By 1995, the western genre had all but disappeared completely from our cinema screens. Black-and-white tales of cowboys and Indians in America's Old West was the stuff your granddad would watch on television during the day and claim they just don't make 'em like this anymore. They didn't stop completely however, with the likes of Jim Jarmusch's Dead Man making an earnest attempt toinfuse the genre with a psychedelic, folksy edge, and George P. Cosmatos' Tombstone turning the events at the OK Corral into an explosive action thriller. Some, like Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven, while adding a more sombre tone, successfully stuck the traditions of the genre, while others, like Sam Raimi's The Quick and the Dead, simply took an old-fashioned premise and ran with it. If you're looking for revisionism or an interesting take on an iconic time in America's history, then The Quick and the Dead ain't the film for that, but you may just find yourself having a bit more fun that you expected.
The town of Redemption was once a thriving community, but it now rests in the hands of the ruthless mayor and former outlaw John Herod (Gene Hackman). Herod enjoys a nice house while taxing his citizens 50% on any money they make, and apparently relieves his boredom by hosting a quick-draw contest every year. Gunslingers from all across the country arrive to take part - but God knows why, given the obviously high risk of death - including the mysterious Ellen (Sharon Stone), who shares a history with both the town and Herod himself. Also in town is Kid (Leonardo DiCaprio), a cocky teenager with a steady hand who also believes he is Herod's unacknowledged son, and a repentant outlaw-turned-preacher named Cort (Russell Crowe). Cort is dragged into the contest against his will by Herod's cronies, and the boss man is seemingly angered at his former associate's new anti-violence stance. There's backstory and melodrama, but it's all just an excuse for a series of stand-offs in a town where it always seems to be high noon.
While subverting expectations by enlisting a woman to play the central gunslinger, Raimi may as well have cast a broom in a wig, as Stone struggles to convincingly brood and frown and maintain any kind of interest in her character. Faring considerably better are DiCaprio and Crowe, who were just a few years off Titanic and Gladiator and the global stardom that followed. Their charisma and star quality are as clear as day, especially when they share a scene with the one-note Stone. For a film that boasts a wonderful supporting cast (Roberts Blossom, Tobin Bell, Keith David, Lance Henriksen and Gary Sinise are just some of the familiar faces), they all cower in the shadow of Gene Hackman, who somehow manages to turn some truly atrocious dialogue into Shakespeare. Yet the real star is Raimi's crazy camera lens. Before he was bringing Peter Parker's swinging exploits vividly to life in Spider-Man, he was crash-zooming on the faces of readying gunslingers and capturing daylight through a bullet-hole in the belly. It's silly, outrageous and wonderful. The problem is everything that comes in between, from the dreary central hero to the unengaging backstories.
Shot back-to-back with Critters 4, this third instalment of the relatively successful comedy-horror series featuring the oddly cute but deadly crites was the first to skip theatres and arrive straight to video. The movie starts as widowed father Clifford (John Calvin), his daughter Annie (Aimee Brooks) and son Johnny (Christian and Joseph Cousins) drive home from their family vacation. When they are forced to pull over due to a flat tire, Annie and Johnny head to a rest stop to play a bit of Frisbee, where they encounter Josh (Leonardo DiCaprio), a floppy-haired cool-kid with an arsehole of a stepfather (William Dennis Hunter), who just so happens to be the landlord of the family. While stationed there, they encounter alien bounty hunter Charlie (Don Keith Opper) who warns the children of another crite invasion.
After a summary of the previous two movies by the former Grover's Bend sheriff-turned-intergalactic alien killer, the family arrive at their apartment building where a collection of comedy archetypes reside. Some eggs hatch and the usual havoc ensues as the new collection of furry killers travel from floor to floor munching anything they can get their teeth into. The action stops at the apartment building once we arrive there and this is where the budget constraints become obvious. Not that the Critters franchise was ever blessed with innovative special effects or puppet-work, but things seem especially lazy and poorly done here.
With everything taking place in one location, we are forced to sit through set-piece after set-piece, as the crites do little but bounce or roll to the next attack and use their poisoned darts to varying degrees of success, usually depending on who they're shooting at. The attempts are humour are childish, with one of the few interesting characters - no-nonsense maintenance lady Marcia (Katherine Cortez) - left literally swinging from a wire for an extended amount of time in a running joke that quickly wears thin. Similar to Gremlins (1984), there is an attempt to give the critters some kind of personality, but they prove as indistinguishable from one another as they have previously. Worth watching only for the curiosity of seeing future A-lister Leonardo DiCaprio in one of his earliest appearances.
Although it took home the Best Picture gong last year and I personally found it an immersing and wonderfully bizarre experience, Birdman Or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) was far from the year's most satisfying movie. Still, director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu demonstrated enough desire to take the movie-going experience to the next level (with unfathomably long takes masterminded by cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki) to have me excited about his next project, and the revelation that it was to be set in 1820's America around the legendary story of Hugh Glass had me foaming at the gills. While The Revenant is not the masterpiece I was hoping for, it is a gruelling, brutal and frequently breathtaking tale of survival.
Glass's story has been altered to fit a more conventional narrative, and the opening scenes introduce us, Terrence Malick-style, to his Pawnee wife (Grace Dove) and son Hawk (Forrest Goodluck), in flashback. These floaty, dream-like moments quickly give way to the harshness of the Louisiana wilderness where Glass (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his son are working as part of a fur-trapper party under the command of Captain Henry (Domhnall Glesson). While Glass hunts for pelts, the rest of the party are set upon by hostile Arikara Indians, who slaughter a third of the men before the ragged group, with Glass, escape down river. This opening scene, as teased in the trailer, is the film's Omaha Beach, and is captured by Lubezki's never-still camera, constantly swirling from one act of brutality to the next.
We jump on the back of the horse and off again, follow men as they kill and then be killed, under water and onto a boat, and then we are left to catch our breath. Combined with the eerie score, it makes for a delirious and awe-aspiring set-piece. As the group decide just how to get back to camp with their lives, they touch land again where Glass is set upon by a grizzly bear, in what is surely cinema's most convincing moment of man vs. nature. The attack has been compared to a rape, and as Glass screams for his life while being brutally and helplessly torn apart by the giant beast, it's hard to avoid the comparison. Found by his group, he is left in the care of the unhinged John Fitzgerald (Tom Hardy) and youngster Jim Bridger (Will Pouler). Betrayed and left for dead, Glass must drag his broken body across 200 miles of wilderness for revenge.
The famously difficult shoot, in which the crew were given the task of shooting chronologically on location using natural lighting, all in the harshest of environments, certainly benefits the film. The exhaustion is etched on the character's faces, with DiCaprio in particular carrying the film on his shredded back as he sucks marrow from a long-dead animal carcass and snuggles up inside the body of a horse for warmth. The film doesn't so much celebrate the strength of human will when faced with impossible odds, but marvel at how much the human body can withstand in the most unwelcome of locations. Through Lubezki's lens, the wilderness has never been a more fearsome foe, but also rarely quite as beautiful. Both DiCaprio and Lubezki are surely odds on favourites come Oscar time - the former a talent deserving of Academy recognition and the latter looking for his third triumph in as many years.
However, the film is not without its flaws. The tweeks to Glass's real-life story (or what is known of it) mean that Inarritu has opted for a more conventional revenge flick that side-steps any deeper questions that may arise about America's dark history, and fails to add any real dimension to the other races caught up in the action. The Arikara's certainly have a reason for their relentless pursuit, but no explanation is given to why this group is so hostile. The same can be said for the team of French trappers, who appear briefly and serve as little more than a plot device. Near the end of its 150 minute running time, it ponders the purpose of revenge like a thousand movies before it but fails to say anything new. Yet, while it arguably fails thematically, The Revenant is at its best when its showing off, delivering a couple of key set-pieces that throw you head-first into the mayhem like nothing else I've seen, backed by impressive performances by DiCaprio and a mumbling Hardy.
Inception wasn't the only time English writer-director Christopher Nolan has blown our minds with a big-budget summer blockbuster - two years before, he made The Dark Knight, which destroyed most people's pre-conceptions of what superhero movies should be made of, and showed you that movies designed to make a lot of money can work your brain as much as your heart-rate. Inception also blows the minds of it's characters, themselves barely able to keep up with the multi-level dream universe they create. It's a film that revels in it's own heavy exposition; finding visual thrills in discovering the possibilities of consciously walking through a dream, or showing you the beautiful art of dream-stealing.
It follows Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio), an exiled criminal who makes his money from corporate espionage jobs bankrolled by rich CEO's. Only, Cobb applies his craft by entering people's dreams, extracting information left over by the dreamer's subconscious, usually within a locked safe or protected by projections of that subconscious. After a botched job, Cobb's target Saito (Ken Watanabe) offers him the chance to redeem himself and to go home, only the task is not to steal information, but to implant it, known as 'inception'. Saito wants Cobb to implant an idea into the head of Robert Fischer (Cillian Murphy), the heir to an energy conglomerate. Cobb alone has ever achieved inception, but it is a near impossible task, especially with the psychopathic projection of his dead wife (Marion Cotillard) stalking his subconscious.
It's a dangerous and bold thing for a mainstream director to have confidence in it's audiences intelligence. If there's a main problem with Inception, it is probably that things get a little too baffling at times, as the crew delve deeper and deeper into the levels of the dream, and new rules start to apply. There is a lot of information to process here, and the film spends nearly its duration trying to explain it to us. But Nolan is a fantastic writer, and most directors would lose the audience without such expert storytelling ability and great dialogue. Thankfully, Ariadne (Ellen Page), an architecture student recommended to Cobb to design the dream world, plays as a proxy for the audience, learning as we learn.
Ariadne is one of a bunch of experts lined up for the job - Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is Cobb's right-hand man and the brains behind the job, Eames (Tom Hardy) is a skilled in-dream impersonator, and Yusuf (Dileep Rao) is a chemist who provides a knockout drug so powerful that the dreamers cannot be shaken awake. There's also Tom Berenger, Michael Caine, Lukas Haas and Pete Postlethwaite in the mix, making this a huge ensemble. As expected, Nolan keeps tabs on them all, never allowing you to forget about anyone or about what the role they have to play. It's a miracle he even managed to line up such an impressive group of actors, let alone make sure no-one gets lost amongst the thick plot.
Although the climax gets a little too over-crowded in the final half an hour, and Nolan places us in the pretty dull setting of a snowy mountain, this is still innovative, stylish and exciting action cinema. It still abides by all the standard rules of the genre, but it dares to toy with them and to keep the action moving with intriguing sub-plots or simply delivering an exceptional set-piece (Arthur's no-gravity hallway fight comes to mind). It bends the mind as much as it bends the rules, and this is much about the strangeness of dreams and what it means to dream them. Nolan went on to deliver an ever better movie two years later with The Dark Knight Rises (2012), and I'm eagerly awaiting his upcoming Interstellar (2014). He alone has reawakened my faith in the 'big' movie, proving that films can deliver brains as well as bang for your buck.
Boasting the fifth collaboration between lauded director Martin Scorsese and can-do-no-wrong A-lister Leonardo DiCaprio, The Wolf of Wall Street signals the moment the two finally took the step over the brink. Their previous films together - Gangs of New York (2002), The Aviator (2004), The Departed (2006) and Shutter Island (2010) - were all solid, if hardly groundbreaking works. With The Wolf of Wall Street, Scorsese seems to have let go of his reservations and embraced the daring, X-rated innovations of his 70's and early 80's work, and DiCaprio deserves to look smug after giving his finest performance to date. From the opening shot of DiCaprio snorting cocaine from between a prostitute's open legs, this is 3 hours of utter depravity. And it's hilarious.
Shortly after being taught the ways of excess and cocaine by his Wall Street boss Mark Hanna (Matthew McConaughey), young stockbroker Jordan Belfort (DiCaprio) finds himself out of work following Black Monday. When he takes a boiler room job at a stockbroker's dealing in penny stocks, he learns that commission for these stocks are 50%. Soon enough he is making money hand over fist, setting up his own company, Stratton Oakmont, along with his dentally-challenged follower Donnie Azoff (Jonah Hill). He recruits some of Donnie's marijuana-dealing friends and teaches them a script designed to sell, but ultimately the operation is a pump and dump scam. He is labelled The Wolf of Wall Street in a negative magazine article, yet this propels him to cult fame, and soon has flocks of eager young Gordon Gekko's begging for a piece of the pie.
At one minute shy of 3 hours, the film could certainly do with a trim. Yet Scorsese and DiCaprio's obvious fascination with this anti-hero means that we are treated to experiencing every juvenile and ridiculous second of Belfort's rise to Wall Street superstardom. We get flights with on-board orgies and drug taking, Jonah Hill masturbating in the middle of a crowded party at the sight of Belfort's future wife Naomi (the stunning Margot Robbie), dwarf-tossing, and Belfort taking helicopter lessons whilst drugged off his face. This is certainly dangerous territory - the film could easily slip into a celebration of frat-house antics, which is kind of does, but Scorsese keep the insanity levels at such a height that it's hard not to just laugh and shake your head.
A lot of it is down to the performances of DiCaprio and Hill, the latter of whom is proving to be a damn fine actor beneath that Jew-fro and obnoxious mannerisms. The film's highlight focuses on a botched scheme to smuggle $2 million dollars via Brad (Jon Bernthal) to reptilian French banker Jean (Jean Dujardin). Having learned that FBI agent Denham (Kyle Chandler) has his phones tapped, Belfort must get home to warn Donnie to get off the phone. The only problem is, they've taken a large quantity of Qualuudes. Thinking that years of indulgence have caused a tolerance to build up, the expired best before date have simply lead to a delayed reaction. Belfort suffers from what he describes as 'the cerebral palsy stage', flailing around on the floor without control of his limbs or his speech. His long journey home is the most laugh-out-loud example of drug-fuelled ineptitude since the ether scene in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998).
Of course, the film's morals are questionable, and Scorsese has suffered the same narrow-minded criticism he did from his 'glamorisation' of the mob in Goodfellas (1990). Yet I like to think that Scorsese trusts and respects his audience enough to allow them to think for themselves, to get a laugh from the on-screen antics whilst understanding that this is not the behaviour of a sane or ethical individual. Refreshingly, the movie stays away from any moral preaching or underlying messages, and simply tells a story because it's entertaining. Although it doesn't quite justify it's 3 hour running time, this is the most fun I've had watching a comedy for a long time, and proves that there's plenty of life in Scorsese yet.
I saw Hong Kong crime thriller Infernal Affairs (2002) a couple of years before Martin Scorsese's Hollywood remake The Departed. I remember little of it now, but I do remember finding it to be an ingenious idea and a gripping little movie, albeit a little overrated. Scorsese obviously saw potential in the idea, as The Departed is admittedly bloated, but packed-to-the-gills with eccentric criminals, sweary 'cwops', and CGI blood, expanding the story and characters and executed in that uber-stylish way that the director is so well known for. I'll avoid comparisons to Infernal Affairs as the two share very little in common apart from basic story, and Scorsese makes this film very much his own.
Colin Sullivan (Matt Damon) is enlisted into mob boss Frank Costello's (Jack Nicholson) crime-ring at a young age, and is raised to be an informant in the Massachusetts State Police. New police academy graduate William Costigan (Leonardo DiCaprio), a rough-and-ready type from a colourful family, is forced into going undercover in Costello's gang by Captain Queenan (Martin Sheen) and Sergeant Dignam (Mark Wahlberg). When a rat is exposed on both sides, the two must search desperately for the other before they are unwillingly revealed. Unbeknownst to the both of them, they also share a girl in psychiatrist Madolyn (Vera Farmiga).
If you go into this film expecting a gritty and realistic urban crime thriller, you will be disappointed. Although the subject matter is grim and it certainly doesn't pull its punches when it comes to violence, this is a shiny movie with explosions of bloodshed akin to the comic-book aesthetic of manga, and asks you to suspend your beliefs for the duration. I mean, Costello is a known maniac with no fear of dispatching his own, yet Costigan becomes his right-hand man within months even though he is known to be ex-police? There are plenty of plot-holes that I could mention but won't bother, as they are there for the purpose of telling an entertaining story.
This is Scorsese as unhinged as he's been in years, letting the story just unravel regardless of just how mental it becomes. Nicholson, an actor I cannot believe had never worked with Scorsese before, gets frequently mentioned as stealing the show. He certainly steals his scenes, and grabs the opportunity to improvise with both hands, waving a severed hand in a bag around in one scene, and inexplicably covered with blood in another. Costello wouldn't last a minute in real-life, he's just too obvious and psychopathic, but in this world he thrives, and is a memorable Nicholson creation. But it's actually Wahlberg that steals the show, getting lines such as "if you had an idea of what we do, we would not be good at what we do now would we? We would be cunts. Are you calling us cunts?". It's a testament to his performance that he has probably 10 minutes of screen time and received an Oscar nomination.
DiCaprio and Damon fill their roles admirably, the former being the incarnation of anxiety and the latter proving surprisingly slimy given his history of generally wholesome characters. But its the ensemble that really shines in this array of ridiculous and cartoon characters. By the end, questions of identity and who is really important to the story get blurred with a climax of endless bloodshed. The prize of Best Picture and Best Director now seem somewhat silly, and surely a sympathy vote for Martin Scorsese who has made at least ten other movies more deserving of rewarding his talent. But this is a crazy ride, and one that remains gripping and surprising throughout, bolstered by a smart script and a hell of a cast.
You would be forgiven if, during a screening of Quentin Tarantino's latest Django Unchained, you believed that one of the many directors the film plays homage to, is John Ford. After all, Ford all but made the American western genre his own, from early silents such as The Iron Horse (1924), to well-established classics like My Darling Clementine (1946) and The Searchers (1956), he brought critical adoration to a genre that was then seen as nothing more than popcorn cinema. But Tarantino hates John Ford, to quote - "to say the least, I hate him [...] It really is people like that that kept alive this idea of Anglo-Saxon humanity compared to everybody else's humanity." So, in Django, do we have a post-modern, anti-Ford American West, where a freed black slave is the hero, and the White Man the devil? Well, kinda. But this is Tarantino, and from what was clear from his previous film Inglourious Basterds (2009), he doesn't do things the regular way.
In 1850's Texas, shackled slave Django (Jamie Foxx) is released by dentist and bounty hunter King Schultz (Christoph Waltz), who bargains Django's freedom for information about the Brittle brothers, Schultz's latest bounty. Schultz is opportunistic in his outlook, but makes it clear to Django that he despises slavery. Django informs Schultz that he must find his wife Broomhilda (Kerry Washington), who he was separated from by his previous plantation owner. Moved by his story, Schultz agrees to help Django as well as take him on as an associated bounty hunter, after Django displays a natural ability for gunfighting and killing. Their search leads them to the plantation of Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio), a slaver who deals in 'Mandingo' slaves, along with his own freed slave Stephen (Samuel L. Jackson).
Very much like Inglourious Basterds, the most intriguing thing I found with Django is its sheer unpredictability. The later work of Tarantino have elected to follow very much they're own path, ignoring narrative convention or story-telling tradition in favour of certain scenes or ideas that the director wants there, or focusing on a certain character when they really have no purpose being there. For example, August Diehl's Major Hellstrom appears from nowhere in possibly the finest scene from Inglorious Basterds. He has no other scenes, but his character is instantly intriguing, whereas such a scene and character wouldn't have been given neither the depth or the screen-time if done by somebody else. It is a basic cover-gets-blown scene, seen in a thousand other films, but in Basterds it becomes a masterwork of tension, and features some of Tarantino's best ever dialogue. You could call it indulgent, but Tarantino sees the opportunity to squeeze as much as he can from every possible moment.
Django follows the same idea, but whereas this approach complimented Basterds' chapter-based structure and plethora of supporting characters and extended cameos, Django has neither the wealth of central characters, nor the sheer scope to be a complete success, or to justify it's massive 165-minute running-time. The narrative hook of Django finding his wife is given very little screen-time or focus that by the time this becomes important, its very difficult to really care. The more intriguing relationship that comes out of the film is in fact the one between Django and Schultz - polar opposites in terms of societal position and background - yet both in a situation that calls for them needing each other. The main bulk of the first two-thirds follows the two in the tradition of a buddy-movie, only they get along, and Tarantino manages to eject some fine comic moments into these scenes, as well some actually quite touching ones.
Although he doesn't possess the sociopathic charisma as his Hans Landa from Basterds did, the character of Schultz is another triumph for Tarantino and Waltz both, the latter being recognised again by the Academy and receiving a Best Supporting Actor nod. Like Landa, Schultz is a social intellectual, a man able to use his wits and charm to lure his victims into a false sense of security before either blowing the top of their head off, or outwitting a town's marshal. But it is Waltz - and DiCaprio's maniacal plantation owner - that comes out of this most memorable, not the film's protagonist, Django. Foxx is perfectly fine in the role, as angry and posturing as you would want ("you gonna let me pick my own wardrobe?"), but sadly just as un-memorable. Tarantino seems so wrapped up in Schultz and the film's extreme violence that Django gets left out in the rain, lacking the iconic costume or the stand-out scene that, say, Uma Thurman's The Bride in Kill Bill (2003-2004) had.
Spike Lee has said he will be boycotting the film, claiming the slave trade is not a subject for exploiting or trivialising, and opposes the excessive use of the 'n' word (something he complained about in Jackie Brown (1997) - a film that celebrated one of the most important era's for Black Cinema). It's a shame he will never see the film, as he would realise that not only does Tarantino take the matter seriously, but is the most brutal and explicit depiction of it I've ever seen. The violence is often over-the-top and cartoonish, yes, but is also disturbing and genuinely horrific (the Mandingo fight and dog scene being particular memorable). Tarantino also mocks the KKK (or an early version of it) in a scene which is in direct reference to John Ford playing one of the charging KKK in The Birth of a Nation (1915). Before the charge, they argue about the badly made eye-holes in their masks. It's a light scene given their intention, but goes on far too long to remain funny.
As much as I dislike Tarantino (as a person), his films will always be irresistibly intriguing. Regardless of whether they're self-indulgent missteps such as Death Proof (2007), or strokes of genius like Inglourious Basterds, you will always be getting something profoundly different to anything that any other director is even contemplating. Django is no different, setting out on one path and ending up wandering several detours, like a fat kid happily chasing the scent of gingerbread. When we do get to the end, it suffers from a serious anti-climax - disappointing given the 150-minute build-up. This is not the great film it really could have been, due to the neglect of its lead, a lack of real focus, and a final half hour that seems to strive for super-cool moments of iconography, rather than giving the film the satisfying ending that it really deserves. Ennio Morricone's title song is amazing, however.
After seeing his father 'Priest' (Liam Neeson) murdered at the hands of rival gang leader Bill 'the Butcher' Cutting (Daniel Day-Lewis) 16 years before, Amsterdam Vallon (Leonardo DiCaprio) returns to the Five Points in New York seeking revenge. Not much has changed since he fled, as tension remains between the 'Natives', the Irish immigrants, the Chinese and the blacks, only Bill now rules over with an iron fist, helping corrupt politician William 'Boss' Tweed (Jim Broadbent) gain votes. With the help of old friend Johnny (Henry Thomas), Amsterdam finds himself working his way up Bill's ranks, and after thwarting an assassination attempt on Bill, Amsterdam wonders if he did it out of his desire to kill Bill himself, or a growing loyalty to his new employer.
Following a lengthy book-to-screen adaptation, Scorsese's historical epic reached the cinema screens 23 years after he bought the rights to Herbert Asbury's book The Gangs of New York: An Informal History of the Underworld,amongst stories of studio fall-outs and arguments over final cut. It seems all those years of pondering did not allow Scorsese to fine-tune his vision, and although the film looks absolutely astonishing, the result is a bit of a mess, albeit one that never gets boring. Telling such a detailed historical account of America's fist-fights for power amongst mass immigration and racial tension could not have come at a more suitable time, as the 9/11 attacks occurred during production. But Scorsese chooses to cram this in with sub-plots of political corruption, a love-story between Amsterdam and thief Jenny (Cameron Diaz), the New York Draft Riots, and the central revenge story.
Of course, the film's ultimate saving grace is Daniel Day-Lewis, who gives a theatrical, sledgehammer performance as the one eyed-monster, and his scene where he sits talking to Amsterdam with an American flag draped over his shoulders is worth a thousand Academy Awards alone. Among the wave of dodgy Oirish accents, DiCaprio's isn't that bad, pulling of a credible performance which would jump-start his close relationship with Scorsese in the years after. Amsterdam is no regular hero, he's just as violent as the next thug, and one of the most interesting aspects of the film is how Scorsese tends not to show any race or group in a particularly good light. This is America's dirty beginnings after all, and boy is it bloody - heads are bludgeoned, cheeks are torn from their face - it's probably Scorsese's most gruesome since Casino (1995).
Second time around, Gangs of New York did seem admittedly better paced and more fleshed out (I thought I might even be watching a director's cut), with the political goings-on and the various sub-plots making much more sense. But the film is still a mess, and it progresses with a taste for almost glamorising the violence. The opening scene depicting the bloody fight between the Butcher's natives and the Priest's Dead Rabbits comes with slow-motion and electric guitar music, and this punk-ish approach causes it to clash with its historical setting. However, it looks staggering. The costumes, the huge sets, and the dirt and grit, has an epic David Lean quality, almost old-fashioned in a way. Yet this is a very modern film, and perhaps a more classical approach may have benefited the film which is ultimately unfocused, but effortlessly thrilling.
The first half of the 20th century was an incredibly corrupt and conspiratorial period, particularly in American politics. A figure within this rich history was John Edgar Hoover, founder and head of the FBI from it's inception in 1935. He did much for the modernisation of police procedure, but he was also a very contentious character. He kept secret files on public figures, using them to blackmail. This also kept each new president in check, creating a position in the country who was above the law, unaccountable, and practically untouchable. His FBI was corrupt, and Hoover himself publicly stated that organised crime did not exist on the level that was claimed about The Mafia. It's interesting that it was not until Hoover's death in 1972, that the US supreme court et al began investigating and eventually prosecuting organised gangs.
Obviously this first paragraph is unable to summarise the full complexity of a man, - speculated as being homosexual (something that has never been proven) - I was expecting good things for a project directed by Clint Eastwood (who has been active over the last decade or so, producing some incredibly accomplished films), and starring Leonardo DiCaprio (who has himself been involved in great films, and performing spectacularly - despite still having the "heart-throb" label attached to him due to one film, Titanic (1997).
J. Edgar's main focus is not necessarily the full complexities of the real man. It's attention is focused upon the man as a public figure, a character that he plays himself in life. The image is important to him; he is shown as being a great PR man. In the early stages of the FBI, he influenced the content of radio shows, comic books and movies (such as 'G' Men (1935)) that were depicting the courageous activities of the bureau. Hoover's public image is portrayed as being practically identical to his private persona, keeping only three people close to him: His mother Anna Marie (Judi Dench), his secretary (Naomi Watts), and Clyde Tolson (Armie Hammer), his close associate at the FBI. Tolson and Hoover were close their entire careers, leading to the speculation that they were lovers - something that seems plausible on the evidence, but has no concrete conclusion. Therefore, the film only really briefly suggest this, leaving the viewer to ponder personal conclusions.
Whilst the screenplay (written by Dustin Lance Black, who had previously won an Oscar for the fantastic Milk (2008)) fails to really explore the ambiguities, or even much of the psychological complexities of Hoover, the production is exceptional. The film's span brings it through the 1920's into the 1970's and costume, sets and cinematography is dazzlingly beautiful, and exacting of their periods. DiCaprio's performance is good, but the screen is quite often filled with prosthetically 'enhanced' pensioner's, which at times actually aggravated me. This is not to say that the make-up is bad, it is very good. This could have been less distracting had there only been one character, however, with three or more, is too much. With some great talent attached to this project, I would have expected a more interesting film. As it is, it's not the worst biopic that I have ever seen. However, for my money, if you want a film about this interesting historical figure, I would advise you watch Larry Cohen's excellent low budget The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover (1977).
Based on the autobiographical novel written by Jim Carroll, The Basketball Diaries follows one young man's descent into addiction, crime and homelessness. Jim (here played with mature dedication by Leonardo Di Caprio) is a promising high school basketball player, who along with his three friends, enjoy shooting hoops and getting into general mischief. What starts out as a past-time, soon deteriorates into something more deprived and desperate, as Jim sees his world crash around him as his drug habit becomes an unstoppable affliction.
When Jim's situation gets so desperate that he leaves home to hustle and rob on the streets, he begins to push away the people in his life that were once close to him. His mother, played by Lorraine Bracco, throws him out after the extremities of his situation become apparent to her and refuses him back. Reggie (Ernie Hudson) was an inspirational figure and mentor to Jim and regularly met up to play basketball in the court. And Neutron (Patrick McGaw) distances himself from Jim and his friends' habits and focuses on his basketball career, much to Jim's dismay. These people will all have a profound effect on Jim's eventual redemption. The film also switches the book's real-life setting from 1960's New York to the 90's.
What The Basketball Diaries attempts to do is to create a realistic and gritty (a phrase that seems to be thrown around a lot these days) depiction of drug abuse, and create a hellish portrait of a confused young man who his throwing away his many talents in favour of a life that is doing nothing but ruining his life and isolating the people around him. In reality, this is a terribly-directed film that seems to sledgehammer the phrase 'drugs are bad' into the viewers skull, rather than having the nerve, or in deed the respect, to let the audience make their own mind up. Or maybe the director doesn't have the skill to create a film capable of conjuring up those feelings in the viewer. It sounds ridiculous, but if you have seen the South Park episode where Mr Mackey is giving his anti-drug lecture by simply listing the drugs that are 'bad', then you can see a clear parallel to this film. Jim basically goes from one drug to the other and one crime to the next. It's not interesting, convincing, and to be honest I found it all just very annoying.
Jim is a character of no redeeming qualities. He's selfish, careless, and is basically a whiny little shit. Fair enough, this is a chance to develop an interesting, fully-rounded character, but director Scott Kalvert and scriptwriter Bryan Goluboff cannot combine their 'skills' to pull it off. Even though Jim narrates the film and reveals everything about his feelings and opinions, and Di Caprio's fantastic performance, we never get inside Jim's head enough to understand him and why he is willing to give up on a fledging basketball career. This is a character that we're supposed to be praying for to overcome his addiction, but (spoilers!) when his clean-break arrived, I asked myself should I be feeling happy for this arsehole?
A well-acted film all-round, namely from the lead and Mark Wahlberg as his friend Mickey, but a film that is swamped in faults and scenes that are just ridiculous. Possibly only remotely remembered for the controversial scene where Jim storms his school with a shotgun in a drug-addled fantasy, which was caught up in the media storm surrounding the Columbine High School massacre. Watch only for signs of early promise from Di Caprio, but otherwise avoid.
The town of Redemption was once a thriving community, but it now rests in the hands of the ruthless mayor and former outlaw John Herod (Gene Hackman). Herod enjoys a nice house while taxing his citizens 50% on any money they make, and apparently relieves his boredom by hosting a quick-draw contest every year. Gunslingers from all across the country arrive to take part - but God knows why, given the obviously high risk of death - including the mysterious Ellen (Sharon Stone), who shares a history with both the town and Herod himself. Also in town is Kid (Leonardo DiCaprio), a cocky teenager with a steady hand who also believes he is Herod's unacknowledged son, and a repentant outlaw-turned-preacher named Cort (Russell Crowe). Cort is dragged into the contest against his will by Herod's cronies, and the boss man is seemingly angered at his former associate's new anti-violence stance. There's backstory and melodrama, but it's all just an excuse for a series of stand-offs in a town where it always seems to be high noon.
