Review #1,395: 'Monkey Shines' (1988)

Only the very best directors can take a flimsy story and make the most out of it, and this is precisely the case with Monkey Shines, adapted by George A. Romero from the novel by Michael Stewart. Of course, Romero is best known for Night of the Living Dead and it's spectacularly gory follow-up Dawn of the Dead, but Monkey Shines actually takes a surprisingly careful, reserved approach to this tale of a killer monkey, and takes the time to slowly develop the relationship between the central character and his simian helper. The film begins with Allan, played by Jason Beghe, a former track champion who clearly takes his workout routines incredibly seriously, packing his back pack with rocks and leaving the house for a morning jog with the sun barely risen. His active lifestyle is quickly cut short when he is hit by a bus, and wakes up days later as a quadriplegic.

When he returns home assisted by a mouth-operated wheelchair, his friends and family have all gathered to welcome him but nothing will ever be the same again. His shallow girlfriend Linda (Janine Turner), who fears her life will now be dominated by looking after her partner, has shacked up with Allan's unbearably smug surgeon Dr. Wiseman (Stanley Tucci with a head of hair), and his scientist best friend Geoffrey Fisher (John Pankow) is a junkie who shows up late for the welcome party. But Fisher, who has been experimenting on Capuchins by injecting them with human brain tissue, may have the solution to Allan's problems. After consulting with Melanie Parker (Kate McNeil) - an expert in assigning quadriplegics with monkey helpers - Fisher supplies Allan with his star pupil, 'Ella' (who is actually voiced by Frank Welker). The two hit it off immediately, and the bond between them becomes so strong that Ella can seemingly predict Allan's needs before he even asks (or points his laser pen).

Ella doesn't solve all of Allan's problems however, and Allan still vents his frustration at his uncaring nurse and her annoying bird, as well as his overbearing mother (Joyce Van Patten), who insists on sticking her nose in where it's not wanted. What follows would sound preposterous on paper, but Romero keeps the story engrossing and oddly believable by refusing to give into excess. The delightful exploding heads and exposed innards of his zombie movies simply wouldn't work here, although the film does offer a violent and shocking ending. This is on a similar low key to Romero's vampire masterpiece Martin, and the director's keen eye for character building leaves us fully invested in the man-and-monkey relationship, despite the bloody trail left in their wake. There's a truly great 90 minute film here, but Monkey Shines runs at just shy of two hours, occasionally losing focus to shift the action to Fisher's strained relationship with his boss (Stephen Root) or Allan's mother's insistence on moving in, both sub-plots that don't really lead anywhere and stretch the film out longer than it needs to be. But with Romero's passing just last year, Monkey Shines is a great reminder that the horror icon didn't only deliver in the zombie genre.


Directed by: George A. Romero
Starring: Jason Beghe, John Pankow, Kate McNeil, Joyce Van Patten, Christine Forrest, Stephen Root, Stanley Tucci, Janine Turner
Country: USA

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie

Review #1,348: 'Red State' (2011)

By 2010, even die-hard followers of writer/director Kevin Smith were starting to think he'd lost the plot. After a string of flops and outright disasters that included the likes of Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, Jersey Girl and Cop Out (although Zack and Miri Make a Porno was pretty good), it looked as though the comic-book enthusiast was half-arsing it, and was never going to reach the dizzy heights of his earlier output like Clerks and Chasing Amy. It was perplexing, as anybody who has ever heard his podcasts or any of his impassioned Q&A sessions will know Smith as a highly intelligent and articulate guy with a real knowledge of his craft. But he hit back at his doubters in 2011 with Red State, a horror/thriller with a stellar cast and a real buzz surrounding it (generated by Smith's self-promotion). The result was still divisive among critics and audiences, but it managed to win back the faith of those who felt that Smith was one of the defining directors of the 1990s, as well as winning some new fans in the process.

The horror in Red State comes from fire-and-brimstone preacher Abin Cooper (Michael Parks), the leader of the Five Points Trinity Church, a sort of Westboro Baptist Church-style hate mob who picket the funerals of homosexuals. Meanwhile, a group of horny high-school boys arrange a date with a prostitute online, who will only agree to the hook-up if she can sleep with all three of them at the same time. Desperate to get their end away, they turn up at the trailer of Sarah Cooper (Melissa Leo), the bat-shit crazy daughter of Abin. They are drugged and taken away, waking up inside the Five Points Church just in time to witness the murder of a young gay man. He is bound to a cross in clingfilm while Abin spews hate speech, before being shot in the head and tossed down a trapdoor. It looks like we're in familiar territory as the boys try desperately to escape before they themselves are displayed in front of the wide-eyed congregation.

Only Red State takes a sudden tonal shift around the half-way mark, moving the action away from the captives and towards the efforts of ATF agent Joseph Keenan (John Goodman) - who is alerted to the Church's activities when a local deputy is shot dead - to diffuse a potentially catastrophic gun-fight akin to Waco. There are plenty of extremely interesting ideas Smith wants to explore here, but unlike his brilliant and elegant talks, he tackles them with a messy combination of violence and chaos. It's clear he's simply fed up with religious hypocrisy and the country's failure to tackle the problem, and you can certainly feel the anger, but you get the sense that the point could have been made with more care and restraint. In fact, the only sign of restraint he shows is at the climax, which is precisely the time he should have gone for broke. Still, Red State is enjoyable for what it is, and delivers a fair amount of surprises. Parks, who sadly passed last year, gives the performance of his career, truly relishing the chance to embrace his inner monster. Smith hasn't really kicked on from here, choosing instead to dabbled in television projects, but at least we know the Fatman still has it in him.


Directed by: Kevin Smith
Starring: Michael Parks, Melissa Leo, John Goodman, Michael Angarano, Kerry Bishé, Kyle Gallner, Nicholas Braun, Stephen Root, Kevin Pollak
Country: USA

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie

Review #1,205: 'Get Out' (2017)

The warning comes early on in Get Out, comedian Jordan Peele's deliciously unsettling horror and directorial debut. As successful New York photographer Chris (Daniel Kaluuya) phones his best friend Rod (a hilarious LilRel Howery) to break the news that he is to meet his white girlfriend's middle-class parents at their countryside home, Rod immediately voices his concerns. He is adamant that there is bound to be some weird, sex-slave shit going down, but Chris laughs it off with no idea with what is in store for him. In years to come, I have no doubt that Get Out will be a key case study in trying to understand the racial minefield that is modern America. While many have convinced themselves that such medieval attitudes are now behind them, it's quite clear that tensions are as high as ever in the #BackLivesMatter, post-Obama world we live in.

On their journey, Chris and his girlfriend Rose (Allison Williams) hit a deer. When being questioned by the police, the white officer can't resist giving Chris a hard time, even though he wasn't the one driving. He receives a telling-off from Rose, but the tone is set. Chris shrugs it off because he is no doubt used to it. Upon arriving at the impressive home of the potentially future in-laws, father and neurosurgeon Dean (Bradley Whitford) insists they are 'huggers', and appears to embrace Chris. He nonetheless lets slip opinions about wiping out the race of pesky deer who roam their land and voices his frustration at his own father missing out on the Olympic Games due to Jesse Owens, but again this is nothing Chris hasn't seen before from middle-class, white Obama-voters. Rose's mother Missy (Catherine Keener) is more steely, but is a trained hypnotist and offers to help Chris rid himself of his nicotine addiction. So far, so uncomfortable, but things soon get seriously weird.

For such apparently racially-blind liberals, their household staff are all black. Not only that, but they are like dead-eyed robots, all smiles and pleasantries masking pleading and inner turmoil. When Chris tries to bond with groundskeeper and fellow brother Walter (Marcus Henderson), the conversation is awkward and stiff, and maid Georgina (the brilliant Betty Gabriel) seems to do little during her off-hours but stare at herself in the mirror. At a gathering at their home, the only black face in the large crowd seems unnervingly familiar, but he is dressed up like a trophy pet by his fat, much older white wife. When Missy finally gets Chris to sit down for a session and open up about the death of his mother, his worst fears are truly realised. Taking inspiration from, of all films, Being John Malkovich (which also starred Keener), Peele directs these moments with the eye of a horror maestro, proving to be truly uncomfortable, claustrophobic viewing.

Get Out wears its heart on its sleeve, with an almost complete disregard for subtlety. However, this works in the film's favour. It's hugely entertaining and frequently very funny, so it will appeal to just about any audience, reaching more people in the process. Word-of-mouth has already gotten around, so the message is clearly resonating. It's sharp and unique in a way that modern horror movies rarely are, and in no way feels like an elongated sketch from the Key and Peele TV show. Although I've seen relatively little of his work outside of sketches on YouTube and his appearance with Keegan-Michael Key in season 1 of Fargo, there is nothing in his previous output to suggest he was capable of crafting such an intelligent and engaging horror movie. Satirically savvy and edgy, Get Out is also creepy and thoughtful, proving that a black man alone in the white suburbs is just as terrifying as a pretty white girl lost in the woods.


Directed by: Jordan Peele
Starring: Daniel Kaluuya, Allison Williams, Catherine Keener, Bradley Whitford, Caleb Landry Jones, LilRel Howery, Stephen Root, Betty Gabriel
Country: USA

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie

Review #173: 'Rango' (2011)

After the debacle of the Pirates of the Caribbean sequels, Gore Verbinski needed a project that would possibly rejuvenate his reputation (he did some interesting work on films such as The Ring (2002) remake, and the little-known, but very effective comedy, Mousehunt (1997). So we come to Rango. another collaboration with Johnny Depp, and written by John Logan (Gladiator (2000), The Aviator (2004)). This delightfully animated film, tells the story of a chameleon (Rango, voiced by Depp), who is a wanna-be thespian, who wants to escape the confines of his glassed habitat. This dream comes true as he is knocked out of the back of a travelling car, onto a desert road.

Rango wanders into the small "wild west" town of Dirt. a town that needs a sheriff. Here Rango decides to perform a character (as he realises there is no need to be himself). His stories of bravery infect the population and they take him on as sheriff. He then becomes involved in a conspiracy that endangers the lives of all the locals, as the water supply is dwindling, and Rango has to investigate to get to the bottom of the situation, with many ideas "lifted" from Chinatown (1974).

The film is a western, and certainly the writer knows his films, as there are many references to the Hollywood classics, as well as the more well-known Spaghetti westerns (there is even a scene with Spirit of the West - a character that is quite obviously Clint Eastwood's Man With No Name from Sergio Leone's Dollars Trilogy. In the opening sequence, Rango attempts to cross a very busy road (clearly in this story the animals are somewhat behind than the humans - there are roads and cars in this universe, but the animals live in a rickety town of the post-civil war era), and when he is flung into the air, he lands on the windscreen of Hunter S. Thompson: "It's another one of those damn things!". Thompson is on his voyage of gonzo-discovery, fearing and loathing on the way to Vegas.

Like Thompson's journalistic travels, Rango is looking for the American dream. Whether he finds it or not is irrelevant. This film is utterly delightful. A fantastic cinematic experience, beautiful animation, a collection of interesting (some obviously cliched) characters, and a simple, yet strong story. All delivered in a package that works incredibly well for both adults and children.


Directed by: Gore Verbinski
Voices: Johnny Depp, Isla Fisher, Abigail Breslin, Ned Beatty, Alfred Molina, Bill Nighy, Stephen Root, Harry Dean Stanton, Timothy Olyphant
Country: USA

Rating: ****

Marc Ivamy