-making, and the result is a timeless classic. Yes, the special effects have dated and most of the actors' stars have somewhat dimmed in the decades since, but Predator is even more of a blast now than it was when I stole my brother's VHS twenty-odd years ago. The sequels, spin-offs and comic-books have gone to great length to explain and develop the Predator's mythology, but McTiernan simply lets the monster do its thing. Played by the 7 ft 2 in Kevin Peter Hall, the Predator's formidable armour, weaponry, stealth and sheer repulsiveness has made it a sci-fi/horror icon. Like the Alien franchise, subsequent movies have felt the need to explain the creature's backstory, damaging their otherworldly mystery in the process, but Predator simply throws him into the mix and lets him loose on our world's finest warriors. With star Shane Black's reboot The Predator set to arrive shortly, now is the perfect time to revisit what drew audiences to the series in the first place, in spite of how your attitude may have soured after those terrible Alien cross-overs and the forgettable third entry from 2010. 

Directed by: John McTiernan

Starring: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Carl Weathers, Elpidia Carrillo, Bill Duke, Jesse Ventura, Sonny Landham, Richard Chaves, Shane Black, Kevin Peter Hall

Country: USA/Mexico

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie

Review #1,387: 'Poltergeist II: The Other Side' (1986)

Back in 1982, Tobe Hooper's Poltergeist terrified audiences with state-of-the-art special effects and a story of unseen supernatural forces at work in suburban USA. It's rather tame if watched back today, but the popular chiller is still a lot of fun, and producer Steven Spielberg's magic can be felt throughout (some would say a bit too much, considering Hooper received the director credit). Poltergeist's success meant that a sequel was always on the cards, and when it came in 1986, Poltergeist II: The Other Side had no qualms about going down the familiar follow-up route of taking everything good about the first and doubling down on it. The result is an over-stuffed extravaganza of flying chainsaws, monster tequila worms and possessed braces, complete with dated computer effects that may have been charming if the story unfolding before us wasn't so utterly preposterous.

It's been a year since the Freeling family's house was sucked into another dimension, and with the insurance company refusing to pay out on a property that simply disappeared, the gang have moved to Phoenix, Arizona to live with 'Gramma' Jess (Geraldine Fitzgerald). While the insurance company isn't interested in investigating the paranormal goings-on, physic Tangina Barrons (Zelda Rubinstein) has discovered a secret tunnel beneath where the house once stood, alerting Native American shaman Taylor (Will Sampson) to her findings. It turns out that a maniacal preacher named Henry Kane (Julian Beck) had perished there along with many of his followers, who had all huddled together in preparation for an apocalypse incorrectly foreseen by the reverend. Having failed last time around, Kane wants to take young Carol Anne (Heather O'Rourke) back to 'the other side', but mother Diane (JoBeth Williams) and father Steve (Craig T. Nelson) enlist the powerful and knowledgeable Taylor as their ally.

Poltergeist II has its fans and I can certainly understand why, although I found it a silly and rather tedious experience. Director Brian Gibson is keen to deliver a shock or set-piece in every other scene, and while this certainly moves the action along at a brisk pace, the attempted scares are far too soft to have any impact, and there seems to be no rhyme or reason to the events playing out. By the time Steve has downed a bottle of tequila and swallowed a Kane-possessed worm, you'll be wondering what the writers were smoking when they were brainstorming. The film's one true bright spark is the performance of Beck - who was battling stomach cancer at the time - as the creepy Southern preacher with a high-pitched voice and a set of yellow gnashers. He slithers his way into the Freeling's lives looking like a predatory sex offender from the Old West, but the character's compelling back story is only glimpsed in a couple of brief flashback scenes, and is left frustratingly unexplored. Beck's death before the film's release fits into 'theory' of a curse surrounding the Poltergeist films (O'Rourke tragically died aged 12 and Dominique Dunne, who played Freeling daughter Dana, was murdered in 1982), but when the trivia is more intriguing than the film itself, you know you're in trouble.


Directed by: Brian Gibson
Starring: JoBeth Williams, Craig T. Nelson, Heather O'Rourke, Oliver Robins, Zelda Rubinstein, Will Sampson, Julian Beck, Geraldine Fitzgerald
Country: USA

Rating: **

Tom Gillespie