Need For Speed

Though he's appeared in a few films over the years, now that Breaking Bad has ended it's time for Aaron Paul to properly kick start his big screen career. One of his new vehicles (sorry) is Need For Speed, which has Paul (who appears to have been spending his Bad wages at McDonalds) starring as a street racer who, stop me if you've heard this one before, is framed for a crime he did not commit and on release drives cross-country on a mission of revenge. Or something like that. The plot is basically a side issue here as it's all about the cars and I'm sure petrol heads will get their fix from what's on show. In addition, there's good news for anyone who is moaning about the quieter F1 engines as this film is loud, loud, loud. Comparisons with Fast and Furious can't be ignored, but whereas that series spectacularly floundered as soon as it went computer effects heavy, the film makers here have gone with practical effects and it adds some metal bending realism and genuine danger to the proceedings. Paul (though not really having much to do) is solid enough, with his laid back style of acting evoking (intentionally or not) the road movies of the 1960's and 1970's, but the supporting cast is hit and miss. Imogen Poots provides some sass as Paul's front seat passenger and Rami Malek gets the best job quitting scene in years. Less enjoyable is Scott Mescudi who is irritating beyond belief, playing the sort of wise cracking smart ass that can only best be described as a Berkshire Hunt. If there's a more annoying character put on celluloid this year we'll all be very unlucky indeed. Director Scott Waugh previously only had the critically panned Act of Valor under his belt. He does a better job here but, at the end of the day, isn't this just an amalgamation of all of the Smokey and the Bandit films? Rating: 6/10.

The Grand Budapest Hotel

I've said this before about Wes Anderson, but there can't be a film maker alive today who's idiosyncratic style is so paramount you can tell who the director is within thirty seconds of the film beginning. For The Grand Budapest Hotel it takes about five seconds. The rest you know. Kitsch sets. The lock-pan-lock camera movements. The mix of live action and (knowingly) obvious special effects. The ensemble cast. This is quintessential Anderson all the way. Arguably, it's also the most audience accessible film he's ever given us, with word of mouth helping to contribute to its impressive box office return. Overall though, it's just more fun than what you'd expect from Anderson. Set in a fictional European state in the the early 1930's we follow Ralph Fiennes as concierge Gustave in the aforementioned hotel, who finds himself framed for murder following his inheritance of one of his guests valuable paintings. As this is Anderson you'll be unsurprised to hear there's a lot more going on as well, but Gustave's storyline is the focal point and rightfully so. Fiennes is hilarious and gives one of his best turns for years, portraying Gustave as a proud man with an eye to detail and a loyalty to all those around him, but it's the moments of touching insecurity and cheerfully comic swearing that really add to the performance. On the aesthetic front Anderson's use of models and hand painted back drops is a nice compliment to the old fashioned setting. Throw in some surprising moments of gore and some laugh out loud one-liners and you start to wonder where this side of Anderson has been hiding. It's not all gravy though. The marketing has made use of its wide cast, but many actors (virtually all Anderson regulars) only pop up for 30 second (or less) cameos and, Gustave aside, there's virtually no characterisation anywhere else. Anderson also continues his unfortunate wont of including scenes where animals are harmed and the one here is drastically unfunny. In the end though the good outweighs the bad and you even get to see Willem Dafoe (as an enforcer) looking more like someone from the undead than he did in Shadow Of The Vampire. Rating: 7/10.

Robocop

...and so to the latest entry in the remake of violent 80's films dumbed down for today's cinema paying public. Everywhere you look in respect of this remake / relaunch of Robocop there are danger signs. The budget doubling from $60m to $120m. Delays in production. Darren Aronofsky (wisely) doing a runner. Arguments over the look of Robocop's get up and the tone (i.e. certificate) of the final product. Though perhaps the fact of who ended up in the lead role sums it all up; Crowe, Cruise, Depp, Fassbender were all considered. We've ended up with, er, Joel Kinnaman. Though he understandably towed the company line during marketing and press for the film, Brazilian director Jose Padilha has been widely reported as saying the making of the film was "hell", and the "worst experience of his life". Frankly I don't have much sympathy for Padilha (the film was already in a hell of a mess pre-production when he signed on) and both himself and the studio seem to have completely missed what made Paul Verhoeven's 1987 effort so memorable. For clarity the storyline isn't too different (in a crime-riddled Detroit of the future a cop is injured and a multinational corporation turns him into a part-man / part-robot crime fighting machine), but this is missing all the wit and satire that subtly counter balanced all the bloodshed of the original film. On the plus side, some of the nods to the first film find the mark (there's a neat reference in respect of buying something for a dollar) and Gary Oldman as the scientist / inventor behind Robocop gives a great performance that the film really doesn't deserve. Overall though there's nothing here to justify this remake and you're better off just re-watching the original or checking out Padilha's great Brazilian Elite Squad films instead. Rating: 4/10.

Her

Spike Jonze's name always appears to be everywhere and I had to double check that Her is actually only his fourth film as a director since his 1999 debut Bring John Malkovich. However in the intervening years (along with two other films as director) his polymathic tendencies have seen him writing, acting, producing and choreographing in various medium, so it's not a surprise to see he's on triple duties with Her as writer, producer and director. Set in 2025 (though the poster has Joaquin Phoenix looking like an 1970's F1 driver) the film follows Theodore Twombly (Phoenix), an introverted man who (loaded irony ahoy!) works for a company that writes heartfelt letters on behalf of other people. To help address his loneliness Twombly purchases a computer operating system with which he can interact on an emotional level. Before long however Twombly falls for "Samantha" (the tones belong to Scarlett Johansson) and Jonze's film explores whether or not humans and computers can ever really sustain an emotional (let along a physical) relationship. Acting wise this is great, with Phoenix perfectly capturing the temperament of someone experiencing love for the first time and then seemingly having it taken away, whilst Johansson's voice smoothly shifts from caring to cold in an instant (speaking of voices also look out for Jonze's himself as an amusingly sweary Alien in a computer game). Jonze spent well over a year in post editing sub plots, but the actual crux of the matter is still somewhat hit and miss. Though it does work in the fact we engage with the protagonists, Jonze's analysis of the situation (i.e. humans need to talk to each other more!) is hardly earth shattering news and the films ending is too conventional (and obvious) for what has transpired in the previous two hours. Even if you don't fully buy into the story, there is some superb cinematography to enjoy (2025 looks lovely, so good news people) and some nice wry moments to look out for on the social / aesthetic front, not least that in ten years time it appears the belt line of our trousers will be somewhere near our necks. Rating: 7/10.

The Monuments Men / The Book Thief

Double review time again, this time for two extremely vapid depictions of the second World War. The Monuments Men and The Book Thief are joint American-German productions so it's hardly a surprise each take a safe approach in their portrayal of Nazi Germany. The problem is it means both films loose instant credibility. Starting with the George Clooney's latest stab at direction, The Monuments Men is loosely based on a group of soldiers who were tasked with saving pieces of art before they could be destroyed by Hitler. Clooney's directorial career has been going good film-bad film thus far and, considering last time out he gave us the worthy The Ides Of March, we're safely back in underwhelming territory this time round. Making a comedy set around WWII is a tricky and delicate task, with the result that the film itself was delayed in post as they tried to balance the comedic aspects with the dramatic. The re-editing hasn't worked and Clooney and Grant Heslov's script is all at sea throughout. The cosmopolitan cast (Damon, Murray, Goodman, Dujardin, Balaban, Bonneville) are completely unmemorable and the films structure in which its splits them all up into various groups just highlights what a problem having such a large number of characters can cause when it comes to the narrative. Clooney certainly loves to be involved in productions set around dubya dubya too, but people (especially Europeans) are just too wise to this kind of nostalgic nonsense these days. I mentioned Hugh Bonneville above and his Downton Abbey director is the man calling the shoots for the film adaptation of Markus Zusak's The Book Thief. However Brian Percival appears to be stuck in the mindset of making everything stiff upper lipped and pretty what with the protagonists of his film appearing to live in a snow covered version of Germany that appears to have come straight off of a Christmas card. Said protagonists are Liesel (Sophie Nelisse) a young girl living with her adoptive family (Geoffrey Rush and Emily Watson are the parents) who borrows / steals books from the mayor's house and shares them with a hidden Jewish refugee. Despite hints at the real darkness going on (and to be fair the film does pack a punch in the gut finale), this is just too whimsical for it to be tenable in any way. To wit: Whenever anyone expresses concern about terrors such as starvation or the punishment of harbouring a Jew, Rush's stock response is to wink! A voice over by "Death" which, though is the narrative device utilised in the novel, is completely unnecessary here and script wise things really don't work. At one point Watson puts their lives on the line and goes to Liesel's school to tell her some news about their stowaway - Why not just wait until she got home? As for the historical inaccuracies (apparently Germans play "soccer" and towards the end we're told that the US has occupied Germany, not the Allies).......Gott im Himmel......Rating: 4/10 (both).

Dallas Buyers Club

Director Jean-Marc Vallee has a short and somewhat eclectic resume, but in hindsight he was probably the perfect choice for Dallas Buyers Club what with his films heavily focused on relationships in both the straight and gay communities. Here we have Ron Woodroof (Matthew McConaughey), a rodeo cowboy and electrician who, following admittance to hospital after an accident performing the latter occupation, is diagnosed with AIDS and given thirty days to live. However, on discovering there is (US unapproved) medication which helps improve his condition available in other countries, along with the help of fellow HIV sufferer Rayon (Jared Leto), he sets up a smuggling racket and distributes said drugs to other sufferers. This has been on the Hollywood slate since the mid-90's, but has only now found the financial backing. You can read into that what you will. Craig Borten and Melisa Wallack's script avoids clichés and addresses the attitudes of the time both blatantly (Woodroof is quickly ostracised by family and friends) and more subtly (at the start of the film the hospital staff wear surgical gloves and masks, which are slowly discarded as fuller understanding of the disease is made known). Jennifer Garner is good as a kindly doctor, but quickly gets lost amongst the tour-de-force performances of both McConaughey and Leto who, you'll be unsurprised to hear, both went method for this to capture the physicality of both their characters. In fact, both performances are so great the worthy subject matter gets a bit lost about halfway through and the film eventually meanders to a finish. On a side issue, the character of Rayon is actually a transgender woman which has to lead to complaints from various pressure groups that an actual transgender actor wasn't given Leto's part. Wrong though that may be, I'm afraid its just naivety to think that a dollar-chasing studio would have ever picked an unknown (regardless of sexual status) for such a prominent role. Going back to Vallee it's impressive he delivers such a solid production from a relatively small budget. With quick set ups and a one take only approach the order of the day this was wrapped in less than a month, which suggests a lot of studios and directors out there are missing a trick. Rating: 8/10.

Lone Survivor

The last film that Peter Berg presented to us was the risible Battleship, a film that only young teenage American boys would have got anything from, though what that was is open to debate (hopefully it was "I'll never direct a film as bad as that"). This time Berg moves away from such silliness as Lone Survivor tells the real life story of a group of US Navy SEALS and how, once their mission had gone awry, they had to fight for their lives in the Afghan hillside. Before going any further is should be made clear that the film is a dramatisation of the events (in reality it is highly inaccurate in places) and any mud slinging that has occurred post release you can read about yourself elsewhere. This is actually quite an odd film when all the dust has settled in the fact that it's actually too professional a production. Berg and company are getting some serious back slapping for all the extensive research that was undertaken before the camera's starting rolling, but for all the authenticity a film must still engage an audience. This is where the problem's begin. For all the correct uniforms, guns and military lingo you can give a soldier, you still need to explore their character and Berg's script fails miserably here. The fact the film is over long (even after being chopped in the editing suite) and still doesn't shine a proper spotlight on the persona's of the combatants just proves that Berg should have spent less time on getting the explosions as loud as possible and more time on getting some emotional balance into the end product. Speaking of the battle scenes, they are a mixture of brilliance and (unintentional) confusion. The scenes where the soldiers fall down the rugged mountainsides are bone-crunchingly captured with some highly impressive stunt work, but a lot of the action is captured with Berg getting as close as possible with the camera, meaning that at times its not only hard to tell what's going on, but also which soldier is which. It certainly isn't all bad though, particularly in the surprising final third where you'll be educated (surely only the most well read of us could tell you what pashtunwali is) and also feel uplifted that such heroism and humanity still exists in sure dire and brutal situations. In the end though, especially as this veers dangerously close to propaganda, I can't escape the feeling that some things are just better being read about and not shown. Rating: 6/10.