Tag Archives: #Cinema Nova

Man of Steel; In the House

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Man of Steel

It can be all too easy to find massive plot-holes in most movies. I have a simple take on them. If they don’t occur to me when I’m watching the film, then they’re of no relevance.

If a movie interests me, grabs my attention and entertains me, then I simply won’t notice them as the film has me hooked. On later reflection, if I suddenly realise the implausibility of one or several scenarios, I’ll shrug my shoulders, think it didn’t bother me at the time so why should it now? I imagine that along with most people, it’s only when a film is dull and fails to engage, that I sit in a theatre and shake my head at ridiculous developments.

Man of Steel is riddled with plot-holes. Machine gun riddled. It has more holes than the Japanese flag following the Battle of Iwo Jima. You could plough a tractor through its holes. But I failed to think of one of them as I sat enjoying its good story telling.

Actually, come to think of it, I did spot one very early on in the piece but quickly forgot about it. Jor –El, Superman’s father played with good pitch by Russell Crowe, is in the throes of getting his infant son off the doomed planet Krypton. He dives into the sea, swims down a water channel through a glacier into a chamber holding the Codex – a skull-like object which holds the DNA of one billion Kryptonites (or is it Kryptonians?) He makes off with it. Straight away it struck me that there was very little security surrounding this recorder of Krypton life – no barbed wire, no infra-red rays, no unbreakable glass surround – not even a couple of minimum wage Group 4 Security guards. I imagine Sir Don Bradman’s bat and baggy green cap has greater security at the Bowral Museum in Australia’s outback than Krypton’s biological memory.

So with the Codex, Kal-El/Superman – soon to be Clark Kent, is jettisoned toward Planet Earth in a space-age Moses basket and the adventures begin.

Being the first film in this re-boot of the Superman franchise, it is clearly required to spend some time setting up its characters and establishing its identity. But it does this not at the expense of moving the story along and never gets bogged down in background detail.

On current evidence, the injection of humour is not high on the producers’ agenda. And why should it be? Those behind this franchise appear to have confidence in their project and are not embarrassed to be telling the tale of Superman, despite a reluctance to name him so – even the ‘S’ symbol on his suit is explained as the Krypton for hope. The need for Roger Moore 007 one liners with a wink to the camera is not to be their style. The film in concept bears much similarity to the most recent Batman series, undoubtedly the influence of British film maker Christopher Nolan who was the driving force behind Batman and was instrumental in the development of this re-vamped Superman. Despite the lack of jokes, it never becomes pompous or overblown in its own importance.

Henry Cavill who up till now is probably only best known for the roles he nearly but didn’t quite secure – James Bond, Edward Cullen – seizes his opportunity and excels in the lead role, exuding boyish charm as the young Clark and square-jawed determination as the cape wearing super hero.

Overall, the cast was effective although Michael Shannon as chief villain General Zod is slightly underwhelming and I would have liked to see Amy Adams display greater gravitas as Lois Lane – she was just a bit too demure to be convincing as a hard-nosed investigative journalist. Hopefully she’ll raise her game for the sequels.           

The action scenes and CGI were impressive – I saw the film in 2D and, as with The Great Gatsby, a few shots were a little askew betraying its dual format.

One more feature of the film is its religious symbolism – there’s probably more Christian allegory than any film since The Narnia Chronicles. Russell Crowe is shown mostly as the spirit of Jor-El, living on after his physical death; Clark Kent refers to his ’33 years on this planet’ – 33 being the number of years it is widely believed Christ was on earth; General Zod appears to be an incarnation of Satan – his battles with Superman determining whether good or evil will triumph over the world. And the most blatant example was Jor-El on a spacecraft imploring Kal-El to return to earth with the words ‘You can save them son, you can save them all’ at which point Superman holds his arms out as if being crucified and falls through space down to the blue planet below. Had I paid more attention in Sunday School all those years ago, I could probably have picked up further visual metaphor. The film does not preach and I doubt this aspect will impinge on the enjoyment of card-carrying agnostics.

The film is a marvellous start and I hope the sequels will expand and develop.

4.5 stars.

 In the House (Dans la Maison)

The premise behind the French film Dans la Maison was sound. A bored, middle-aged school teacher who has lost his will to inspire his pupils is reinvigorated when a talented teenager starts submitting essays regarding the life of a fellow pupil and his family into whose home he is slowly ingratiating himself.

The teacher initially gives guidance but as the stories become more explicit he is torn by his intrigue in conflict with his ethics: his voyeurism generally wins the day.

This could have been either a wonderful black comedy, or dark psychological thriller. Sadly, it was neither and had  a tendency to drag. The film stalled early on and never really gained traction. There was no great twist or anything of any particular surprise. It was obvious one of the main protagonists would be outed as a latent homosexual and I picked the right one early on.

The acting was competent with Ernst Umhauer particularly effective as the young man intruding into another family’s life and Kristin Scott Thomas effective as the arty wife of the dull teacher.

2.5 stars.

World War Z

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Melbourne has not always been the dynamic and thriving multi-cultural metropolis it is today.

Prior to an influx of peoples from Mediterranean countries, it was, by all accounts, something of a staid and dull Anglo-Celtic enclave, closed at weekends. When Stanley Kramer filmed the apocalyptic Melbourne-based film On the Beach in the late 1950s, its co-star, Ava Gardner, was quoted as stating that ‘Melbourne was the perfect place to make a film about the end of the world.’ Its now widely accepted that the story is erroneous and the delightful Ava made no such disparaging remark – not publically anyway. However, the sentiment stuck as at the time it had a semblance of truth about it.

It seems just as appropriate therefore, that in making a film about zombies, Marc Forster, should deem it fit to base the action in Wales. Sadly, it appears that this was the best and only good idea anyone behind the film ever had.

A vehicle for Brad Pitt, who co-produced, the film barely contains any new idea or stroke of inspiration. This is film-making by numbers, giving the impression it was made to order by a committee of middle managers.

The opening, all too familiar scenario, of Brad Pitt as Gerry Lane, a retired UN ‘investigator’, now a happily domesticated full-time father, being reluctantly dragged out of retirement for one last job in exchange for his family’s safety really set the hackneyed tone for the rest of the film.

As zombies worldwide infect the population through biting, desperate UN officials assign Lane as protector to British doctor Andrew Fassbach who it seems is the only person who might be able to detect the cause of the outbreak and thus discover a cure. After the early demise of Dr Fassbach, it falls to Brad Pitt, apparently with no medical training, to take over his work and save the world. It’s a zombie film, I wasn’t looking for realism, but, please, there are still limits. Besides, the North Koreans already seemed to have the perfect answer. Over a 24 hour period, they simply set up a program whereby their 23 million citizens had all their teeth extracted – no teeth, no biting, no infection. Simple.

The scenes of mass panic with the zombie undead attacking panicking humans and piling themselves up against fortified walls in order to breach them gave the impression that this was a film based on a graphic computer game.

The film appeared to be without subtext or purpose and it was difficult to retain interest or care about the participants.

There were some humorous moments, though whether these were intentional or not was hard to gauge. But at least it provided the audience I saw the film with several laughs.

The acting, the direction, the cinematography are all ordinary – I saw the film in 2D. The script is below par.  The end clearly set the film up for a sequel and I’m since given to understand that two are planned. Whether they materialise remains to be seen.

2.5 stars.

 Tim Meade

 

 

 

 

Mud; The Look of Love

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Mud

Trails for Jeff Nichols’ Mud showed two boys coming across a stranger, most likely a fugitive, in an isolated riverside environment. The man’s shoe heel imprints leave a trail of crosses. This left me with an uneasy feeling that the film was going to be an unacknowledged re-make of Bryan Forbes’ classic 1961 movie Whistle Down the Wind in which a group of naïve young children happen across a wanted murderer (Alan Bates) in an isolated barn and mistake him for Jesus Christ.

My fears were unfounded. The character, who gives his name simply as Mud, was indeed a fugitive, hiding out on a small island on the Mississippi having killed a man who had impregnated his girlfriend, then assaulted her causing the loss of the unborn child. Both the family of the dead man and bounty hunters are hunting him down intent on bringing him to arbitrary justice.

Mud realises that his only option of escape is by renovating a dilapidated boat on the island on which he is holed up. He seeks help from the two boys, Ellis and Neckbone, who discover him as they explore the island in their Tom Sawyer-style existence. The boys agree to supply the tools and materials Mud requires. Ellis also acts as a go-between for Mud and his girlfriend Juniper staying, under surveillance, in a local, seedy motel.

This is a marvellous, character-driven drama in which the acting is of the highest order. Matthew McConaughey, as the hunted fugitive has surely never been better. There is clearly an in-joke when his character tells the boys there are just two things he can’t be without: his pistol and his shirt – McConaughey having seemingly spent most of his film career displaying a naked torso.

Jeff Nichols also coaxes fine performances from the young teenage boys. Jacob Lofland is good as Neckbone. But Tye Sheridan as Ellis is given the meatier role and is quite simply superb as a confused and frightened boy who is experiencing his idyllic river lifestyle coming to an end: his parents are divorcing, their riverboat home is to be demolished and he is to move to the local town with his mother. If this isn’t enough, he experiences the pain and pitfalls of first love with an older girl as he aids a wanted criminal. Your heart aches for this lad.   

Reece Witherspoon is convincing as Mud’s ‘trailer-trash’ girlfriend and there is a great cameo from Sam Shepard, now remarkably in his 70th year, as the loner no one knows  but who local legend believes has a murky and violent past.

It is no criticism when I refer to the film as a slow-burner. The film is set in a community where the locals are naturally taciturn and where formal authority is a distant and untrusted interloper. They do things slowly there.

Just last week I lamented that Michael McGowan had failed to make good use of the New Brunswick landscape in his small-scale drama Still Mine. No such criticism can be made of Jeff Nichols who makes the slow-moving and listless Mississippi River the very core of his drama, its languorousness clearly imprinting itself on to the people who are dominated by, and inconsequential to, its scale.

Amazingly, distribution for this film has been poor. It received only a limited release in the US, and here in Australia it currently shows on only two screens: one each in Melbourne and Sydney. This is incredible. A top-notch cast with a strong story confined to the artiest of art-house obscurity. I hope that the film’s merits will be recognised and it goes on to have a full release. Failing this, I suspect that in years to come, people will come across the film by accident and wonder how they ever missed it when it first came out.

****

The Look of Love

Director Michael Winterbottom and Steve Coogan collaborated a decade ago on 24 Hour Party People – a look at Manchester’s innovative music scene from the mid-1970s onward. It is considered by many, including myself, as a minor classic. So hopes were high as they united once more for this biopic about Britain’s erstwhile soft-pornographer-in-chief, and ultimately the country’s richest man, Paul Raymond.

Sadly, they cannot re-create the magic in this hotch-potch of a film which seems to lack any kind of compass and is unsure of the statement it wishes to make.

There is a total lack of irony as we follow Raymond’s hedonistic and highly lucrative lifestyle, giving people what many of them clearly want and for which they are happy to pay large amounts of money.

Steve Coogan as Paul Raymond frequently drifts far too close to his Alan Partridge persona throughout the film, and comparisons are almost invited as he shows Raymond impersonating Sean Connery to his friends.

There are under-weighted cameos from the likes of Stephen Fry and Matt Lucas; David Walliams plays a lecherous vicar, apparently a good friend of Raymond, but we are given no idea as to how he arrived on the scene and without backstory he comes across as  a superficial irrelevance.

The soundtrack is impressive, especially the Bacharach and David numbers, and the film does succeed in evoking a sense of period. But these are not enough. The film is ultimately superficial and unsatisfying.

2.5 stars

 Tim Meade

Still Mine; Farewell My Queen

Still Mine

It’s not uncommon for the titles of films to be changed when they are released in Australia and New Zealand – and no doubt elsewhere. The wonderful comedy Airplane! Starring Leslie Neilson is known as Flying High! in the Antipodes; the Lindy Chamberlain biopic  A Cry in the Dark was released under the more sinister title of Evil Angels.

Sometimes it can be amusing when a film title is not changed. I read many years ago, without verification but quite believably, that the British distributors of the American film, Free Willy, implored its producers to change the name for British audiences, explaining the title could easily be misconstrued. The Americans weren’t having a bar of it and insisted the original title be used. I recall sitting in theatres as the film was trailed. Audiences fell about laughing as the sententious voice-over intoned ‘Free Willy will touch you; your heart will ache for Free Willy’ or words to that effect.

Why the Canadian drama Still needed its name changed to Still Mine for Australian audiences is unclear.

Like so many films being released recently, we are told at its beginning that the film is ‘based on a true story’. Quite what that phrase means, and the licence it gives to film-makers, is open to the widest interpretation. It is a specious use of language. It allows writer and director to re-frame events, dissemble, misrepresent people, and, if challenged on points of veracity, hide behind the fact that it was never claimed to be a truthful recall.

Still Mine follows the story of octogenarian Craig Morrison (James Cromwell) who decides to build a smaller home on his 200 acres for he and his wife Irene (Geneviève Bujold) as she slips ever further into dementia. He knows what he’s doing but is unfamiliar with modern-day planning regulations and his plans and actions fail to satisfy building laws. He gets into a stoush with the local council, whose employees are all shown as heartless, uncompromising automatons, and eventually ends up in Court for failing to comply with Stop notices

James Cromwell and Geneviève Bujold are both fine in their roles having to deliver some rather turgid dialogue on occasions. But overall the film is just too small-scale.

Direction from Michael McGowan, who also wrote the film, is uninspired. The film is set in rural New Brunswick yet it fails to give much sense of location. In telling such a minor story and putting it on the big screen, he really needed to draw the audience in. Had he interspersed low-key dramatic events with linking shots showing the magnitude of the land and the beauty of the changing seasons and ocean then the film would surely have been more suited to a cinema release. Yes I know it was never meant to be a travelogue. But as it stands, it simply has the feel of a hastily made TV movie of the 1970s with limited production values. The paying audience are entitled to more than this.

***

Farewell, My Queen (Les Adieux a la Reine)

There were no issues concerning production values on the faux-historical romp Farewell, My Queen (Les Adieux a la Reine) from French writer and director Benoit Jacquot.

Set mainly in Versailles over three days as the Bastille is stormed and the French Revolution gains unstoppable momentum, this is a lavish production with superb costume design and sets.

Shown mainly from the point of view of the servants to the royals and aristocrats, the film makes good use of France’s palatial architecture and neatly shows the difference in the opulence of the super rich and squalid conditions of their largely loyal and deferential lackeys. The film is beautifully shot, both inside and out, and allows the audience to feel they are being given a personal guided tour of one of France’s greatest museums loaded with fine art and antiques.

The story focuses on seduction and loyalty between protagonists within the palace and their reaction to unfolding history which is mainly off-screen. The film, which is strongly female orientated in cast and storyline, titillated with lesbian longing and did so in a salacious and voyeuristic manner. It could have amounted to so much more.

This is a film that will appeal to all those who mourn the passing of Downton Abbey.

3.5 stars

The Great Gatsby

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There is a key scene in The Great Gatsby, your reaction to which will probably determine whether you love it or not.

For the first 30 minutes the eponymous Jay Gatsby is a missing enigma. Teasingly and tauntingly you see him fleetingly in long shot through a far distant window; there are a few close ups of his right pinkie sporting an out-sized signet ring; he is gossiped about, alluded to and referred to, at ever more frequent intervals so that, just like the shark in the original Jaws, his presence becomes greater and more intense by the very fact of his absence from screen.

And then it happens. We gate crash one of Jay Gatsby’s regular opulent parties. The grounds in West Egg are overtaken by the whole of New York society, clearly aware that mass ostentation is the only rule of attendance. The camera draws us upon him. As Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue builds and bursts in its sublime crescendo, The Great Gatsby is suddenly there before us, smiling inscrutably, raising his cocktail glass in salute as the night sky behind him is suddenly aflame with the greatest firework display ever seen outside of China.

If you sit in your chair, mouth agape, goose bumps covering your whole being, silently lip-synching ‘WOW!!!!’ you will undoubtedly love the whole film. If, on the other hand, you consider this cinematic hyperbole to be, well, perhaps just a teensy-weensy bit over the top then this may not make your Film of the Year shortlist.

For this scene neatly encapsulates Baz Luhrmann’s whole take on this enterprise. The film is, to all intents, a cartoon. Live action maybe but a cartoon nonetheless. Gatsby’s palatial mansion with its fairy tale turrets and fountains is straight out of a 1940s Disney animation; New York and its hinterland of The Valley of Ashes look more like Batman’s Gotham City and even the flashback scenes to World War One’s Western Front appear to have been lifted from the 1980s comedy satire, Blackadder Goes Forth. The film gains nothing from being in 3D and having seen it twice I preferred the 2D version, although a few shots were a little askew betraying its dual format.

 There is not a shred of subtlety or nuance to be found in the entire 143 minutes. That is not Mr Luhrmann’s style. Indeed, I imagine The Great Baz waking up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night in a momentary fear that someone, somewhere might just be able to draw their own conclusion from a scene he believed he had nailed down to be totally beyond interpretation. It is his film and you will see it his way or not at all.

Leonardo DiCaprio pretty much nails Jay Gatsby; it’s the sort of role in which he excels, for Dicaprio always looks like a movie star – a disadvantage when you try to play mundane but perfect for larger than life characters. The usually excellent Carey Mulligan however, whose haunting performance in Shame I rate as the best I saw all last year, fails to fire as Daisy. It’s difficult to be convinced that she could motivate the intense love rivalry between Gatsby and Tom, played as a single note with a never ending scowl by Joel Edgerton. Tobey Maguire has the unenviable task of having to deliver large chunks of the film in narrative – a device which suggests Mr Luhrmann was unsure how best to drive the story.

The soundtrack is deliberately anachronistic, modern day hip hop preferred to jazz. Quite what this is supposed to achieve is beyond me. F. Scott Fitzgerald himself coined the phrase, The Jazz Age, and the film’s setting is crying out for a superior jazz score.

The film never fails to fill the entire screen. It is a big film. It will not bore you. You may love it. You may not.

***

Tim Meade

The Reluctant Fundamentalist; The Hangover Part III

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The Reluctant Fundamentalist

Only last week I mentioned how events in the wider world can have a bearing on a film’s release totally outside the control of its makers. Such happenings can affect the mood of the cinema-going public, determining whether or not the film will prove a hit. A film exploring east-west tensions in the post 9/11 world is always going to be susceptible to such vagaries.

The Reluctant Fundamentalist, from veteran Indian director Mira Nair, starts with the kidnapping by Islamic fundamentalists of an American professor based in Lahore, Pakistan. The (un-named) CIA then swing into action to secure the release of their compatriot by whatever means necessary. Seasoned foreign reporter and covert CIA operative Robert Lincoln, whose world-weariness is played with great balance by Live Schrieber, is sent to interview the radical Islamic academic Professor Changez (Riz Ahmed) who, it is believed, is implicated in the kidnapping.

Prof. Changez agrees to be interviewed on the understanding that his complete story is told and recorded to give full perspective. The film then alternates between contemporary happenings and flashback as we follow Changez’ journey from genteel poverty in Pakistan to scholarship success at Princeton University. He is head-hunted by a major New York financial institution, Underwood Samson, and commences his career as an analyst. His instinctive ability to identify savings in corporations perceived as under-performing catches the eye of Underwood Samson executive Jim Cross (Kiefer Sutherland) and under his tutelage it is clear he is destined for top-flight success. His personal life is equally golden-plated, his good looks and social confidence easing him effortlessly into the New York scene and a relationship with an aspiring artistic photographer, Erica (Kate Hudson).

His idyllic lifestyle starts to be tarnished with the events of 9/11. Returning to the United States from a business trip to the Philippines, he finds himself treated with hostile suspicion at the airport and subjected to a demeaning strip search. This is just the first of several incidents which makes him question both his career choice and allegiance to his adopted homeland. Subsequently sent to Turkey to wind-up a non-profitable publisher, his conscience is pricked by the chain-smoking managing director who presents him with an anthology including poems by Changez’ father. Quitting his job, his visa is automatically revoked and he returns to Pakistan.

Changez is played with great nuance by British-born actor Riz Ahmed – his strong and charismatic performance drives the film. His character’s admission, retrospectively, that at the height of his success and assimilation into American life he still felt a frisson of excitement as the planes hit the Twin Towers and David hit back at Goliath, was a telling moment and demonstrated well the complexities of his motivations. Other characters within the film, from both sides, were equally complex. And as both sides concentrated on pointing out the plank in each others’ eyes, it was obvious there could be no meeting of minds and, ergo, no resolution.

The film’s central message that eastern religious fundamentalism is matched by an equally unattractive western economic fundamentalism of corporate greed was introduced rather heavy-handedly. This was forgivable. It was pretty crucial that the point was seen to be made.

So will recent events surrounding Islamic extremism have an influence on this film’s audience? Probably not. I imagine those inclined to see this film will go anyway. And those who might benefit from seeing it, won’t.

****

The Hangover Part III

On a road trip to Arizona, the ‘Wolfpack’ of Bradley Cooper as Phil Wenneck,  Ed Helms as Dr.Stuart Price and  Zach Galifianakis as Alan Garner are forcibly pushed off the road by big time gangster Marshall (John Goodman) who blames them for the loss of $21m worth of gold bullion to Thai criminal Leslie Chow (Ken Jeong) – these things happen. He takes Dr Price hostage with the promise of execution unless the hapless friends track down and bring to Marshall the elusive Thai villain. It’s a comedy.

There follows an ever more frantic series of set pieces as the gang try to capture the master criminal and save the life of their friend.

The cast are all amiable and watchable but the material is just not there. This is a film which raises a few smiles and a very occasional laugh. But even at just over 90 minutes it is far too long.

This is a franchise that has now over extended its welcome.

2.5 stars.

The Hunt (Jagten)

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There is often an element of fortuity in the timing of a film’s release – sometimes for the better, sometimes not. Only recently, Robert Redford’s muddled and ambiguous thriller, The Company You Keep, with its sympathetic portrayal of idealistic 1960s domestic terrorists motivated by their desire for a better world, would not have been helped by going into theatres just after the Boston Bombings. I doubt many Americans, or others, would have been much in the mood to empathise with these ageing bleeding-hearted liberals who thought the way to utopia was by bombing innocent people.

I don’t imagine it ever crossed the mind of Danish film-maker, Thomas Vinterberg, that his dour drama, The Hunt (Jagten), centring on allegations of paedophilia  would come out just as British police were making headlines across the English-speaking world by questioning, arresting and naming  a whole swathe of television personalities accused of such heinous offences from around 40 years ago. (If they themselves are not naming them, they are certainly giving enough clues for their identities to enter the public domain.)

The Hunt focuses on a rather lonely middle-aged divorcee, Lucas (Mads Mikkelsen), a redundant school-teacher who is making ends meet working at a local kindergarten. Things appear to be on the up for him as he begins a relationship with an attractive woman, and his teenage son prepares to move back in with him, in preference to his unseen mother to whom Lucas is sympathetic.

This incipient happiness comes to a crashing halt when a young girl at the kindergarten – the daughter of his best friend – falsely accuses Lucas of exposing his erect penis to her. The girl wasn’t being malicious; her elder brother had shown her an inappropriate image the day before which she couldn’t understand and in her confusion a vague allegation is made. Despite almost immediately trying to recant her story, it is believed. Child care professionals repeat the accepted orthodoxy that children never lie about such things and guilt is assumed.  Allegations then snowball. Parents are warned that their children may too have been victim of assault and before long Lucas faces a barrage of accusations from children whose stories are consistent in their recall. There is no proof, however, and the Police drop charges when the stories lose credibility – the children all stated they had been taken to the basement at Lucas’s house where the abuse took place. His house has no basement.

Despite this, the townsfolk are no longer acting rationally. Lucas is ostracised and the victim of threats and physical abuse himself. His dog is shot. His son and a small group of his hunting friends stay loyal to him but he has been tainted by just about the worst crimes imaginable, mud sticks and most people are not prepared to believe there was no substance to them. The film’s sympathy was totally with the innocent accused to such a degree that more than once I wondered if we were being fed a misleading narrative.

The film is unremittingly bleak. Set in small-town Denmark, its action takes place in winter against a backdrop of perennially grey skies. Likewise, Mats Mikkelsen’s portrayal of the accused is monotonal in its depiction of an ordinary man facing the opprobrium of those he once thought were supportive friends. Even when he displays anger, there seems to be some suppressed control to it. On several occasions, I was crying out for him to grab the lapels of someone and shake some sense into them. Only toward the end does he break out from his introspection to accuse his accusers. I would have liked to have seen more emotion earlier on – his own denials of wrong-doing were sometimes just too low-key.

Nonetheless, this was a gripping film, well directed and atmospheric. But don’t expect to come out from the cinema saying ‘Wasn’t that enjoyable!’

More importantly though, it is a good reminder of the maxim from the great American broadcaster, Edward R. Murrow: We must remember always that accusation is not proof and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law.

****

Tim Meade

The Place Beyond the Pines; Star Trek Into Darkness; Drift

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The Place Beyond the Pines

Ryan Gosling is undoubtedly one of the most bankable actors in Hollywood at present.

He gained much credibility in the 2011 art-house hit, Drive, playing a taciturn stunt driver who moonlights as a getaway driver on bank heists.

There are close similarities in his most recent film, The Place Beyond the Pines, where he is a drifting and taciturn motorcycle stunt rider in a travelling fair.

When the fair returns to the town of Altamont in New York State a year after its previous visit, Gosling’s character, Luke Glanton, discovers he is now the father of a 3 month old son, the result of a casual affair. He quits his job to stick around and establish a relationship with the boy and his mother, Eva Mendes, who is now in a steady relationship with another man and is more than a little dubious about the benefit of Gosling hanging around.

Glanton picks up some work with a crash repairer, the seedy Ben Mendelson, but his minimum wage is insufficient to provide the support he feels he needs to show to become an integral part of his son’s life. Mendelson suggests they knock off some banks – he has past form – using his knowledge in staging a heist with Glanton’s skill as a rider to make the necessary quick exit. All goes well, for them at least, until the two men have a falling out. Over-confident, Glanton attempts a robbery by himself which quickly goes wrong and fleeing the scene, Glanton finds himself in a desperate cat and mouse chase with the local Police.

At this stage, rookie officer Avery Cross played by Bradley Cooper enters the film. And here there is such a game-changer that it’s really not possible to divulge any further synopsis without giving away major strands of the film.

Suffice to say, the movie takes on a completely unexpected turn of events and heads in a direction which I can imagine very few would see coming.

This is a taut and solid thriller with excellent performances from the whole cast. A special mention to Ray Liotta in a cameo role as a corrupt police officer who exudes menace from every pore – helped by lighting and camerawork designed to highlight his malevolence. You feel uneasy every time he’s on screen.

The film’s ultimate conclusion does rely on a coincidence – a big coincidence. But director Derek Cianfrance gets away with this by letting the audience into the secret from its outset, and doesn’t string it out to try and invoke an unlikely twist. And coincidences happen. If they didn’t, the Archduke Ferdinand would never have been shot and World War One might never have occurred.

More dramas of this calibre please.

**** 

Star Trek Into Darkness

Does this sound at all familiar? Captain Kirk is insubordinate, disobeys orders and is demoted from his command. An emergency then manifests itself; Kirk is reinstated to his former office and sent on a dangerous mission with his loyal crew only too happy to have him back. There are then a series of adventures, setbacks and plot-twists as the film-makers toy with the audience, keeping them in suspense as to who might be the real baddies and who are the good guys.

This is a romping and thoroughly enjoyable action film which is full-on in its run of over 2 hours and never allows any lull in proceedings. This is augmented by terrific CGI special effects, as you would expect. Don’t expect to be bored at any stage of this visually spectacular film.

But it fails to make the transition to ‘classic of its genre’. The film’s main weakness is the casting of Chris Pine as Captain Kirk. That he is easy on the eye is pretty much beyond dispute, but therein lies the problem. He does not convey the inner gravitas for the role he plays here. You can’t understand how he could have risen to command in the first place, let alone been considered worthy of reinstatement following being stripped of that status. It’s not helped either that were he to get in a fisticuffs with Justin Bieber, you’d be hard-pressed to know who you’d put your money on. The producers clearly want him to develop a Butch and Sundance style partnership with offsider Spock – the highly effective Zachary Quinto. But it’s not working. I have no wish to be unnecessarily harsh on him – he has previously acted well, convincing as the feckless son in Bottle Shock. I just feel he needs a few grey hairs and some laughter lines, an indication that he’s lived life and known disappointment.

Benedict Cumberbatch has a clear run as the arch-villian John Harrison/Khan. He is flawless in his portrayal of an evil man seeking to wreck the world and stamp ruthlessly on anyone who prevents him from getting his own way. Still, Benedict went to Harrow School so I imagine that he was given the perfect education for such a role. (Yes I know that’s a little unfair – Churchill went there too). Simon Pegg returns as Scotty and is given a series of one-liners which were a little over-laboured and failed in the cinema I attended to raise much of a laugh. Zoe Saldana also returns as the headstrong Lieutenant Uhura and interacts well with Spock with whom she is romantically involved.

Take a couple of glasses of wine into the cinema when you go and see this film and you should enjoy it greatly.

****

Drift

Expectations for the lowish-budget Aussie surfing film Drift were not pitched overly high.  My local cinema’s synopsis of the story about two brothers who ‘spend their youth searching for the perfect wave…(dreaming) of a world where they can surf to live and live to surf’ I pretty much felt sure what I was letting myself in for.

But the film delivered more than was promised.

The film has a lively start, with the brothers as young children arriving fortuitously at the Western Australian surf town which would become their home after the cross-continent drive from Sydney where their mother had executed a tense midnight flit for the three of them to escape their drunken brute of a father.

The action quickly fast forwards to their young adulthood as they lead a laid back if dead-end lifestyle before realising they can make surfboards better than those commercially available, moulding them in the garage at their home as their seamstress mother starts fashioning custom-made wetsuits. Their ambitions to expand are constantly thwarted by a lack of funds, the myopic tendencies of the town’s old world conservative bank manager and the unwanted attentions of the local constabulary suspicious of their motives and lifestyle. Matters are complicated by a feud with the local bikie-gang – also the town’s drug suppliers.

A talented, itinerant and very hirsute surf filmmaker, a slightly unconvincing Sam Worthington, arrives on the scene in his bus-come-home with an attractive Hawaiian companion befriending the brothers and giving them much needed support in their constant battles with the bikies and encouragement in their enterprises.

The main characterisations within the film were well drawn. Myles Pollard gave a stand-out performance as the elder brother, Andy, whose drive and business acumen didn’t impinge upon his enjoyment of the more flippant things in life. The younger, rather wayward and unreliable brother Jimmy was nicely played by Xavier Samuel with roguish charm. Their mutual attraction and rivalry for the Hawaiian girl was subtly underplayed.

The story swept along at a good pace and remained surprisingly fresh and original until the film’s showdown. In debt to the bikies after becoming unwittingly involved in a drug deal by an accomplice, the boys desperately need cash they don’t have. But as luck would have it, there is an upcoming major surf competition on the horizon. If only this could be won and the cash prize used to get them out of trouble…

Jimmy, the more talented surfer, has gone walkabout so it falls to Andy to register as a wildcard entrant and save both their dreams and business – as well as his unbroken legs. From that point onwards, we were in rather familiar territory.

This is a small scale film, well aware of its limitations which on the whole punched nicely above its weight. It portrayed a dark side to the sleepy coastal town to a degree I had not expected. Cinematography from Geoffrey Hall was first rate capturing the beauty and awesome power of the surf. There is enough good surfing action to please the aficionados but not at the expense of developing story and characters. A sporadic glam-rock soundtrack was insufficient, possibly the result of budget restraints.

A slightly generous: 3.5 stars