Review #763: 'The Grand Budapest Hotel' (2014)

Those who turn their nose up at the thought of another fussily-filmed, wildly colourful journey into the world and mind of Wes Anderson, will no doubt detest his latest, and arguably most perfect work, The Grand Budapest Hotel. His work is criticised by his haters for being too meticulously structured, his camera limited to sideways and occasionally upwards movements, festooned with bold colours, always leading to that dreaded, overused word - 'quirky'. Yet this is a world a sly wit, of characters so ridiculous and charming that you could wish they would replace the monotonous bores that litter our reality, and one in which Bill Murray is omnipresent.

In the pink, mountainous haven of the picturesque, fictitious European country of Zubrowka, sits the Grand Budapest Hotel. In it's heyday, the hotel was meticulously managed by Monsieur Gustave H. (Ralph Fiennes), a charismatic, perfume-wearing horndog, who knew all about what his guests wanted before they even knew they wanted it. On the day that one of his elderly conquests, Madame D. (Tilda Swinton), leaves the hotel, he meets new lobby boy Zero Moustafa (Tony Revolori), and immediately begins to groom him as his possible successor. When he hears of Madame D's death, Gustave and Zero travel to her mansion to hear the reading of her will.

She leaves Gustave a piece of priceless art, something heavily resented by Madame's two evil, leather-jacketed sons, Dmitri (Adrien Brody) and Jopling (Willem Dafoe), who don't wish to see this lecherous lothario receive a dime. Sensing trouble, Gustave and Zero steal the painting, replace it with some kind of grotesque lesbian erotica, and flee. This sets in motion a series of farcical events involving a prison escape, an apologetic police officer named Henckels (Edward Norton), a missing butler, and the rise of fascism. All of this is told by an ageing Zero (F. Murray Abraham) to a curious writer credited only as 'The Author' (Jude Law).

What it all about, you ask? Possibly nothing. This could all be just a splurge of the director's imagination, or a hark back to the grand eccentrics of the olden days. It could be about the state of Europe between the two World Wars, with the Grand Budapest Hotel a multi-national asylum for all of the continent's misfits. But the setting simply seems too fitting for it's comedic approach for it to be labelled with any kind of 'war' or 'period' label, with bursts of slapstick and comedy-of-manners worthy of Lubitsch, punctured by ridiculous exclamations from it's hyperactive concierge. When he hears about an enemy's dastardly plan, he responds "the fuckers!".

So, I don't quite know what it's all about. What I do know is that I loved every second of watching it's ludicrous story play out, anchored by an outstanding performance by Fiennes. He may seem an odd choice for an Anderson film, whose films are usually littered with the likes of Jason Schwartzman, Owen Wilson, and Bill Murray (all of whom appear here), but his Gustave is Anderson's greatest creation, brought fearlessly and completely to life by Fiennes. He's certainly no spring chicken, but he's a strange delight to spend 100 minutes with. And that's really how I felt about the entire experience, it was certainly strange, but utterly delightful.


Directed by: Wes Anderson
Starring: Ralph Fiennes, Tony Revolori, F. Murray Abraham, Adrien Brody, Willem Dafoe, Edward Norton, Saoirse Ronan, Jude Law, Jeff Goldblum, Mathieu Amalric, Harvey Keitel
Country: USA/Germany

Rating: *****

Tom Gillespie

Review #522: 'Giallo' (2009)

In Turin, Italy, beautiful young model Celine (Elsa Pataky) is kidnapped by a taxi driver, who takes her to his torture chamber where a previous victim still lies half-dead. Celine was on her way to meet her sister Linda (Emmanuelle Seigner), who eventually suspects foul play. With the police unwilling to help, she turns to Italian-American detective Enzo (Adrien Brody), who is deep into an investigation that stretches way back, involving many missing girls who turn up tortured and murdered at seemingly random spots.

Former master of horror Dario Argento has been in deep decline since his 1970's heyday. Even his own fanboys admit that the visionary has lost his touch, and his films no longer have the gliding beauty he injected into the likes of Deep Red (1975), Suspiria (1977) and Inferno (1980). Thankfully (or should I say hopefully?), it would seem that Argento must be on the ascension, as Giallo, his homage to the sub-genre that prevailed in the 60's and 70's, must surely signal rock-bottom. He surely cannot produce anything so confusingly dire, or he should simply pack his bags and stop making movies. It beggars belief how the man that created some of the most elegant horror movies ever made can fail to raise even a moment of inspiration, and at times seems to parody the genre rather than showing any real love for it.

After being promoted as being something of a return to form for the auteur and a return to director's roots, Giallo was given a very limited release (I believe it went straight-to-DVD here in the UK) after a verbal slamming from audiences and critics alike. The most famous thing to come out of it was Adrien Brody's law-suit against the producers, claiming he had yet to be paid, and tried to halt any releases of the film until he was given what he was owed. Well, judging from his performance here, the Oscar-winner doesn't deserve a dime, sleep-walking through his role and bringing no life to his thinly-written, cliché-ridden character. Any attempts to blur the lines between his miserable detective and the sadistic killer comes across as laughable, and the 'big reveal' that explains his back-story is just plain silly.

For a film marketing itself as a giallo, the film lacks anything resembling the visual class or the sleazy atmosphere of the best of the genre, with Argento's camera glides feeling more like the director's futile attempts to polish a turd. It instead has more in common with that popular, ugly sub-genre of the modern age - torture porn. We see a girl's lips cut off with scissors, and a particularly nasty hammer-to-the-skull moment, cheap tricks that are more akin to the likes of Eli Roth's Hostel (2005) and its countless imitators. The killer looks like he's wandered in from the set of Joe D'Amato's Anthropophagus (1980), and is one of many plot devices that confuse and defy logic. Depressing then, seeing a once-great director stoop so low, but maybe his ambitious Dracula 3D (2012) will see a return to form.


Directed by: Dario Argento
Starring: Adrien Brody, Emmanuelle Seigner, Elsa Pataky
Country: USA/UK/Spain/Italy

Rating: *

Tom Gillespie

Review #3: 'Predators' (2010)

It's been a long-time coming. Every since 1987's Arnie classic Predator and it's less impressive sequel, a franchise continuation has been frequently discussed and considered by many a director. It's strange that it's taken such a long time to arrive. The fanbase is already there, waiting intently, and the fact that the star is the beast itself means waiting for a big name actor to sign up doesn't really come into the question. When it fell into the hands of Robert Rodriguez, I had mixed feelings. He can do action well (Desperado (1995)) and not so well (Once Upon A Time In Mexico (2003)), but apart from the odd dodgy film choice (The Adventures Of Sharkboy And Lavagirl (2005) - seriously, why?) his films have been at a good standard. But then I found out he was only going to write and produce it, and a director called Nimrod was going to direct instead, so my expectations lowered slightly.

The film opens with a buffed-up Adrien Brody awakening as he falls from a plane onto a strange landscape, to be later joined by other characters unaware of where they are and how they got there. The characters eventually reveal themselves to be members of various elite forces from across the globe, including Israeli sniper Isabelle (Alice Braga), Spetnaz grunt Nikolai (Oleg Taktarov), and nerdy doctor Edwin (Topher Grace), whose inclusion confuses the group. It soon dawns on the group, after some keen observation by mercenary Royce (Brody), that they are a subject of a hunt and are being tested as they are the best of the best at what they do.

Whereas in the original two, it was one Predator hunting Arnie, Danny Glover and the huge teeth of Gary Busey in our environment, in Predators they have been dropped on an alien planet seemingly set up to train young Predators, and unluckily for Brody and the gang, there's three of the horrible bastards. So they must combine their own specialist skills and work out how to combat invisibility, high powered weapons, super strength and an annoying character in Stans (Walton Goggins).

It's nice to see the Predator back in it's own movie after being raped by Paul W.S. Anderson in Alien Vs. Predator (2004), and back in similar terrain as the original 1987 film. Unsurprisingly, it's not as good as the original but it does have it's moments. A pretty cool sword fight between one Predator and the mysterious, silent Yakuza Hanzo (Louis Ozawa Changchien), and a welcome return for the 'classic' Predator, the same kind that battled with Arnie in the first film. But these are few and far between and are ruined by stock archetypal characters and an ill-advised 'Predator dogs' attack which are basically crap CGI inventions, and an excuse to put a bit of action into the film.

Fans will no doubt enjoy it, but I feel the talent of Rodriguez could have added something different about the film. And a bit of nasty gore wouldn't have gone amiss. The film just seems a bit too tame. It's practically a retread of the original with different actors and more Predators. At least it does try and devlop the mythology, and it's nice to see Adrien Brody tackle a different type of role and pull it off confidently.


Directed by: Nimród Antal
Starring: Adrien Brody, Alice Braga, Topher Grace, Laurence Fishburne, Danny Trejo
Country: USA

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie