This Means War

This film is abysmal. I actually didn’t notice who the director was until the final credits, but when the words “Directed by McG” popped up at least things then began to make sense. If there is a worse directed film than this all year I’ll buy the Transformers Blu-Ray box set (shudder). Where to begin? The awful editing where dialogue is heard but the actor’s mouths don’t move, fight scenes so badly cut you can’t tell what is going on, a scene in a car chase where whenever there is a long shot one of the cars mysteriously disappears or the moments where the actors have misty breath, despite it supposedly being in the afternoon on a hot LA day? There’s a load more, but you can have fun finding them out for yourselves (if you’re masochistic enough to watch this rubbish). If you want a quick rundown, Chris Pine and Tom Hardy are CIA agents who both fall for the same woman, a product testing executive (no, seriously), played by Reese Witherspoon. The banter between Pine and Brady is quite good, but the whole premise is handicapped by Witherspoon who neither (in this) has the looks or the personality to really convince that BFF’s would go from saving each other’s lives to falling out over her in a few days. The worst character of all though comes in the form of Witherspoon’s best friend, played by Chelsea Handler. Handler is virtually unknown outside of the US and it’ll pretty much stay this way after this. She is saddled with a bloody annoying character, but even that can’t excuse her monotone wooden delivery. It’s all so frustratingly mediocre that when you think back to Christian Bale’s on-set outburst on Terminator: Salvation you can pretty much guess who the real cause of his chagrin was. This just avoids the zero rating due to a few decent quips, but the whole thing is summed up by a script that gets the dates confused of classic Hitchcock films. This is basically saying “I don’t care about cinema”. Nor should you about this pile of pants.

The OC Film Sting Final Verdict
McG makes Michael Bay look like Akira Kurosawa. Now that’s some insult. Rating: 2/10.

The Vow

I read an article a while ago asking the question as to why Hollywood can’t produce decent romantic comedies anymore. Who knows the answer to that one, but it’s still churning out romantic dramas on a fairly regular basis and though they’re all pretty formulaic, they haven’t quite hit the wall like the aforementioned genre. The Vow is a case in point. I can sum the story up in short sentences. Married couple in car. Car goes crash. Wife has amnesia. Husband attempts to “win her back”. The End. Need anything more be said? OK, wife and husband are played by Channing Tatum and Rachel McAdams, respectively. The acting isn’t great from either of them, but Tatum is better than his usual wooden self and actually warrants some sympathy from the audience as his character founders in his attempts to re-kindle the romance with his “wife”. Director Michael Sucsy is known for his well-received TV movie of the life of Edith Beale, so perhaps it’s not a surprise that he manages to wring some decent emotion out of quite a mawkish script. This is still a signpost job though and each scene comes across as Acts in a play as opposed to having the linear feel of a straight story. Minus points also for the stereotypical group of friends that they have and Sam Neill and Jessica Lange as McAdams’ overbearing parents are a cliché too far. In the end though, this is what it is. It’s as standard as they come, but if you like this kind of thing you shouldn’t be too disappointed.

The OC Film Sting Final Verdict
Actually better than it looks, but no more than that. Rating: 6/10.

Man On A Ledge

Some sniffy reviews out there for Man On A Ledge, but I’m not entirely sure why. Sure there’s some plot holes, but name me a crime caper that doesn’t? OK, this is hardly Rififi, but it is good for a Friday night viewing after a week of hard slog. Anyway, so there’s Nick Cassidy (Sam Worthington), a man who eventually ends up on a ledge of a high rise hotel following the opening of the film in which we see him (as a prisoner) escape from his guards whilst attending his father’s funeral. However, this isn’t a suicide bid, but a distraction from a robbery being attempted nearby. That’s not a spoiler by the way as the trailer (and poster) pretty much give a lot of the game away. To say too much more though would spoil the rest of the story. As I said, this isn’t without its faults, but it’s entertaining stuff made more impressive when you know that this is the big screen debut of both director (Asger Leth) and screenwriter (Pablo F Fenives). Despite having Worthington standing mainly motionless on the side of a building for a good portion of the film, Leth delivers a product that fairly shoots by. It’s aided by two amusing turns from Jamie Bell and Genesis Rodriguez as Cassidy’s partners in crime. Bickering as they go along they provide the films main laughs, but Leth is also able to generate a few moments of nerve racking tension from them as the robbery ensues. Though having Rodriguez strip down to undies and push-up bra at one point smacks of studio “advice” if ever I’ve seen it. After all, isn’t that the standard get up of most robbers? Fenives screenplay is a solid, if unspectacular, effort, but it does throw up a few smart ideas especially in the scene where Cassidy holds a simultaneous conversation with police negotiator Mercer (Elizabeth Banks) using such words that, unbeknown to her, are also communicating with his brother (Bell) at the same time. Worthington filmed up on that ledge for real and Leth takes advantage of it giving us some impressive static and sweeping shots of the high rises of NYC. The film falls down slightly in its minor pokes at the hyperbolic US news coverage, but does address the sad situation as to why so many people come to watch a person on the verge of ending it all from a great height. Worthington has started to become a bit bland since he first appeared on the scene, but he’s a lot better here, infusing Cassidy with a believable sense of hurt and desperation (though his accent becomes WA on quite a few occasions). Less great on the acting front is Banks, scarcely believable as a ball-busting cop, and Ed Harris (looking scarily skeletal) as the films scene chewing hard-edged businessman (i.e. the villain). So it’s not a total blast, but for first timers at least Leth and Fenives give it a go and who’s to mock such ambition? Plus, any film that ends with the The Clash’s barnstorming version of Police On My Back on the end credits deserves an extra mark.

The OC Film Sting Final Verdict
Ludicrous in parts, but dammit, you can’t deny it’s fun. Rating: 8/10.

Coriolanus

Any film adaptation of a Shakespeare work where the original dialogue has been kept intact is tricky to review. The simple reason being that are you not just mainly reviewing the source novel as opposed to the actual film? Ten Things I Hate About You this ain’t. I think it’s fair to say though that Coriolanus isn’t high in the conscious of the man on the street when it comes to the Bard’s works. Is this its selling point though? It also extends to aiding any new comers by having a modern day setting and some Bourne-esque style action sequences. Plus, this is also the directorial debut of a certain Mr Ralph Fiennes and that’s a fairly intriguing prospect. A brief summation of the story is that Coriolanus (Fiennes), a popular soldier and hero of Rome, soon finds that his stubborn views mean he is banished from The Eternal City. Can he find redemption or does he want revenge? Fiennes has played Coriolanus on stage before so perhaps its not much of a surprise that this was his choice when it came to saying “Action” for the first time. You could also argue though that he’s played it a bit too safe as the screenplay is basically already there and he wouldn’t have needed much rehearsing for his role. That aside, this is still pretty decent. Fiennes does little with the camera, but the story is clear to follow, even if you don’t have an ear for Shakespeare’s prose. Speaking of that it’s a bit of a mixture of performances on the delivery front with old stagers Vanessa Redgrave and Brian Cox sounding natural in their speech, whereas the younger members of the cast (such as Gerard Butler and Jessica Chastain) don’t look quite as comfortable. Filmed in Belgrade on a small budget Fiennes does his best with what he’s got, but the film still has a cheap looking feel to it. So, Fiennes is on his way as a director. Wonder where he’ll be on that front in ten years or so?

The OC Film Sting Final Verdict
Obviously this won’t be setting any box office records, but this should have curiosity factor for both Shakespearean veterans and newbies alike. Rating: 6/10.

Edgar

Clint Eastwood’s last film as director was the risible Hereafter. At least Edgar wipes the slate clean where that mess is concerned, but, despite the qualities of this film, it still has the feel of a watch and forget. As a director Eastwood hasn’t usually picked famous figures as the subject matter so this is quite a unique film in his not inconsiderable canon. Instead of a straightforward linear portrayal of J Edgar Hoover’s (Leonardo DiCaprio) life, Eastwood employs the cut to the past from the present style that appears to be all the rage these days. It doesn’t work well at the start though, with the time frame confusing and nothing of note to get the pulse racing. Stay with it though and things eventually improve and, whilst this isn’t a properly fleshed out examination of Hoover’s life, it does work exceptionally well as the study of a friendship, in this case Hoover’s with his second in command Clyde Tolson (Armie Hammer, in his first role since The Social Network). A second strand of the story concerns the founding of the FBI. As any fule kno, Hoover was the creator of the FBI and how he built the department up from scratch is nicely shown by Eastwood, providing a number of laughs along the way. Where the film falls down though is in its portrayal of Hoover as a man. Eastwood doesn’t even come close to looking beyond the facade that Hoover put up for the public. For example, his fear of women is clumsily explained in an awkward sequence with his mother (Judi Dench). This won’t be for everyone as it’s overlong and Eastwood again resorts at any opportunity to use the cheap special effects that have plagued his films for years now, but the central relationship between Hoover and Tolson is subtlety portrayed, though it does seem Clint took his eye off the rest of the film.

The OC Film Sting Final Verdict
Lacking in depth but contains the usual dry Eastwood sense of humour and gets it right in the areas Clint was clearly aiming for. Rating: 6/10.