Review #1,377: 'Ant-Man and the Wasp' (2018)

After the fate-of-the-universe shenanigans of Avengers: Infinity War just three months ago (two months if you live in a country where football isn't that popular), Marvel's twentieth entry into their unstoppable cinematic universe, or MCU, understandably plays the role of palette-cleanser. Infinity War included every Marvel superhero so far, except Hawkeye, and while we still await a solo outing for nobody's favourite Avenger, Ant-Man - who was also absent from the cosmic battle against Thanos - is back for a sequel. The first Ant-Man somehow survived the loss of director Edgar Wright and emerged as a lighter, smaller-scale branch of the ever-expanding MCU. It may have followed the formula of Iron Man's origin very closely, but it was incredibly inventive when its hero suited-up and scaled-down to dodge everything from huge feet pounding a dancefloor, a hungry rat, or the sight of his giant best friend naked. Without the comforts of the origin story however, Ant-Man and the Wasp and returning director Peyton Reed are at a loss which direction to go, and end up throwing multiple storylines at the wall to see what sticks. Sadly, not much does.

It's been two years since Scott Lang (Paul Rudd), aka Ant-Man, was drafted into Captain America's crew for a battle against Tony Stark and the Sokovia Accords in Germany. As we saw from the ending of Captain America: Civil War, Lang was imprisoned, but is now being allowed to serve the remainder of his sentence under house arrest, under the watchful eye of FBI agent Jimmy Woo (a scene-stealing Randall Park). With his new friends off fighting global threats and Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) not talking to him for stealing one of his suits, Lang passes the time building huge play-houses for his superhero-obsessed daughter Cassie (Abby Ryder Fortson), as well as playing drums, watching a lot of television, and crying reading The Fault in our Stars. At night, he is plagued by nightmares of the Quantum Realm, the microscopic world he found himself in during his showdown with Darren Cross, where time and space become irrelevant. He doesn't know it, but Hank and his daughter Hope van Dyne (Evangeline Lilly) are also thinking about the Realm, in the hope of finding their wife/mother Janet (Michelle Pfeiffer), who disappeared thirty years earlier during a mission with her husband. When Lang starts to receive strange messages seemingly from Janet, Pym has no choice but to bring the cat-burglar back into the fold in the hope of nailing her location.

The first Ant-Man kept its exposition zippy, sweeping you up into its flow so that all the scientific jibberish being explained simply washed over you. Ant-Man and the Wasp must hold the world record for the number of times the word 'quantum' has been used within two hours. Janet can communicate with Lang through quantum entanglement, where particles interact in ways that essentially make them indistinguishable, even when they are separated by a huge distance. The film's 'villain', Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen) experiences molecular instability due to an accident during a quantum experiment, meaning that she can phase through solid matter at will. At one point, Lang questions if the boffins tasked with explaining all of this to us simply put the word 'quantum' in front of everything. This is played for laughs, but doesn't necessarily absolve the film of the problem. Also thrown into the mix is slimy businessman Sonny Burch, played by a wasted Walton Goggins, who wants his greedy hands of Pym's tech and will stop at nothing until he has it. For a series that now prides itself on a lighter tone, it's a lot of plot to take in. The trippy Quantum Realm was teased in the first Ant-Man, and it remains a tease here. There's literally a whole new world to explore at sub-atomic level, yet it remains a frustrating mystery.

While there's way too much going on plot-wise, Ant-Man and the Wasp doesn't disappoint with its set-pieces. As glimpsed in the trailer, the heroes turn everything from a salt-shaker to a Hello Kitty pez dispenser into a weapon, normally hurled at their enemies and used to block their path. With her ability to fly and shoot from the wrist, Wasp gets to kick the most ass, dispensing a vehicle full of baddies with speed and efficiency, and all brought to life with stunning special effects. Lang's motor-mouthed associate Luis (Michael Pena) also returns for a beefier part, with his gift for story-telling once again proving a highlight. Laurence Fishburne helps establish some gravitas whenever he is on screen as Bill Foster, Pym's former co-worker on the G.O.L.I.A.T.H. project and whose existence was teased as far back as Iron Man 2. It's ultimately two hours of fluff and Peyton Reed (along with his five writers, including Rudd) knows it, and while this was very much part of the character's charm the first time around, many jokes here fall flat. There are nice touches, such as Pym's laboratory, populated by giant ants carrying out maintenance work and tiny objects blown up in size stitching the whole thing together, which can be shrunken down to luggage size with the click of a button. Lang's relationship with his daughter is also very touching. But Reed never fully commits to one idea and refuses to run with the many promising ideas the film touches on. With the likes of Guardians of the Galaxy and Thor: Ragnarok willing to embrace the crazy, Ant-Man and the Wasp was always going to pale in comparison.


Directed by: Peyton Reed
Starring: Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lilly, Michael Douglas, Michael Peña, Hannah John-Kamen, Laurence Fishburne, Michelle Pfeiffer, Walton Goggins, Randall Park
Country: USA

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie

Review #1,157: 'War on Everyone' (2016)

Irish-born, London-based writer/director John Michael McDonagh's previous two films, The Guard (2011) and Calvary (2014), were jet-black comedies set in his native country, and both featured knockout performances from their lead, Brendan Gleeson. McDonagh's debut features were warmly received by critics, especially Calvary, which played out a rather twisted revenge tale against a backdrop of religious guilt. Neither managed to generate much commercial success, but nevertheless made McDonagh hot property and offered him the chance to work in the U.S., much like his brother Martin after In Bruges. Has John gone the way of his brother and delivered a misfire in the mould of the messy Seven Psychopaths?

Well in a way, yes. More akin to the broad, bad-taste tale of a corrupt, hateful cop on a journey of redemption in The Guard than the contemplative weight of Calvary, War on Everyone moves the action to Albuquerque, New Mexico and replaces Gleeson with the sharply-dressed, acid-tongued duo of Alexander Skarsgard and Michael Pena as bad cop and badder cop. Skarsgard plays Terry Monroe, an alcoholic, Glen Campbell-loving giant of a man who is prone to violence. Pena is Bob Bolano, an intellectual family man who enjoys philosophical arguments with his wife (Stephanie Sigman) while berating his fat children. They are the worst kind of cops imaginable; both are corrupt beyond belief, taking cuts of every stash or bundle of money they find, and generally fucking up scumbags left right and centre.

McDonagh has great faith in his actors to make these truly despicable characters seemingly defined by their quirks likeable, and it's a testament to the leading men that they actually manage to pull it off. Pena can do this kind of thing in his sleep - he could be playing Hitler and will still charm the pants off anybody watching. The real revelation is Skarsgard, showing a real knack for comic timing after previously being resigned to more stoic roles. Apparently Garret Hedlund pulled out at the last minute, and what a stroke of luck that turned out to be. At almost 6"5 and permanently hunched, Skarsgard often resembles a slow-witted giant come to stomp the place to pieces, instantly banishing all memory of the ripped hunk of The Legend of Tarzan. The duo's chemistry really holds the film together, as the remainder is little more than a mishmash of violence, colourful characters and homages.

Another way to make loathsome characters more sympathetic is by pitting them against someone even more heinous. Here the big villain is English aristocrat James Mangan (Theo James), a narcissistic psychopath whose planned heist with Muslim convert and police informer Reggie X (Malcolm Barrett) ends in a bloodbath. Terry and Bob still want their cut though, but the well-spoken Lord may prove too powerful to intimidate, especially with police chief Gerry Stanton (Paul Reiser) and City Hall breathing down their necks. It's not a particularly interesting story to build a collection of shakedowns, car chases and shoot-outs around, but some relief is offered in the relationship between Terry and former stripper Jackie (Tessa Thompson), who form a sweet romance amidst all the misanthropy. A certain step back after the mastery of Calvary, War on Everyone will offend some but have others in stitches, and I'm somewhere in between.


Directed by: John Michael McDonagh
Starring: Alexander Skarsgård, Michael Peña, Theo James, Tessa Thompson, Caleb Landry Jones, Stephanie Sigman, Malcolm Barrett, Paul Reiser
Country: UK

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie

Review #1,059: 'End of Watch' (2012)

David Ayer has forged a pretty decent career examining the darker corners of Los Angeles and the cops and criminals that inhabit it. While the writer/director has pained officers of the law with heavy shades of grey in the likes of Training Day (2001), Dark Blue (2002) and Street Kings (2008), End of Watch is one big salute to the boys in blue. While the partners at the centre of the story occasionally enjoy a ruckus and bend the rules when the situation calls for it, they are undoubtedly the good guys worthy of every medal going. In order to place the audience right in the firing line, the film is shot documentary-style using miniature cameras.

Old friends and long-time partners Brian Taylor (Jake Gyllenhaal) and Mike Zavala (Michael Pena) are beat cops, patrolling the streets of South Central L.A. and answering calls for anything from domestic violence to come gruesome murders committed by the Sinaloa Cartel. For a 'project', Brian decides to record everything he and Mike experience while on patrol, fixing cameras to their bodies for a full POV perspective. Outside of the force, Brian and Mike are the best of friends, with Brian starting a relationship with the spunky Janet (Anna Kendrick) and the two double-dating with Mike and his wife. But unbeknown to them, the Cartel have placed a target on their heads after they expose a cell for human trafficking.

Your opinion of End of Watch will most likely depend on your stance on the 'found footage' genre. It's been done to death, especially in the past few years, and here it feels like its employment is a gimmick designed to make it stand out from the barrage of cop movies that are churned out of every year, although it does add a sense of reality to the action. Along with Brian and Mike's mini-cams, the gang of Surenos employed by the Cartel also film each other as they talk tough about killing cops and swear a lot. Ayer also uses an extra camera on occasion, even when there are no characters there to stand behind it. It's an uneven and almost redundant tactic, that it's a wonder why Ayer didn't simply stick to the film's main hook of having the actors film each other.

One of the most impressive things about End of Watch is the chemistry between Gyllenhaal and Pena. Both deliver terrific, believable performances, and their in-car banter provides most of the laughs. While their chest-puffing, overly-masculine chit-chat and behaviour does become somewhat exhausting, they are likeable, down-to-earth company. It also depicts a truly terrifying Los Angeles, with the streets brimming with danger and violent thugs ready to pounce. It almost feels like some war-torn country at the other side of the world rather than the city often portrayed as exciting and glamorous in cinema. It's very much a mixed bag overall - a silly action climax betrays the gritty realism that comes before - but there are many palm-wetting moments to be admired.


Directed by: David Ayer
Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Michael Peña, Anna Kendrick, Natalie Martinez, David Harbour, Frank Grillo, America Ferrera
Country: USA

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie

Review #967: 'The Martian' (2015)

The poster for Ridley Scott's 1979 sci-fi masterpiece Alien told us that in space, no-one can hear you scream. 36 years later, and it would seem that no-one can hear you colonising a planet in a desperate effort to stay alive either. Scott's latest, which has recently invited controversy due to its ridiculous Golden Globe victory in the 'Musical or Comedy' category, takes a refreshingly optimistic view of one man's struggle when left stranded on Mars with only his wits and a never-ending list of obstacles to overcome to keep him from losing his sanity. After the let-down of Scott's recent return to the sci-fi genre with Prometheus, The Martian has the director firmly back in form.

In 2035, the crew of the Ares III, commanded by Melissa Lewis (Jessica Chastain), are exploring the surface of Mars when a violent dust storm forces them to flee. Botanist Mark Watney (Matt Damon) is struck by debris and when his space suit reports a breach and no sign of life, the remaining crew reluctantly escape presuming Mark to be dead. When he awakes hours later with an antenna protruding from his stomach and his oxygen levels dangerously low, he makes his way back to the living quarters and quickly sets about calculating how long he can survive on what he has. Discovering he only has about a month left, he "sciences the shit" out of whatever he can salvage and successfully starts growing food.

As ludicrous as The Martian's inclusion in the Musical or Comedy category was, the film is still very funny. In one of many efforts to hold on to his sanity, Mark talks to himself while recording a log of his actions, revealing a laid-back and sardonic sense of humour which seems to come naturally to the actor. With little in the way of explosive set-pieces, The Martian opts to be subtly engaging as opposed to outright exciting. Mark's can-do attitude gives a stubborn optimism to the movie's outlook, and with comments such as "fuck you, Mars" following one particularly hard-earned achievement, it's hard not to cheer him along. 

Also absent are any suggestions of puffy-chested patriotism or evil-doing among the people back on Earth trying to bring Mark home. The only person resembling a 'baddie' who mission director Vincent Karpoor (Chiwetel Ejiofor) clashes heads with is NASA director Teddy Sanders (Jeff Daniels), but even he retains his humanity throughout. If there is a criticism to be had, it's that Mark never feels truly in danger in such an inhospitable landscape. But The Martian takes care to lay out and explain all the science-y stuff going on with clarity and without heavy exposition, and although I wouldn't have a clue if what they were saying was nonsense or mathematically correct, you have to marvel at the detail. A smart and unexpectedly joyous space survival movie, with what is undoubtedly Damon's finest performance to date.

Directed by: Ridley Scott

Starring: Matt Damon, Jessica Chastain, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Kristen Wiig, Jeff Daniels, Sean Bean, Michael Peña, Kate Mara, Sebastian Stan, Aksel Hennie

Country: USA/UK

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie

Review #950: 'Ant-Man' (2015)

When the news broke that Edgar Wright, the visionary writer-director who had been working on adapting Ant-Man for Marvel since before Iron Man (2008) and the development of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, dropped out citing creative differences with the studio, things didn't look promising for the miniature hero. Still, Wright and co-writer Joe Cornish's story remained in tact and the directorial reigns were passed to Peyton Reed, director of such routine genre fare as The Break-Up (2006) and Yes Man (2008). Although we can lament the loss of Wright's take on the character - a version we will now never see - Ant-Man turned out better than anyone could have expected.

One of the Marvel's biggest problems is constantly setting up their heroes to face a big bad with a plan to destroy the world in one shape or another, leading to a special effects-laden showdown in which all is saved (bringing down a building or ten in the process). The motivation for strapping on the suit for cat burglar Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) is not to prevent global destruction, but to redeem himself in the eyes of his young daughter, whose growing-up he has missed the bulk of due to a stretch in San Quentin. Following his release, Lang tries to go straight and gets a demeaning job, which he soon loses when they discover his criminal past. Unable to pay child support to his ex-wife (Judy Greer) and her new cop hubby (Bobby Cannavale), he takes a big job suggested to him by old criminal acquaintance Luis (the scene-stealing Michael Pena).

When Lang successfully breaks into the high-tech safe, all he finds is an old suit and some jars containing various coloured liquids. Curious, he tries on the suit (kudos to costume designer Sammy Sheldon for the steampunk creation) which shrinks him down to the size of a pencil tip. Guided by a strange voice in his ear, he escapes a bath filling with water, a packed dance-floor and a hungry rat, eventually working out how to grow to normal size again. It turns out that the voice belongs to Hank Pym (Michael Douglas), a former S.H.I.E.L.D. agent who perfected the ability to shrink down the size between atoms while maximising speed and strength, but who hid his formula from the world in the hope of preventing its misuse. Pym hopes to employ Lang, with the help of his daughter Hope (Evangeline Lilly), to break into his own company's headquarters and steal a similar suit developed by his mentally unstable former protege Darren Cross (Corey Stoll). Or, as he puts it, "break into a place and steal some shit."

One of the key reasons that led to the abdication of Edgar Wright was Marvel (and Disney's) desire to see Ant-Man woven into the bigger Universe. While I have no doubt Wright's version would have been a stand-alone treat full of the visual splendour seen in the likes of Hot Fuzz (2007) and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010), the final product of Ant-Man in no way suffers from referencing events of Avengers: Age Of Ultron (2015) and the upcoming Captain America: Civil War, and manages to maintain a low-key feel. Anyone who knows anything about the comics will know what a huge character Hank Pym is, so leaving him out of the bigger picture would have certainly been a missed opportunity. It also leaves room for one the film's funniest scenes, in which Lang inadvertently arrives at the new Avengers base to steal a piece of technology, and finds himself up against the Falcon (Anthony Mackie) in the process.

Rudd works those puppy-dog eyes overtime and gains abs to rival Chris Pratt's recent transformation for Star-Lord in Guardians of the Galaxy, helping make Lang one of the most loveable reluctant heroes of all of Marvel's 'Phases'. He is one of the most effortlessly endearing comedians working at the moment, but its Michael Pena who stands out the most as his fast-talking criminal sidekick. Douglas also brings experience and emotional weight as the complex Pym, and Lilly demonstrates some untapped physical prowess while rocking a bob. It isn't perfect of course - Cross isn't a particularly interesting villain although Stoll performs well, and perhaps the script tries to tell one joke too many at times. But any film that successfully convinces you that its protagonist can talk to ants without drawing immediate laughter (even getting us to care for Lang's winged favourite Anthony) is doing something right. Roll on the recently-announced sequel, Ant-Man and the Wasp.


Directed by: Peyton Reed
Starring: Paul Rudd, Michael Douglas, Evangeline Lilly, Corey Stoll, Bobby Cannavale, Michael Peña, Judy Greer, Anthony Mackie
Country: USA

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie

Review #844: 'Fury' (2014)

It's highly likely that David Ayer's Fury will conjure memories of Saving Private Ryan (1998). It will also bring to mind The Wild Geese (1978), The Dirty Dozen (1967), and just about every World War II movie ever made. It's also hard to shake off the idea that Brad Pitt is not playing Aldo Raine, his drawling, neck-scarred leader of a band of Nazi hunters in Quentin Tarantino's excellent Inglourious Basterds (2009). Although Fury is certainly not lacking in spectacle and decent performances, it just doesn't come up with any ideas of its own, stumbling along a wafer-thin narrative and getting lost on its way to try and figure out what type of film it wants to be.

We are in the climatic days of the war, with the U.S. deep into Germany territory, and the crew of 'Fury', an M4A3E8 Sherman tank, long battle-worn. Don 'Wardaddy' Collier (Pitt) is a hard man (we first meet him knocking a German soldier from his horse and stabbing him to death), but he struggles dealing with the horrors he has witnessed. With a crew member dead in their latest fight, rookie Norman (Logan Lerman), a kid who has never fired a gun or experienced combat, is plucked from his typing duties and thrown into Fury. The crew, consisting of bible-bashing gunner, er, Bible (Shia LaBeouf), token Hispanic driver Gordo Garcia (Michael Pena), and scumbag mechanic Coon-Ass (Jon Bernthal), don't take too kindly to the new arrival.

Perhaps the most frustrating thing about Fury is that it hints at potential brilliance. The underlying theme seems to be that war turns men into animals, and in one stand-out scene in which Wardaddy takes Norman into the home of two German women so he can lose his virginity, only to be interrupted by his crew and a drunken, vulgar Coon-Ass, manages to create an atmosphere of tension and discomfort. The battle scenes look very impressive too. Bullets fly across the screen like lasers, and one set-piece involving a squad of Sherman facing a superior German Tiger tank is exciting, but the film is often too eager to revel in gore and flying body parts.

Fury spends so much time giving us blood, guts and loud noises that it forgets to give us any resemblance of a plot to hang onto. It also gets so lost in trying to hammer home how damaged these men have become than it doesn't allow us to get to know the characters on any deeper level than their primary personality trait, ticking off a check-list of war movie cliches on its way. It all builds up to a ridiculous climax that pitches Fury against a 300-strong company of SS panzergrenadiers, who all proceed to jog gleefully into a hail of machine-gun fire like many a faceless video game baddie. It manages to insult both the German army and the audience's intelligence. We are given little to make us sympathise with the Americans apart from the fact that they aren't Nazi's, so come the emotions at the end, it's difficult to care at all.


Directed by: David Ayer
Starring: Brad Pitt, Logan Lerman, Shia LaBeouf, Michael Peña, Jon Bernthal
Country: USA/China/UK

Rating: **

Tom Gillespie

Review #630: 'Gangster Squad' (2013)

Information is extremely easy to come by these days. Seemingly any fathomable topic can be typed into a search engine, and a world of information is unlocked. The biopic genre, that so often relied on myths and hearsay about its chosen topic, faced the reality that their 'artistic licence' would be stepped on, and audiences wanted something much more closer to fact. So, recent biopics, such as The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007) and Lincoln (2012), brought the myth back down to Earth, showing us the human beneath the magazine serials and profiles. Director Ruben Fleischer has chosen to ignore this change in attitudes, and opted for a heavily stylised, operatically over-the-top portrayal of the downfall of Los Angeles kingpin Mickey Cohen with Gangster Squad, one of the biggest let-downs in recent memory.

Mickey Cohen's (Sean Penn) choke-hold on Los Angeles is growing increasingly tighter, with the police force, judges, and politicians all backing him up. Seeing no legal method of capturing Cohen and his criminal empire, Chief Bill Parker (Nick Nolte) calls in no-nonsense police sergeant John O'Mara (Josh Brolin) to infiltrate and destroy Cohen's businesses. O'Mara quickly rounds up his tight crew, who he dubs the 'gangster squad', while O'Mara's friend and fellow police sergeant Jerry Wooters (Ryan Gosling) woos Cohen's girlfriend Grace Faraday (Emma Stone). Using wire-tapping and some simple brutality, the squad start to break down Cohen's money-making schemes, until Cohen's starts to hit back in force, waging war in the city he wants complete control of.

While obviously heavily elaborating on 'fact', Gangster Squad's story is undeniably luring. Set amongst possibly the most corrupt and out-of-control era in America's history and against a backdrop Hollywood razzle-dazzle, it's amazing just how dull the film is. I would estimate about 95% of the film is complete bull-shit, which I could live with, but it's the way it goes about it's bull-shit that makes the film such, well, bull-shit. This is a film that tries to capture the 50's noir cool of the era, with sharp suits and cool hats, but there's only so many Gosling poses or look-how-cool-this-car-is moments that I can take. If it spent a little less try trying to be cool, and more time getting to the grit of the story then it may have worked a little better. But this doesn't capture the style of the era like L.A. Confidential (1997) did, it's all forced, hat-tilted-to one side, cigarette-hanging-loosely-out-the-mouth, forced cool.

For such a stellar cast, only Sean Penn manages to tune in a performance. As ridiculous as his prosthetics are and as outlandish as his performance is, he seems to be the only one really trying. Don't expect any depth, Penn's Cohen is a simple thug who will kill you if you fail him, and you would find more complex villains in early James Bond movies. Brolin and Gosling, two of the most interesting actors to emerge in the last ten or so years, barely register, failing to breathe any kind of life into their archetypal roles. But it is Emma Stone that suffers the most, serving no purpose other than to be the helpless damsel-in-distress and to give Gosling a reason to take his shirt off. In fact, you could label every one of the Gangster Squad as a familiar archetype you would think we'd moved away from. Brolin is The No-Nonsense Leader, Gosling is The Handsome One, Harris (Anthony Mackie) is The Black One, Keeler (Giovanni Ribisi) is The Nerdy One, Kennard (Robert Patrick) is The Veteran, and Ramirez (Michael Pena) is The Rookie.

I mean come on, this is 2013, can't we expect a little bit more from our mainstream films? It's just one cliché after another, including a little boy friendly with Wooters who gets killed by one of Cohen's men, convincing Wooters to join the squad. It even features a scene where a character throws his badge into the sea. At the point where Cohen opens fire on the squad and shouts 'here comes Santa Clause!', I gave up all hope. Apart from the cinematography, and Penn's energetic performance, I would have nothing good at all to say about this film. Maybe Fleischer should stick to comedy, as his previous movie Zombieland (2009), I actually really enjoyed. But if you want a more powerful, honest and dramatic depiction of Mickey Cohen, check out the first five minutes of L.A. Confidential instead.


Directed by: Ruben Fleischer
Starring: Josh Brolin, Ryan Gosling, Sean Penn, Emma Stone, Giovanni Ribisi, Anthony Mackie, Robert Patrick, Michael Peña, Nick Nolte
Country: USA

Rating: **

Tom Gillespie

Review #613: 'My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done' (2009)

After lying in production limbo for almost fifteen years, director Werner Herzog finally managed to make his film, loosely based on the story of Mark Yavorsky, with the help of producer David Lynch. You would think a collaboration of two such instantly recognisable auteurs may cause problems or lead to a clash of the two directors' film-making ideals, but My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done is distinctively Herzogian, continuing the prolific German director's fascination with the quirky corners of the American South. By showing us the murder and the murderer within the first five minutes, Herzog removes any element of mystery surrounding the crime, and instead focuses on the mental disintegration of its protagonist, as well as placing his own spin on the familiar hostage crisis drama.

Detectives Havenhurst (Willem Dafoe) and Vargas (Michael Pena) arrive at the scene of a recent murder, where an elderly lady has been stabbed with an antique sword. Outside the crime scene, a man drinking coffee says something strange to Havenhurst, and shortly after, the detectives realise this man is Brad Macallam (Michael Shannon), the son of the murdered woman and also the murderer. Brad shacks himself up in his own home with two unseen hostages and a shotgun, so Havenhurst begins to delve into Brad's story, with the help of Brad's fiancé Ingrid (Chloe Sevigny) and his drama teacher Lee Meyers (Udo Kier). What they discover is a man changed by a recent trip to Peru, where he pulled out of a kayak trip at the last minute after hearing the voice of God telling him not to, only for everyone else to be killed.

This is certainly one of Herzog's 'smaller' films, following the almost mainstream and outlandish (but hugely entertaining) Bad Lieutenant earlier the same year. Yet Herzog is no stranger to budget, location and equipment constraints, and has made some of his best films under these conditions, and manages to tell an absorbing, sometime hypnotic tale of a wild man at odds with his surroundings. This is a recurring theme for Herzog - civilised man's struggle against the aggressive, unpredictable forces of nature - and here Brad seems to be isolated from society after witnessing the full force of nature at work. Why exactly does he kill his mother? No questions are truly answered, but the film is more interesting at showing you the factors that may have lead to this horrific act.

For the film to work at all, it must have an actor capable of delivering such complexities of the mind into his performance, and Shannon pulls it off perfectly. Quickly becoming my favourite working actor, Shannon is a towering presence, appearing uncomfortable in his own body, all mad eyes and slurred voice. At times it's almost hard to watch him, terrified at what he may do at any given time. Given that any mystery surrounding the murder is removed by Herzog at the beginning of the film, it's a real achievement that the film managed to be as exciting and absorbing as it is, with Herzog's unpredictable approach mixing flashbacks and faked freeze-frames with some of his familiar quirky topics such as wild animals, scarred terrains, dwarves and a haunting score. A little gem, and as Herzog and Lynch discussed in their successful meeting, "a return of essential film-making" for the director.


Directed by: Werner Herzog
Starring: Michael Shannon, Willem Dafoe, Chloë Sevigny, Udo Kier, Michael Peña, Brad Dourif
Country: USA/Germany

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie