Review #1,464: 'Vice' (2018)

After spending most of his career larking around with Will Ferrell in the likes of Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, Step Brothers and The Other Guys, writer/director Adam McKay took a huge leap towards 'serious' film-making in 2015 when he released The Big Short, a funny, intelligent and unexpectedly engrossing account of the 2007-2008 financial crisis. The Big Short may not sound like much fun on paper, but McKay latched onto this idea, making the tedious subject of subprime loans and triple-A ratings interesting by entwining it with pop culture, employing the likes of Margot Robbie and Selena Gomez to dumb it down for the audience in a manner that was too wickedly clever to ever be patronising. With Academy recognition now under his belt, McKay strides into his next project - a biopic of one of the most fearsome yet enigmatic political figures in U.S. history - with confidence, and dare I say it, a touch of arrogance.

McKay is eager to perform the same trick again with Vice, a sporadically inspired but frustratingly blunt quasi-biography that feels to penetrate the skin of its subject or answer the big question of just what was the driving force behind the man who turned the symbolic position of Vice President into one of great power and influence. Rather than dig deeper, McKay prefers to allow Dick Cheney's actions to speak for themselves, occasionally cutting away to a visual metaphor, such as, in the case of Cheney's key meeting with Sam Rockwell's George W. Bush, a cheetah bringing down its prey. Cheney is a man McKay clearly views as a highly functioning psychopath, tracking his journey from working under Steve Carell's Donald Rumsfeld in the Nixon Administration, to his opportunistic lunge for control in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. He fought to grant more power to a President he easily manipulated, praying on his short attention span and lack of political know-how, and to legalise torture, finding a massive legal loophole in the shape of Guantanamo Bay.

Vice is structured like a classic coming-of-age movie, with its 'hero' rising and falling, before dusting himself off and getting to his feet to rise again. After President Ford (Bill Camp) is voted out of office, seemingly closing all political doors for Cheney, McKay rolls the credits and pans away from the Cheney household, before an abrupt phone call reminds us that this story has barely begun. Like many of the jokes in Vice, the credit-roll-fake-out is funnier in theory than execution, and the film often takes the trickery so far that it threatens to undermine the seriousness of the subject matter. Satire must be funny, but it must also carry an emotional wallop that McKay struggles to find. At the centre of it all is Christian Bale's powerhouse performance, which explores a man whose obsessiveness could be compared to that of the actor's own extreme approach to his craft. Once again Bale takes his own body to the limit, piling on the pounds to resemble a man who suffered multiple heart attacks throughout his life (it becomes a running gag in the film), and adopting a deep growl capable of subtle intimidation. The performances of Bale, Carrel and Rockwell are all worth the entry fee alone, but Vice stutters to engage on a deeper level, failing to explain just how an oil company CEO can seize control of one of the most powerful countries in the world, and execute his plans with such cold indifference.


Directed by: Adam McKay
Starring: Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Steve Carell, Sam Rockwell, Alison Pill, Eddie Marsan, Justin Kirk, Jesse Plemons, Bill Camp, Tyler Perry
Country: USA

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie

Review #1,296: 'The Killing of a Sacred Deer' (2017)

The films of Greek filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos are polarising to say the least, deliberately tailored to the art-house crowd seeking something new and potentially shocking, but rarely sitting well with general audiences. Both Dogtooth and The Lobster were difficult movies to watch for many different reasons, yet what makes Lanthimos so interesting is the skill in which he makes an audience feel uneasy. His latest, The Killing of a Sacred Deer, is his most troubling picture yet, and I mean that in a good way. For the first hour of the film Lanthimos allows us to gaze through the windows of a seemingly happy middle-class family, before peeling back the layers to reveal the dysfunction beneath. Think a touch of Cronenberg, a hint of Bunuel, and a large dollop of Haneke, and your somewhere in the right area.

Highly-skilled surgeon Steven Murphy (Colin Farrell) has battled through alcoholism to maintain a position of respect and authority at the hospital he works. He is happily married to Anna (Nicole Kidman), and enjoys spending time with children Bob (Sunny Suljic) and his teenage daughter Kim (Raffey Cassidy). The impressively-bearded Steven also maintains a relationship with a confident young man named Martin (Barry Keoghan), walking and talking by the lake, and meeting in a diner to eat together. If it was anyone other than the subtly unnerving Martin, it would be easy to interpret their first scene together as some kind of strange first date, but it's clear they share some history together. Out of nowhere, Bob suddenly loses feeling in his legs, leaving both his father and specialists baffled at the mysterious condition. As Bob declines in health, Martin grows in confidence, dating Kim in secret and turning up unannounced at the hospital to see Steven on a daily basis.

To say any more would spoil the 'joy' to be had with The Killing of a Sacred Deer, as you spend the first half of the film out of the loop and likely expecting Steven and Martin's relationship to be revealed as sexual. Lanthimos takes his time to provide answers, carefully guiding you into the blood-drained Murphy household and taking you on long walks via Steadicam down endless, cold-white hospital corridors, before unleashing a revelation that will take Steven to the brink. Not all the big questions are answered however, and Lanthimos makes sure they don't need to be. As the mystery illness worsens and others start to show similar symptoms, the film keeps the focus on the central conflict between the handsome, successful doctor and the quietly menacing teen. Farrell continues to impress as he moves away from the pretty-boy roles that dogged his early career, but Keoghan, last seen in Dunkirk earlier this year, steals the film as the delicately threatening Martin. He's rarely anything less than pleasant, but there's just something not quite right, and Keoghan underplays the role to perfection. It's a touch overlong, and a sexual encounter in a car feels unnecessary, but Lanthimos is only fine-tuning his craft, and it feels like his masterpiece is only around the corner.


Directed by: Yorgos Lanthimos
Starring: Colin Farrell, Barry Keoghan, Nicole Kidman, Raffey Cassidy, Sunny Suljic, Bill Camp, Alicia Silverstone
Country: UK/Ireland/USA

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie

Review #1,043: 'Midnight Special' (2016)

Billed as writer/director Jeff Nichols' first venture into mainstream film-making and his first stab at a genre piece, Midnight Special still manages to keep things grounded and rugged despite its sci-fi credentials. Clearly a throw-back to the alien-among-us movies of the 1980's, such as E.T. The Extra Terrestrial (1982) and Starman (1984) - movies Nichols no doubt grew up watching - there are shady government officials, a suspicious cult, a sympathetic young investigator, a protective father, and a young boy with some astonishing, otherworldly abilities. Yet there's also the Southern setting, an unhurried pace and the presence of Michael Shannon, all key ingredients in the film-maker's oeuvre that help Midnight Special avoid being yet another homage to a bygone era.

The film begins rather frantically as two men, Roy (Shannon) and his old friend Lucas (Joel Edgerton), escape some unknown threat in the middle of the night with a young boy, adorned with UV-blocking goggles, in the back seat. Their intentions are shady, and we soon learn that the FBI are hunting the men in the hope of rescuing the child, Alton (Jaeden Lieberher), who is clearly special in some unique way. Alton is Roy's son, and it's revealed that his father took him away from a shady cult led by the enigmatic Calvin Meyer (Sam Shepard), whose nightly sermons would consist of seemingly random numbers that were once spoken by prophetic Alton. As the curious investigator Paul Sevier (Adam Driver) tries to unravel the mystery of the boy and the reasons for his abduction, Roy and Lucas must dodge state troopers and gun-wielding cult members to deliver Alton to his excommunicated mother Sarah (Kirsten Dunst) and prepare for the huge event that has been prophesied.

For what is essentially a chase movie, Midnight Special moves incredibly slow at times. While the bursts of action or sudden violence that pepper the film are all the more exciting because of the shuffling pace, it can be a bit of slog at times, especially when the movie keeps you in the dark about a lot of which is going on. It very much reminded me of Nichols's second film, Take Shelter (2011), in which Shannon's troubled father's possible descent into madness manifests itself in his obsession over building a bunker that would shield his family from whatever catastrophic event he foresees. While the mystery was one of the main aspects that helped make that movie incredibly memorable, it does somewhat take away some of the sense of wonder in Midnight Special, even though it would seem that Nichols chose to reveal little until the end to do just the opposite.

Despite its pacing flaws, the film is still incredibly absorbing. The Southern setting is one I find oddly romantic, and Nichols is a master at immersing you in the world, something he did astonishingly well in the land of swamps and charismatic outlaws in 2012's Matthew McConaughey-starring Mud. The world of fleapit motels, empty, neon-lit gas stations and tough, righteous men is the perfect fit for a story rooted in science-fiction. There's something timeless about the setting, and this helps Midnight Special achieve its hat-tipping to the works of Spielberg, Carpenter et al. Nichols also does wonders with the film's humble budget, creating a few standout set-pieces that work better than most CGI-overkill blockbusters. Yet at its heart, the film remains a family drama with the fatherly bond between Roy and Alton always front and centre, and Nichols has stated that it is very much his reaction to becoming a father. It may not be everyone's cup of tea - I'm sure mainstream audiences will be put of by its leisurely pace - but Midnight Special is a rewarding experience if you stick with it.


Directed by: Jeff Nichols
Starring: Michael Shannon, Joel Edgerton, Kirsten Dunst, Jaeden Lieberher, Adam Driver, Bill Camp, Scott Haze, Sam Shepard, Paul Sparks
Country: USA/Greece

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie