Review #1,470: 'Glass' (2019)

When M. Night Shyamalan's Split came out three years ago, I doubt anybody was expecting what appeared to be a relatively low-key kidnap thriller to eventually reveal itself as a supervillain origin story of sorts, as well as a sequel to the director's finest film, Unbreakable, released a whopping 16 years previous. Despite its flaws, Split was a success with audiences, and it seemed that Shyamalan's reputation - relegated to near-joke status following a string of utter stinkers like Lady in the Water, The Happening and The Last Airbender - was starting to claw its way back to the dizzy heights of his early career, when he was dubbed the next Steven Spielberg after scaring audiences with The Sixth Sense and, to a lesser degree, Signs. Shyamalan doesn't do middle-of-the-road. He's either at the top of his game or testing our patience, but Glass, the inevitable third instalment of this 19-years-in-the-making trilogy, may be the first time he's dabbled with both extremes.

Kevin Wendell Crumb (James McAvoy), the abusive victim whose 23 other personalities serve to protect him, is still at large. His activities have led to the press dubbing him 'The Horde', and he is currently holed up with four young cheerleaders, the next potential victims of his cannibalistic hunger and his most feared personality of all, the hulking 'Beast'. Meanwhile, super-strong David Dunn (Bruce Willis) juggles his time between running a security business with his son Joseph (an all-grown-up Spencer Treat Clark), and fighting crime.

On top of being damn near indestructible, David - named 'The Overseer' by fans of his work - can also sniff out crime by mere touch, and a chance encounter with Crumb leads him to an abandoned warehouse, where the girls wait bound and terrified. The two superhumans slug it out, but before one can outmatch the other, they are set on by a SWAT team directed by the unnervingly mild-mannered psychologist Dr. Ellie Staple (Sarah Paulson). She specialises in cases in which the patient believes they are a comic-book character, and takes David and Kevin to a grungy institution where an old friend awaits them.

The old friend, of course, is Samuel L. Jackon's Elijah Price, aka Mr. Glass, named after the rare brittle-bone disease from which he suffers. Split is still fresh in the memory, but if - like me - you haven't seen Unbreakable since it was released 19 years ago, it may take a while to fill in the blanks, because Shyamalan isn't willing to refresh your memory. Glass was an intriguing (and surprising) foe for David last time around, but would a man who is simply more intelligent than most really be lumped into the same category as a man who can survive a train crash and another who can scale bare walls? Nevertheless, the actors are all on top form, with Willis' gruff, underplayed performance finding a nice balance with McAvoy's manic character-switching, and when he isn't being laboured with exposition, Jackson has fun as the guy who is always one step ahead.

The strength of the performances makes it seem as though all of the movie's budget went into paying the actors to up their game, as it's difficult to judge where else it was spent. The first two-thirds builds an intriguing atmosphere, despite spending too much time pondering the question of what it would be like if superheroes really existed (doesn't every superhero film tackle this in one form or another?). Shyamalan blows it in the last act, delivering an underwhelming showdown that will leave audiences wondering what the hell the writer/director was thinking. It won't have many calling for more from this unexpected cinematic universe, but it's certainly worth a gamble.


Directed by: M. Night Shyamalan
Starring: James McAvoy, Bruce Willis, Samuel L. Jackson, Anya Taylor-Joy, Sarah Paulson, Spencer Treat Clark, Charlayne Woodard
Country: USA

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie

Review #1,298: 'The Last Boy Scout' (1991)

Tony Scott's The Last Boy Scout arrived at a time when the macho action thrillers popularised in the 1980's were starting to die out. This, combined with its odd Christmas-time release, meant that the film would go on to underwhelm at the box-office, although it would prove a hit in the rental market and reignite Bruce Willis' action career after the failure of Hudson Hawk. It also took a beating from critics, many voicing their displeasure at the foul-mouthed dialogue and particularly brutal violence. It's a shame really, as looking back, The Last Boy Scout really represents the pinnacle of this overly masculine sub-genre, even though it arrived at a time when audiences were growing tired with it.  Yes, it's preposterous, crude and slightly misogynistic, but it's also funny, clever and features screenwriter Shane Black at his most quotable best.

The movie begins with making a mockery of American Football's televised musical intros, before diving right into the thick of the action on a particularly dark and rainy night. Running back Billy Cole (Tae Bo guru Billy Blanks) is having a great night on the field before outside pressures and a hit of PCP lead him to shoot up half of the opposition before turning the gun on himself. Deadbeat private investigator Joe Hallenback (Bruce Willis) is acting as a bodyguard for young stripper Cory (Halle Berry), whilst dealing with his own marital problems in a cheating wife and brat daughter. When Cory is killed, her boyfriend - disgraced former quarterback Jimmy Dix (Damon Wayans) - finds himself reluctantly buddying up with Joe to slowly unravel a conspiracy that may expose corruption on a massive scale, and offer an explanation for Billy Cole's mysterious suicide. Their snooping isn't appreciated however, and they soon find themselves the target of a criminal gang desperate to cover their tracks and see their plan through to the end.

The Last Boy Scout was famously dogged by production problems, where producer Joel Silver was often cited as the cause of it all. Silver and Willis allegedly took over production, forcing Scott to film scenes he didn't approve of and altering Black's script so much that the finally story barely resembled his original idea. Scott would take revenge in his next film True Romance, where the role of a controlling, cocaine-fuelled producer was modelled on Silver. On top of everything else, Willis and Wayans hated each other. Impressively, these troubles somehow can't be seen in the final product. The chemistry between the two leads is one of the movie's strongest suits, and the plot unravels coherently with more car chases and shoot-outs than you could ever hope for. Scott shoots the film with a glossy commercial aesthetic that works well in the context of the tacky world the film is looking to expose. But the real winner here was Black, who pocketed a cool $1.75 million for his efforts after suffering a setback in his personal life. Despite the changes, this still has the writer's fingerprints all over it, even eclipsing what is undoubtedly his most popular work, Lethal Weapon. They just don't make 'em like this anymore.


Directed by: Tony Scott
Starring: Bruce Willis, Damon Wayans, Chelsea Field, Noble Willingham, Taylor Negron, Danielle Harris, Halle Berry
Country: USA

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie

Review #855: 'The Bonfire of the Vanities' (1990)

Tom Wolfe's sprawling novel about the aftershocks of a hit-and-run in 1980's New York set out to capture the corruption and self-promotion that seemed to dominate the decade, with every power player in the city, and every hanger-on trying to achieve personal triumph, latching on to the media and cultural frenzy to benefit their own personal agenda. It's a remarkable novel; bleakly hilarious but meticulously detailed. A movie adaptation was always going to be dangerous territory, and Brian De Palma's resulting film, that flopped both critically and commercially, is a confused mess. The complete failure of the film may be somewhat cruel and not wholly deserved, but De Palma goes for all-out comedy, failing to grasp Wolfe's subtle satire completely.

Tom Hanks plays self-styled 'master of the universe' Sherman McCoy, a Wall Street broker who enjoys every material comfort that life can offer, living in his huge apartment with his ditsy wife Judy (Kim Cattrall). During an eventful night with his mistress Maria Ruskin (Melanie Griffith), they take a wrong turn while heading back to her apartment and end up in South Bronx. Sherman gets out of the car to clear the road when he is approach by two black youths, and a misunderstanding leads to Ruskin accidentally running one of them over. They flee the scene, but once the story of a rich white man almost killing a poor black kid breaks, the likes of Reverend Bacon (John Hancock), a Harlem religious and political leader, Jewish district attorney Abe Weiss (F. Murray Abraham) and hard-drinking journalist Peter Fallow (Bruce Willis) rear their heads to twist the ongoing shit-storm to their own benefit.

Despite some nice tracking shots and sets that really do capture the tacky glamour of the 80's, the movie's biggest downfall is the casting. The two leads, Hanks and Willis, are woefully miscast. McCoy is a loathsome character, a WASP-ish high-roller in an increasingly capitalist country, but Hanks is one of the most likeable actors around. He looks visibly uncomfortable in a thinly-written role, and only takes control of his character in a scene in which he clears his apartment by unloading a shotgun played mainly for laughs, which at this stage of his career was Hanks's shtick. Fallow in the novel is a manipulative con-man, twisting the unravelling story through his newspaper in order to keep his job and make a nice paycheck along the way. But De Palma only seems to have picked up on his heavy drinking, meaning that Willis swings a bottle around and narrates the story, playing the role of spoon-feeder without playing an active role in story or convincing as someone who could get to his position.

But then again, De Palma's movie doesn't exist in the real world. Arguably, the ensemble of characters in Wolfe's novel were caricatures, but they were well-rounded characters, and being inside their heads meant that we could understand their motives, something the movie entirely ignores. So we get the likes of Bacon, Weiss, lawyer Tom Killian (Kevin Dunn) and Assistant District Attorney Kramer (Saul Rubinek), all key players in the novel, reduced to scowling or bumbling onlookers, while McCoy squirms for our amusement and Fallow tells us what we're supposed to be thinking. Occasionally its an all-out pantomime, which would be forgiveable it was funny or insightful. Yet when Wolfe calls for pantomime at the climax, the movie delivers a ridiculous speech spoken by Judge White (Morgan Freeman), informing us that decency is what your grandmother taught you.


Directed by: Brian De Palma
Starring: Tom Hanks, Bruce Willis, Melanie Griffith, Kim Cattrall, Saul Rubinek, Morgan Freeman, John Hancock, F. Murray Abraham
Country: USA

Rating: **

Tom Gillespie

Review #854: 'Pulp Fiction' (1994)

I remember that back in the mid-90's, when Tarantino-mania was in full swing, the motor-mouthed former video store clerk-turned-auteur was always surrounded by controversy. His two movies, Reservoir Dogs (1992) and Pulp Fiction were portrayed as cruel, violent and sadistic by the media, while movie critics swooned over his pulpy, reference-heavy characters and innovative dialogue. Over 20 years later, Tarantino's films seem laughably mild compared to the casual ultra-violence of most 18-rated movies regularly released today. But while Reservoir Dogs can arguably be dismissed as a marvellously scripted and meticulously acted rip-off of City on Fire (1987), Pulp Fiction seems as fresh as the day it was released.

The black-suited duo of Vincent Vega (John Travolta) and Jules Winfield (Samuel L. Jackson), and the misty-eyed gangster's moll Mia Wallace (Uma Thurman) have been reduced to movie icons, adorning the walls of students and making it easy to forget just how well written they are. Tarantino is fascinated by the humdrum of these casual killers' lives, and their conversations about cheeseburgers, foot-massages and what constitutes a miracle sparkle with invention, intelligence and laugh-out-loud humour. It makes these cartoon characters, who seem they have been ripped straight from the pages of a book found in a dime-store book shop, seem real. Even though they have just shot two unarmed men in cold blood, you would still want to buy them a cup of coffee and pick their brains.

Pulp Fiction, as I'm sure you already know, tells three intertwining stories out of chronological order. After successfully obtaining a briefcase belonging to their boss, hit-man Vincent Vega is given the responsibility of looking after the big man's wife, Mia, for the night. He takes her to a retro diner where they talk pop culture and dance to Chuck Berry, and the night's events then take an unexpected turn. Travolta makes for an astonishingly sweet killer and heroin addict, and this story in particular sizzles with sexy dialogue and real chemistry between Travolta and Thurman. The now-infamous scene of an improvised adrenaline shock still has the power to make you wince, while remaining funny and utterly absurd all at the same time.

The second story, 'The Gold Watch', focuses on ageing boxer Butch (Bruce Willis), who after failing to follow thorough with his role in a thrown boxing match - organised by Vincent's boss Marcellus Wallace (Ving Rhames) - flees to the safety of a hotel room and into the arms of his lover Fabienne (Maria de Medeiros), who he intends on whisking overseas along with his wad of stolen loot. However, upon realising that Fabienne has failed to pack the gold watch handed down to him through many generations and eventually by his father's friend Captain Koons (Christopher Walken), he must return home to reclaim it. The events that transpire are some of the most outlandish work Tarantino has ever done, filled with gunfire, mutilation, rape, and a gimp. Such relentless brutality may have been off-putting, but Tarantino keeps you reassured that it's okay to laugh at what you're seeing, that it's only a movie. It's a textbook lesson in black comedy.

The narrative then jumps back in time to Vincent and Jules in the aftermath of the hit seen at the start of the movie. After an extremely gory accident, they are forced off the road and seek the hospitality of Jimmie (played by Tarantino himself). They hire professional fixer Winston Wolf (Harvey Keitel), who races against the clock to clean up the mess before Jimmie's wife arrives home from a night shift. The film climaxes at the diner shown in the opening scene, as Vincent and Jules's quiet breakfast is interrupted by a husband and wife stick-up team (Tim Roth and Amanda Plummer). The third segment is the funniest and features the most memorable dialogue, as Winston tries to motivate an objectionable Vincent ("pretty please, with a cherry on top, clean the fucking car,"), and Jules educates his new foe's following the life-altering miracle he believes he has just witnessed.

Featuring highly on practically every 'best of' list from 1994 to the present, Pulp Fiction needs no introduction and I doubt it ever will. Though I have enjoyed all of Tarantino's movies with the exception of 2007's tedious Death Proof (though it fares better when viewed in its Grindhouse entirety), I don't rate him as a truly great film-maker, as I don't feel he has ever managed to shake his compulsion to homage.  But Pulp Fiction is undoubtedly a masterpiece, like nothing else made before or since (though many attempts have been made in vain). A thrilling exercise in style and substance, beneficial to cinema as a whole and responsible for re-igniting a few careers on the way. I cannot see Tarantino ever topping his achievements here, but then again his movies never fail to surprise me.


Directed by: Quentin Tarantino
Starring: John Travolta, Samuel L. Jackson, Uma Thurman, Bruce Willis, Harvey Keitel, Tim Roth, Amanda Plummer, Maria De Medeiros, Ving Rhames, Eric Stoltz, Rosanna Arquette
Country: USA

Rating: *****

Tom Gillespie

Review #816: 'Sin City: A Dame to Kill for' (2014)

Taking an alarming nine years to reach the screen following it's successful predecessor, Sin City (2005), Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller bring back the filth-ridden, black-and-white mean streets of Basin City. The first film was a modest success both critically and commercially, but A Dame to Kill For underwhelmed at the box-office, and despite boasting another stellar cast, it's not difficult to see why. The likes of Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Josh Brolin, and, most notably, Eva Green, have been brought in to freshen things up, but the film treads very similar grounds to what came years earlier, and the drama seems emptier now than it did before.

Like last time, the film tells various intertwining stories. Marv (Mickey Rourke) wakes up in a car wreck surrounded by the dead bodies of frat boys. Unable to remember how he got there, he begins to re-trace his steps. A cocky young gambler, Johnny (Gordon-Levitt) arrives in town and immediately starts fleecing a joint of all it's money. Insisting that he is allowed into the high stakes game with his good luck charm Marcie (Julia Garner), Johnny finds himself pitted against the corrupt Senator Rourke (Powers Boothe), who he wipes the floor with. He is warned to leave town quickly lest he feel the Senator's wrath, but the arrogant young man decides to treat Marcie to a night on the town instead.

Years before he had his face operated on to become Clive Owen in the first film, Dwight (now played by Josh Brolin) is a private investigator who we first meet spying on businessman Joey (Ray Liotta) and his young lover Sally (Juno Temple). He is called on by his old flame Ava Lord (Green) who claims she is being abused by her husband (Marton Csokas) and his bodyguard Manute (Dennis Haysbert, replacing the late Michael Clarke Duncan). Dwight cannot get her out of his head and employs Marv to help him on his rescue mission. Meanwhile, distraught at the suicide of John Hartigan (Bruce Willis), stripper Nancy (Jessica Alba) is drinking heavily and seeks revenge on the man who drove her former lover to kill himself, Senator Rourke.

Nine years ago, Sin City was, visually, a jaw-dropping exercise in using real actors against a green screen background. Nowadays, this effect is used commonly, even in TV shows, so it's a testament to Rodriguez (working as cinematographer) that the film still looks absolutely splendid. Beneath the beauty of it's exterior lies something all the more hollow, as the actors - the men and women - compete for the crown of being the hardest bastard with the graveliest voice. With such deliberately blunt dialogue, the film is basically made up of scenes of people acting tough to one another, usually resulting in machine-gun fire or somebody being punched through a window.

The cast all deliver though, and although it's nice to see Powers Booth get the screen-time he deserves (his Cy Tolliver in HBO's Deadwood is still one of the my all-time favourite TV villains), Eva Green walks away with the movie. Embodying all the traits of the great screen femme fatales, she is allowed to go further than the stars that came before for her and be that more sexier, revealing all to Rodriguez's obviously admiring camera. She seduces every man she comes across, including Christopher Meloni's lovestruck cop, who fall at her knees, and it's not hard to see why. Green single-handedly saves this film from becoming a nihilistic and empty exercise in violence, which was fun and fresh the first time around, but with nine years of preparation, you would expect more.


Directed by: Frank Miller, Robert Rodriguez
Starring: Mickey Rourke, Jessica Alba, Josh Brolin, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Eva Green, Powers Boothe, Dennis Haysbert, Rosario Dawson, Bruce Willis
Country: Cyprus/USA

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie

Review #540: 'Looper' (2012)

On the face of it, Rian Johnson's thriller Looper, utilises many conventional visual signifiers of recent science fiction films, with a high concept idea at its centre. But unlike the many other dystopian future films, it doesn't get held back by the importance of the technology within the world it creates. Set in Kansas in 2044, the opening scene sees Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) standing alone in a wheat field with a blanket spread out a distance in front of him. Appearing instantaneously is a kneeling figure with his head covered in cloth, and Joe shoots. Like many other genre films, Looper has a reliance on narration from its main character, a necessity of complex narrative, but it is an important element, and one which further exacerbates Johnson's passion for film noir (as seen in his debut high school noir, Brick in 2005).

Thirty years in the future, time travel has been invented. For unexplained reasons, this technology has been outlawed, but is being used exclusively by crime syndicate's who are using people like Joe to assassinate people they send back in time. Joe, like the other loopers he works with are narcissistic, taking recreational drugs, simply living in the moment, with no apparent concern for the future, and particularly with the world they inhabit. A looper will eventually be retired, but once a looper is no longer required, this is known as closing the loop. What this involves is their future selves being sent back in time to be killed by his younger self. In a quirk of control, a being known as the Rainmaker, is attempting to put a stop to loopers altogether by closing all the loops. Panicking when confronted with the unclothed face of his future self (Bruce Willis), young Joe is knocked aside, and old Joe escapes the find the Rainmaker as a child, and stop the death of his future wife.

Whilst many other time travel films become often convoluted in their complexities of paradox, Looper manages to disregard the codes of science fiction paradoxicals and presents a refreshing layer of humanity. In a pivotal scene, when young and older Joe occupy the same time and space, they meet in their favourite diner - ordering the same meal - and older Joe complains at his younger self at his attitude towards life (I'm pretty sure we would all participate in this diatribe presented with the same context, to tell your younger self: "You're a dick"). Whilst the young Joe has no future outlook, future Joe has an image to cling to, specifically the woman who will eventually save his life. It's a scene fraught with tension and high chances of danger for the character(s), and one that has a bit of a poke at the concepts of time travel paradox. In fact, when quizzed about the possibility of changing the future by acting differently, old Joe bursts into anger, a character and a script knowingly telling the audience who will dissect time travel contradictions to essentially fuck off.

What ensues is a customary chase narrative, with the twist that Joe chases his older self - the younger is also being hunted by other loopers, as his inability to close the loop leans that he has to be eliminated. The hunt for the young Rainmaker leads to the farm of Sara (Emily Blunt) and her young son, Cid (Pierce Gagnon). The fact that young and old Joe share the same time/space, leads to a nice touch, where new experiences of the young Joe, reverberate in the memory of the elder. With this complex central concept, it would be easy for the script to become over elaborate, but Johnson keeps the plot simple, making it an incredibly satisfying narrative, that is intelligent, but does not over-intellectualise the themes.

Gordon-Levitt's performance is unsurpassed, he manages to possess the mannerisms of Willis without poor impersonation. Just one look of the face and his eyes and mouth (particularly) have this perfect essence of Willis. It's a big little film, that brings themes of addiction, paranoia, and the idea that in our youth, we inevitably make bad choices and often damage ourselves for in-the-moment selfishness. Johnson clearly has been influenced by Philip K. Dick, and even some of Blade Runner's (1982) visual tricks are utilised here. But whilst Dickian aesthetics dictate the overbearing corporation of government, Looper has a very human heart, which is illustrated in the relationship (new to old Joe) with the farmer and her son, and provides one of the most beautiful and convincing climax's in sci-fi cinema in some time. So therefore, Looper presents a very persuasive image of a future where society has collapsed and the highest paying job seems to be a hitman, it also shows that even the most self centred of people, the types who would risk the lives of others for money (ahem), can be moved by the idea and realisation of humanistic beauty, and the innocence of love.


Directed by: Rian Johnson
Starring: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Bruce Willis, Emily Blunt, Paul Dano, Noah Segan, Piper Perabo, Jeff Daniels
Country: USA/China

Rating: *****

Marc Ivamy

Review #526: 'The Expendables 2' (2012)

Since 2006's Rocky Balboa, Sylvester Stallone has been on a nostalgia trip, re-visiting the characters and genres that catapulted him to the A-list in the 1980's and early 90's. After his rather average yet commercially successful homage to cheesy action - 2010's The Expendables - Stallone and his crew are back, with some extra recruits and some familiar (and aged) faces from the genre. Thankfully, Stallone has passed the director's chair to Simon West, a director who has plenty of experience in blowing shit up with the ridiculous yet irresistibly enjoyable Con Air (1997). If there was a main problem with the first film, it was that Stallone's action scenes were messy and confusing, hardly akin the kung-fu-inspired action of the 1980's.

After returning from a successful mission in Nepal, new recruit Bill (Liam Hemsworth) announces his retirement at the end of the month. Shady CIA operative Mr. Church (Bruce Willis) forces group leader Barney (Stallone) into taking a mission to recover a mysterious item in a crashed plane located in Albania. The group, including Lee Christmas (Jason Statham), Hale Caesar (Terry Crews), Toll Road (Randy Couture), Gunnar Jensen (Dolph Lundgren), and newly appointed technical expert Maggie Chan (Yu Nan), are ambushed by international criminal Claude Vilain (Jean-Claude Van Damme) who kills Bill and flees with the retrieved item. Gradually the team uncover a plot to find a storage of plutonium left over from the Cold War, and the enslavement of a nearby town by Vilain.

Early rumours that Stallone was going for a milder tone to allow a younger audience to see and enjoy the film are quickly dashed with an opening scene full of exploding heads and CGI blood. Stallone loves his blood and explosions - that was clear from 2008's almost pornographically gory Rambo. His goal was to aim higher and bigger with the sequel, and while on a whole it is pretty much on par with the first, the scope is certainly larger and the giddy in-jokes are more outlandish and obvious. The film is certainly full of love for the genre that was so good to Stallone, and what person that grew up in the 1980's and 90's would not smile at the sight of Planet Hollywood's Stallone, Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger mowing down bad guys side-by-side?

Yet it is at times so ridiculous and self-consciously cheesy that it comes across as a parody of itself. Schwarzenegger and Willis steal each other's catch phrases ("I'll be back!"/"Yippee-kay-ya") and Stallone even cracks a Chuck Norris Facts joke, and while these are funny, it takes the edge off the action and creates a feeling that none of these characters are really going to be in any real trouble. While Mickey Rourke sadly departed the project and Jet Li only briefly appearing, the addition of Chuck Norris and an actually very impressive Van Damme certainly compensate (the latter adding to his surprisingly moving performance in JCVD (2008)). But the film is crammed with far too many characters that pushes the whole Expendables crew minus Stallone well into the background. It won't stop me watching the upcoming third instalment, but this is no more than an amusing way to kill 90 minutes - much like the films it's playing homage to.


Directed by: Simon West
Starring: Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Dolph Lundgren, Terry Crews, Randy Couture, Liam Hemsworth, Chuck Norris, Bruce Willis
Country: USA

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie

Review #492: 'Moonrise Kingdom' (2012)

Bob Balaban's narrator begins, - the  Brectian mannerisms of distanciation, talking directly to the camera - provider of information on the small fictitious New Penzance island, its topography, and landmarks. It is 1965, and in a few days a great storm will hit the island, a storm that could literally and metaphysically wash the islands stilted problems away. Sam Shakusky (Jared Gilman) - whom we later discover to be an orphan - escapes from the Khaki Scout camp, and rendezvous with Suzy (Kara Haywood), an island girl with emotional issues (a meeting that was organised the year before, when the met at a church play of Benjamin Britten's opera 'Noye's Fludde'). The pair of young lovers escape to go on an adventure together, and the island's inhabitants, including Suzy's overbearing, attorney parents, Walt and Laura Bishop (played by Bill Murray and Frances McDormand respectively), form a search party - the Khaki scout camp residents also form a militant party, in search of Sam, none of whom like him because he is "crazy" due to the death of his parents.

Wes Anderson brings his usual aesthetic idiosyncrasies to the film, his wondrously controlled tracking shots, tilts and pans; and the films narrative settings fill the screen with beautifully vivid, saturated autumnal colours - incidentally Suzy lives in a house at Summers End. As you might expect from the Khaki Scouts, led by Edward Norton's Scout Master Ward, their costumes are suitably coloured, and the costumes say much about the strong divisions between the adult and child world. Whilst the fugitive lovers form an incredibly poignant and mature relationship - and they are the most "adult" characters in the film - the literal adults simply force their own problems and insecurities on the young, particularly Suzy's parents, who's profession in law is brought into the home (amusingly McDormand's Laura, uses a megaphone to communicate in their family home).

In an early scene, the camera dolly's across the Khaki Scout camp, following Norton as he surveys the morning activities of his camp. Anderson's camera (as with the majority of his films) has presence in his films, practically becoming an arbiter of the comedy value in a scene. Here, we review, for example, a treehouse project of humorous proportions, as a collection of the boys build it precariously at the top of a very tall tree. Anderson's iconography, his frames and compositions also provide humour, and his aesthetic attention to detail is also highlighted in the sequence where Sam's escape from camp is discovered. The interior of the tents are set up like a bedroom, replete with decoration, seating, carpeted floors and storage. A small hole is discovered as exit point - a farcical moment indeed.

Aside from the aesthetic and character comedy, the films colour pallet perfectly reflects its more tender and meloncholly narrative moments. The somber and laconic police captain Sharp (Bruce Willis) is informed by Sam's foster father that he is no longer welcome back into their home, and he is left in his custody until Tilda Swinton's authoritarian, by-the-books, Social Services (that is her name, this is who she is) collects the boy for institutional correction - i.e. orphanage - perhaps electroshock therapy. In Sam and Suzy, we have a pair of troubled "problem" children, who find solace and connectedness in their relationship - away from the restrictions, and socially conventional "normality" of the seemingly more "problem" adult world. It is the culmination of these many strands that Anderson brings together so beautifully, in a film that knows when to be amusing, laugh-out-loud funny; when to be melancholy and poignant; when to be tender or forceful.

Along with the adult cast, who are typically brilliant (Murray has been a regular to Anderson's ensemble since 1998's Rushmore - and including Harvey Keitel's Scout Commander), have their performances outdone by a fantastic young cast. The film is, after all, one about children. Besides the terrific performances from the leads (at 12 and 13 years old, they show incredible maturity and humanism in their methodically minded characters), but also from the band of eccentrically uniformed Scouts. Anderson's previous film, the excellently frenetic Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009), was his first foray into animation, and looking at the dynamics of Moonrise Kingdom, the techniques seem to have influenced him slightly. Combining with his other idiosyncratic techniques, makes this one of the most delightfully charming films I have seem for some time - and could arguably be one of the most beautifully touching of 2012.


Directed by: Wes Anderson
Starring: Jared Gilman, Kara Hayward, Bruce Willis, Edward Norton, Bill Murray, Tilda Swinton, Frances McDormand, Harvey Keitel, Jason Schwartzman
Country: USA

Rating: *****

Marc Ivamy

Review #399: 'The Expendables' (2010)

Following the recent re-vists of two of his most iconic characters, John Rambo and Rocky Balboa, Sylvester Stallone continued his oddly touching nostalgia trip to the heydey of his career with this homage to the glory days of the action film, the 1980's and the early 1990's. It was a time where anything from a kidnapped daughter to the overhauling of a military dictator could be solved by removing your upper clothes, adding a touch of oil, and finding the biggest guns you can get your hands on, and possibly the only era that would have ever allowed the likes of Steven Seagal and Chuck Norris to become movie stars. Of course, Stallone was one of the big three that formed Planet Hollywood (along with Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger) and was one of the undisputed stars of the time, but with the problem of age (and lack of acting ability) creeping up with him, Stallone's roles have become thin of late. It seemed the perfect time to remind us just why people loved him, by directing this balls-out love love letter to carnage, and, like Rocky Balboa (2006), it's actually pretty good.

The Expendables, a group of bikers and mercenaries, are sent by the mysterious 'Mr. Church' (Bruce Willis) to overthrow the dictator of Vilena. The groups' leader, Barney Ross (Stallone), and Lee Christmas (Jason Statham) travel for research, and discover that the country's dictator, General Garza (David Zayas) is merely a controlled figurehead for ex-CIA operative James Munroe (Eric Roberts). Things quickly get out of hand, but the two manage to escape amidst an array of explosions. Falling for their informer Sandra (Gisele Itie), who also happens to be Garza's daughter, Ross decides to return to finish the job, and this time taking martial artist Yin Yang (Jet Li), gun-nut Hale Caesar (Terry Crews), and bomb expert Toll Road (Randy Couture). But ex-Expendable Gunnar (Dolph Lundgren) - recently dispensed for almost hanging a captive on a previous mission and for drug use - travels to Vilena to work for Munroe.

Anyone going into this film wanting or expecting an engrossing storyline, a witty script, or anything resembling character development, will be sorely disappointed. This is 100% dedicated to gun porn, explosions, and homoerotic exchanges, precisely the thing that the early films of Stallone, Schwarzenegger and Jean-Claude Van Damme were known and loved for. What it does have however, is a lot of heart. Stallone is undoubtedly a romantic, and he has formed a cast full of old-school action stars (Mickey Rourke has en extended cameo as Tool, and Schwarzenegger briefly appears in a scene that made me oddly giddy), as well as some of the new faces of straight-to-video, sorry, DVD (wrestler Steve Austin also appears as Munroe's head grunt Paine).

However, The Expendables seems to suffer most from the thing that noticeably plagues modern action films, and that is badly filmed and confusing action scenes. Rather than actually showing the fighting (and there are many here that deserve better, namely Jet Li), they fill the screen with a mixture of blurs, shaky hand-held camerawork, and rapid editing. It seems that Stallone thinks that as long as the audiences' eyes are busy, regardless as to whether they know what it happening, then they will be happy. And a lot of the macho talk gets quite tiresome quickly, and as token black guy Hale Caesar talks about his gun like it is a girl in that "hell ye-ha!" sort-of-way, the film came across as nothing more than a walking erection.

Yet with a film put together with such genuine heart, I found it impossible not to like, and it certainly transported me back to my childhood when the action wave was still in full flow, and I was obsessed with the likes of Commando (1985). I'm pleased that a sequel is also not far off, and the added casting of Jean-Claude Van Damme and Chuck Norris, as well as an extended role for Schwarzenegger (who now has time for acting given his political career has thankfully ended), has me obviously excited.


Directed by: Sylvester Stallone
Starring: Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Eric Roberts, Dolph Lundgren, Giselle Itié, Randy Couture, David Zayas, Mickey Rourke, Steve Austin, Terry Crews, Bruce Willis
Country: USA

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie