Jackpot

Though it hasn’t aged very well, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels was a bit of a blast when it came out in 1998. However, it also left a bit of an unfortunate legacy in its wake, that of a couple of years of (mainly) British films of a similar ilk that were all awful. So, what’s this got to do with the latest film based on a work from Jo Nesbo? Well, Jackpot feels like one of those barrel scrapers from 1999, imbued as it is with grossly exaggerated characters, poor acting and a silly script. On the surface though it looks like it should pass the time OK, what with a mysterious opening scene of gun based carnage and a story of how one man (Oscar) awoke underneath a dead stripper, shotgun in hand surrounded by numerous bodies. However, this is a below par Tarantino / Coen mash up which tries to be smart, but is just incomprehensibly stupid. It’s disappointing as this had the potential to be a bit of fun. Told using a flashback structure there is a bit of mystery as to what has actually happened, but any intrigue or doubt is lost as the wimpy Oscar is hardly Keyser Soze when it comes to spinning a tale. Plus, even though it’s in Norwegian, Henrik Mestad hamming it up as the wide eyed police detective on Oscar’s case is one of the worst performances of the year. Actually, make that last year, as though this was initially released in Norway in December 2011 it’s only just now surfacing in the rest of Europe. This is to cash in on the recent success of Headhunters ( also Nesbo) and the overall trend for gorging on anything scandi-crime related. Therefore, this will probably still draw a bit of a crowd, but in terms of quality it misses the target by quite a margin.

The OC Film Sting Final Verdict
Despite the current rage for all things Nordic, this finds itself coming to the party 15 years too late. Rating: 4/10.

Step Up 4: Miami Heat

This is the fourth film in the Step Up franchise (if you can call it that) and it doesn’t stray from the template of the last couple of films, i.e. a flimsy plot, bad acting, but countered with some cracking dance set ups and a feel that everyone’s having a good time and not to take things too seriously. The storyline is a voice over classic: “Emily arrives in Miami with aspirations of becoming a professional dancer. She falls for Sean the leader of a local dance crew. However her father is planning on tearing down the local neighbourhood where Sean & Co live. Can she fulfil her dream? Can Sean’s crew dance themselves out of the situation? Will Emily’s father have a change of heart? Find out next week on Step Up 4: Miami Heat”. Well you already know all the answers to those questions and if you think the bad guy developer isn’t clapping in rhythm to the tunes by the end, well, you’re watching the wrong film. In effect this is basically a musical play, but on the big screen. Obviously a film such as this is all about the dance routines and there are some great ones here with the last two in particular employing some original ideas and giving the film a royal send off. It’s a shame then that the performances are somewhat ruined by the use of 3D. Instead of immersing you in the frenetic steps and jumps the effect of the third dimension (yeah, whatever) makes things look more robotic and quite unnatural, almost as if things are being enhanced by computer effects or messing with the camera speed. In addition the editing of the dance scenes is a bit too hyper with too many cuts spoiling the overall broth and it gives the impression that there was too much going on at once for director Scott Speer and he couldn’t decide what to keep and what to ditch. Not too worry though as I expect they’ll be another opportunity to strap on your pumps in a few years time.

The OC Film Sting Final Verdict
Kinetic and fun for fans of dance, but unlikely to have any appeal outside the target audience. Rating: 6/10.

Dark Shadows

A film directed by Tim Burton isn’t difficult to spot in terms of its style, who’s scoring it and who’s starring in it. The problem that’s developed over his last few films though is that despite different subject matter they all feel like the same film, just with a different title. Dark Shadows doesn’t buck this trend. Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Danny Elfman et al. The gangs all here. What are they all up to this time then? Starting in the 18th century we pick up on Barnabas Collins (Depp), a port worker in a US fishing town who, following some affairs of the heart, finds himself cursed by a witch (Eva Green), turned into an immortal vampire and buried alive. 200 years later he is accidentally dug up by construction workers, escapes and makes his way back to the old family mansion where he meets his relatives. Then things get a bit messy script wise (duties being performed here by Seth Grahame-Smith, yep he of Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter “fame”) as the story doesn’t really know where to go. There’s some fish out of water antics mixed in with a bizarre rivalry concerning the fish canning industry, but with few memorable characters (and even less character development) it never really catches the imagination. It’s not all bad though. The time traveller out of touch with his surroundings is an old staple, but Burton still manages to get some decent laughs out of it (Barnabas on seeing Alice Cooper: “That’s the ugliest woman I’ve ever seen”) and the scene were Depp is unearthed is surprisingly brutal. This also has all the usual visual flair that you’d expect from a Burton flick aided by some impressive special effects. The gothic look of the film complemented by Burton’s decision pre shooting to show cinematographer Bruno Delbonnel 1970’s vampire movies in order to get a feel for the angles of such productions. Depp is good value (this is actually his pet project so no surprise there), but Burton’s never been an actor’s director and that’s reflected here in the mainly lacklustre performances from the rest of the cast. The fact this has made a bit of coin is surely due to Depp’s continued pull (or at least pull when he’s playing “wacky”) as the TV Series is, with the exception of Americans of a certain age, unheard of to most. As mentioned above (and despite appearances) a Burton film is fairly easy to pin down. With Dark Shadows though it’s hard to get a feel for what’s going on as it never really settles on a certain genre and seeing Bonham Carter (but she auditions, remember?) in all of her partners films is fast becoming old hat indeed.

The OC Film Sting Final Verdict
For Burton completists only. Rating: 6/10.

Safe

If you’re watching a Jason Statham movie in which he’s the lead and the only real star then you’ll already know exactly what to expect. For when the Stath’s involved there’s certain staples that must be met, the main ones being: Stath gets his top off, Stath kicks bad guy arse, there’s some dodgy foreigners and the whole things mindless mayhem. Well, you can sleep easy as all boxes are ticked in director Boaz Yakin’s Safe. Yakin is primarily known as a scripter (and he doubles up here), but with his back catalogue including clunkers such as From Dusk Till Dawn 2 and Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights it’s understandable if you approach this one with caution. In terms of plot we have Luke Wright (Jason Statham, not the England cricketer), an ex-cage fighter who finds himself helping a young girl (Mei) who is being pursued by the Triads, the Russian Mob and bent New York cops. The reason for their pursuit? Mei has memorised an important numerical code which they all want their paws on. Going back to my earlier warning, yes, the script is pretty awful (plus Hitchcock was doing the numbers in the head shtick over 75 years ago) but Yakin saves the day with some whip cracking direction and he moves the story along at pace. It’s all a bunch of gumph of course, but there’s a harder edge here than the usual Statham kill and quip outing. In addition Yakin has enough experience to know that any cheesiness between Luke and Mei would have been skin crawling and thus there is lack of sentimentality between them which is unusually refreshing. Throw in an appearance from the workaholic James Hong as the convincing and mean boss of the Triads and you have a picture that may be by the numbers (I thank you!), but still stands out from the crowd as it goes for hardness over (knowing) hilarity.      

The OC Film Sting Final Verdict
Pure formula, but still a kick in the head above the usual Statham dust-up fest. Rating: 6/10.

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

Seeing Night Watch back in the cinema in 2004 was one of those experiences where you felt like you had been let in on a secret that not many others had. Very few people saw it on the big screen, but for those that did Timur Bekmambetov’s film was a puzzling delight. The follow up (Day Watch) wasn’t much cop however and Bekmambetov’s first foray into Hollywood with Wanted was a mixture of good and bad washed out by far too many special effects (more of that in sec). Now we have the head turning title of Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, based on Seth Grahame-Smith’s novel of the same name. This is an easy film to review on two fronts. The first being that the title says all you need to know (though for completists it’s the unremarkable Benjamin Walker taking the title role). Second, this is so effects heavy it leads me into a wider discussion. Can this even be classified as a “film” at all and can Bekmambetov be described as a “film director”? There isn’t much here which doesn’t utilise a green screen and so it’s pretty difficult to get a “feel” for the picture in question (regardless of how absurd the content may be). This is reflected in the performances where the actors spend most of the time looking awkward and trying to react to stuff which was to be filled in later. There are huge scenes of mayhem here, but zero, and I mean zero, thrills. It’s all just pixels (and not very convincing ones at that) and any sense of danger or dread is lost amongst the almost cartoon backgrounds (a scene involving a pack of charging horses is abysmally rendered). Frankly, where’s the effort? Where’s the heart? Though Night Watch was also infused with heavy effects, it also has enough live footage for it to have a human touch and empathy with the characters. This should have been a blast of B-movie fun. Well, I suppose it is in a way, but the B in this case is for bollocks.

The OC Film Sting Final Verdict
Well, it’s an original premise, I’ll give it that. Rating: 3/10.

Seeking A Friend For The End Of The World

What an odd film this is. It’s been ages since we’ve had a decent black comedy and the biggest surprise of Lorene Scafaria’s Seeking A Friend For The End Of The World is that it comes at you out of the blocks with some of the darkest humour seen for quite a while. Starting with a radio announcement that an asteroid is on a collision course with Earth we follow Dodge (Steve Carell), an insurance salesman (natch), who is pretty much just going from day to day despite there being only three weeks left until the old planet goes bye-bye. All around him though people are shooting up heroin, settling scores and getting the taste for rioting. Hell, there’s even a couple of suicides thrown in (one telegraphed, one shocking). Sounds pretty grim, huh? Well it would be if it wasn’t also very funny. There’s plenty of decent wit on show, from radio stations playing end of the world hits to local US news reporters slowly losing their sunny dispositions (“Traffic Report? We’re all fucked”) culminating in a genius gag concerning daylight saving time. Sadly, this is a film of two halves though. For as soon as Dodge meets quirky neighbour Penny (Keira Knightley) and they hit the gas together the film becomes a quasi-romance / road movie that runs out of puff long before the awful third act. Carell is well cast and there aren’t many better actors around when it comes to world weariness. Knightley struggles though, appearing to be unsure about how to play Penny. Not too sure why she accepted the script for this one as the part hardly plays to her strengths and it’s the same type of character that Scarafia writes every time for females, i.e. fiercely independent with a quirk (in this case, loving old LP’s - What madness!). You can argue that the romance between Dodge and Penny isn’t realistic, but the point Scarafia is trying to make is that people will make odd decisions when they know their time is up. There’s no explanation though as to how Scarafia thought the audience wouldn’t question the moment where the characters believe they can fly the Atlantic Ocean in a Cessna……

The OC Film Sting Final Verdict
The dark aspect is great, but (possibly due to studio interference) it’s a shame Scafaria didn’t run with it for whole duration. Rating: 6/10.

Snow White And The Huntsman

Snow White and The Huntsman is the latest version of the fairy tale from the Brothers Grimm. This is director Rupert Sanders debut feature length film and boy does it show. Uneven acting, a pace that rarely gets above a crawl and a confused script suggest this might have been too much for him to handle. A two hour plus running time also suggests that he wasn’t getting much help from elsewhere or, if he was, he just chose to ignore it. The storyline is fairly standard stuff with Snow White (Kristen Stewart), Queen Ravenna (Charlize Theron) and Eric (Eric?!) The Huntsman (Chris Hemsworth) getting up to the usual stuff in fantasy films of this nature. The fact that many well known actors were offered the role of the Huntsman and turned it down already tells you much you need to know. Let’s start with a few positives though. The special effects are well above average and a scene where  Snow White stumbles through a forest in a drug induced stupor is impressive stuff. On the acting front Theron continues her career MO of either putting in an average performance or one of pure quality. The good news here is that it’s one of the crackers as she’s great as the raging Queen and her performance is one of a convincing evilness. It’s actually a performance that the film doesn’t deserve. Sanders must have thought so as well as she is criminally side lined for far too long of the running time. There isn’t much to write home about after that. Having a load of well known British thesps playing the dwarfs (by having their faces digitally transmuted onto small bodies) isn’t quirky or funny. It’s just plain lazy (as well as being a bit politically incorrect according to some). As for Stewart, isn’t it time we actually asked quite a pertinent question in respect of her screen career: That of, can she actually act? This isn’t being snide, but she really only seems to have one facial expression, which to me looks like someone attempting a particularly complex algebra exam whilst suffering from mild constipation. Hemsworth himself challenges her on this front though and is so unmemorable in the role of the Huntsman that, despite being in the title of the film and one of the main characters, I could barely remember him even being in it a week or so after I had watched the film. Hardly surprisingly really as I saw him interviewed at a premier saying that he was caught by surprise when he read the script. I guess that was surprise he was getting paid so much to do so little.

The OC Film Sting Final Verdict
You’ll know that Stewart and Sanders had an affair during filming and that Sanders’ wife has forbidden him from working with Stewart again. Praise be to that. Rating: 4/10.