Review #1,401: 'True Romance' (1993)

It's been many years since I last saw Tony Scott's True Romance, huddled up in my bedroom as a young teenager in fear of being caught with my older brother's VHS. I loved it then and I still like it very much, but it never struck me before just how much of a boy's fantasy the film is. This is a story in which a comic-book store worker forms a relationship with a gorgeous hooker-with-a-heart and successfully avenges her mistreatment at the hands of a despicable pimp, all before riding off to Hollywood with a case full of cocaine and dreams of an early retirement in mind. This is no surprise when you see who was behind the script - a young Quentin Tarantino - who at the time of writing was working in a video store dreaming of bigger and better things. But the fact that this is a fantasy isn't a bad thing. True Romance sweeps you up into its universe of outlaw love, mean-spirited gangsters and the ghost of Elvis Presley and doesn't allow you to pause for breath.

The hero at the centre of the story is Clarence Worley (Christian Slater). We meet him in a bar trying to chat up a woman by expressing his love for Elvis and inviting her to join him in a Sonny Chiba triple bill playing at the local theatre. You can almost imagine Tarantino speaking these words and being hit with a rejection, but Clarence is Tarantino's creation, so he has popcorn spilled over him by an attractive blonde named Alabama (Patricia Arquette) as he sits watching one of The Streefighter films alone. The two hit it off and spend the night together, before she reveals she is actually a call girl hired by his friends (the name should have been a hint). But she actually falls in love with Clarence, and him with her, and the two are quickly married before Clarence's attention turns to the pimp who is still holding her belongings, the milky-eyed and dreadlocked Drexl (Gary Oldman). Their confrontation leaves Clarence in possession of a suitcase chocked full of cocaine, so the newly weds head to Los Angeles to find a buyer, with the help of their clueless contact and aspiring actor Dick (Michael Rapaport).

Their road trip allows the opportunity for some familiar faces to flex their acting chops with the assistance of Tarantino's impeccable screenplay, including the likes of Dennis Hopper as Clarence's estranged father, Christopher Walken as fearsome gangster Don Vincenzo, Brad Pitt as Dick's useless stoner roommate Floyd, and a noticeably thinner James Gandolfini as one of Vincenzo's more sadistic thugs. It's a fast and furious two hours, with so much going on that you're barely given time to stop and realise that nothing much really adds up. The film sweeps you up into its silliness, forcing you to bow down to its own particular brand of cool. If you've seen Tarantino's directorial debut Reservoir Dogs, then many of True Romance's story beats will feel familiar (the story carefully moves its characters into place so they will eventually be in the same room at the same time with loaded guns pointed at each other), but Scott's style and energy make the ride exhilarating. The two leads are charming, with Slater convincing as a geek-turned-loose cannon and Arquette portraying just the right blend of cute and sexy, but the real star is Tarantino, who somehow manages to turn an adolescent fantasy into an exciting thrill ride.


Directed by: Tony Scott
Starring: Christian Slater, Patricia Arquette, Dennis Hopper, Val Kilmer, Gary Oldman, Brad Pitt, Christopher Walken, Michael Rapaport, James Gandolfini
Country: USA/France

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie

Review #861: 'The Drop' (2014)

Based on Dennis Lehane's short story Animal Rescue, and re-locating the action from the author's beloved Boston to the chilly streets of Brooklyn, The Drop is a disappointingly familiar film that shows a lot of promise in its build-up, but one that will most likely be best remembered for being the last screen performance of James Gandolfini. While the movie is hardly a fitting swansong to the actor's tragically short career, there is promise for future generations in the performance of lead Tom Hardy, who plays his deceptively dim bartender with an extremely subtle complexity, only hinting at the real man who lies beneath his shuffled walk and soft voice.

Formerly respected criminal 'Cousin' Marv (Gandolfini) now spends his time behind the scenes at his eponymous bar, while his actual cousin Bob (Hardy) pours the drinks and keep the regulars in high spirits. The bar is a convenient locale for local gangsters to lay their 'drops' - small amounts of cash that are locked in a safe ready for whoever is destined to collect it. When the bar is robbed by masked gunmen, the efficient Chechen mobsters who run the operation are suspicious and demand that Marv and Bob locate their money. So far, so relatively formulaic - 2012's rather disappointing Killing Them Softly covered similar ground.

The Drop is at its best when it hints at these characters' shady pasts and real character - traits these men may have embraced in their past, but have since been suppressed or subdued by new powers. The performances are magnificent all round, and special mention must go to Matthias Schoenaerts, who proves a truly menacing presence as Eric Deeds, the lonesome brute who comes into the picture after Bob finds a beaten puppy in the rubbish bin of Nadia (Noomi Rapace), Eric's former girlfriend. Bob and Nadia form a relationship, possibly out of mutual feelings of disenchantment or perhaps because they both simply care for the animal. Deeds is an intimidating and unnerving manipulator, and Schoenaerts is part of a trio of non-American actors playing American roles astonishingly well here - he's Belgian, Hardy is English, and Rapace is Swedish.

The multiple plot threats naturally lead to a suitably bloody finale, where we learn what really makes these people tick and operate with such efficiency. But for all it's stylish direction and vibrant screenplay by Lehane himself, a disappointingly cliched final scene betrays much of what came before. Up to this point, it is an interesting study of coming to terms with being the kind of man you wish you weren't. To offer salvation to a character who has just accepted this very thing is a simplistic and easy path to take, especially when the build-up is bolstered by an observant eye for detail and thick layer of cynicism, painting it's Winter greys broadly. This contradiction makes the film quite ordinary, when it could have been a compelling study of the insecurity of thugs and the circle of violence that surrounds them.


Directed by: Michaël R. Roskam
Starring: Tom Hardy, James Gandolfini, Noomi Rapace, Matthias Schoenaerts, John Ortiz
Country: USA

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie

Review #627: 'Zero Dark Thirty' (2012)

The title Zero Dark Thirty, referring in military-speak to the 12:30 am time in which American forces broke into a compound in Abbottabad and killed Osama bin Laden, is suitably apt for a film that puts procedural above all else. It's the lack of emotion and absence of any real identifiable character development that makes Kathryn Bigelow's thriller all the more absorbing, rushing from shouty suits in offices to dusty interrogation rooms, refusing to skip any details that led to the death of America's greatest ever enemy. Unless you've been locked in a basement for the past two or so years, you will be well aware of what happens at the climax, but it's what led to the news story that is so interesting, given that the events have been relatively hidden or unknown to the public.

Young, green CIA officer Maya (Jessica Chastain) arrives in Pakistan, assigned to work with fellow officer Dan (Jason Clarke), who is in the middle of an interrogation with Ammar al-Baluchi, a suspect in the 9/11 attacks. After days (possibly weeks) of waterboarding and humiliation, al-Baluchi gives up the name of Abu Ahmed, who he identifies as bin Laden's personal courier. When Dan is reassigned and with the practise of torture becoming political taboo, Maya finds herself working on hunches and scraps trying to track down the mysterious Abu Ahmed, who many claim to be dead. But after a fellow analyst finds new information, Maya is led to a large compound in Pakistan, and prepares for a Navy SEAL-led infiltration.

For such a cold film, there is always the danger of losing the audience in the sheer frankness of it all. The saving grace is undoubtedly Chastain, Oscar-nominated for her steely portrayal of a woman whose obsession borders on dangerous. She shows relatively little emotion, even when exposed to Dan's brutal torture routines, and the film rarely shows her out of her work-place. There is no man in her life, thankfully, and will gladly step over someone if she thought it would bring her closer to her target. But, like Jeremy Renner's William James in The Hurt Locker (2009), she is the perfect tool for the job. Not necessarily likeable, but fit for her purpose. She is a modern action hero, using words and persistence over machine guns and body paint.

Like the work of Paul Greengrass, Bigelow manages to make an action thriller routed in reality, making as much out of a phone call as a gun fight. And it's the interactions of the hierarchy and the political manoeuvring that keep the film moving, highlighting the possible repercussions, politically, socially and ethically, of every minute decision. But when the real action does come, it doesn't disappoint, as a team of grunts (amongst them Joel Edgerton and Chris Pratt) storm bin Laden's compound in almost permanent night-vision mode. It's captured in all it's confusion, as unsuspecting heads pop out of doors and bullets are fired at unseen targets. The film could have been a sickening exercise in puffy-chested patriotism, but in Bigelow's - and screenwriter Mark Boal's - hands, it is thorough and intelligent, harking back to the 1970's when topical film-making was still important.


Directed by: Kathryn Bigelow
Starring: Jessica Chastain, Jason Clarke, Kyle Chandler, Jennifer Ehle, Mark Strong, Joel Edgerton, James Gandolfini
Country: USA

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie

Review #626: 'Killing Them Softly' (2012)

Teaming up for the second time after 2007's masterpiece The Assassination of Jessie James by the Coward Robert Ford, director Andrew Dominik and star/co-producer Brad Pitt bring us another beautifully bleak piece of cinema with Killing Me Softly. Like Jessie James, Softly is very much a mood piece, full of astonishing imagery that speaks as much about its characters as the actors themselves. But where Jessie James was gripping and wholly absorbing over its 160+ minute running-time, Softly is ultimately quite dull at just 97 minutes, playing with an interesting economic subtext alongside a rather straight-forward crime story, full of characters seen many times before and even played by the same actors.

Two small-time crooks, Frankie (Scoot McNairy) and Russell (Ben Mendelsohn), are drafted in by a gangster known as the Squirrel (Vincent Curatola - The Sopranos' Johnny Sack) to rob a mob card game ran by Markie (Ray Liotta). Markie had robbed his own game in the past and later admitted to it, but was given a pass due to his likeability, and the Squirrel feels he will inevitably get the blame this time. The robbery is a success and Frankie and Russell go to ground, so the mob ask the mysterious Driver (Richard Jenkins) to bring in hired killer Jackie Cogan (Pitt) to find and kill the culprits, only Jackie likes to 'kill them softly' from afar, and realising he knows one of the targets, brings in over-the-hill trigger-man Mickey (James Gandolfini) to help.

With only one female character of note appearing in the film for the duration of about a minute, Killing Me Softly is very male-orientated, featuring a lot of hard men talking in rooms smoking cigarettes and getting down to business. This would be all well and good if the plot threw in any elements of surprise, but the film moves on with an almost resigned inevitability towards a rather straight-forward climax. But this is a film that strives for more than a bunch of criminals whacking each other - that is clear from the repetitive news coverage of the Obama-McCain presidential campaign (the film is set in post-Katrina New Orleans in 2008) - but it tries to hammer the point home. The big joke is that economic hardships even effect those who steal for a living (the robbery causes an imbalance within the criminal economy), but the point is not made with any subtlety - surprising given the care Dominik gave to Jessie James.

All that said, the film still has plenty going for it. The cast are superb, with Gandolfini stealing the film with a relatively small role yet again, as the boozy, sex-obsessed hitman who may have been something in his day, but has become a sad man full of self-loathing due to an unhappy marriage. Mendelsohn impresses as well as a junkie who makes his money from stealing dogs and selling them for profit. But the plaudits must go to cinematographer Greig Fraser, who injects a steely 70's feel to a film set mostly at night, and throws in a moment of ultra slo-mo when an unfortunate character gets riddled with bullets in his car, that is as beautiful as it is ugly. However, these plus-points do not manage to save the film from being a huge disappointment given the talent involved, and with a more interesting plot and less spoon-feeding of its social message, could have been outstanding.


Directed by: Andrew Dominik
Starring: Brad Pitt, Scoot McNairy, Ben Mendelsohn, Richard Jenkins, James Gandolfini, Ray Liotta
Country: USA

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie