Tag: 2011

Review: Goodbye, First Love

A wistful tale of first love without the passion, in which feelings of discontent and melancholy are wholly shared by the audience.

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Director: Mia Hansen-Løve

Writer(s): Mia Hansen-Løve

Runtime: 110 minutes

Starring: Lola Créton, Sebastian Urzendowsky, Magne-Håvard Brekke

Distributor: Palace Films

Country: France, Germany

Rating: Wait for the DVD/Blu-ray (?)

More info

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Mia Hansen-Løve won the Special Jury Prize in the Un Certain Regard section at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival for her second film The Father of My Children, immediately putting her on the map. Her follow-up, Goodbye, First Love (Un amour de jeunesse) is less likely to grab the same level of critical acclaim. Concentrating on the erosion of a feeling over time is a tricky line to master, and stories about coming of age are typically schmaltz fests or high concept boys’ own adventures. Yet for most of us, growing pains are never this interesting or dramatic: they are a series of things that happened on the way to becoming a (dys)functional adult.

In Spring 1999, Camille (Lola Créton) is a 15-year-old infatuated with the older Sullivan (Sebastian Urzendowsky). Being just a young thing, she throws herself wholeheartedly into the romance. After a trip away together, they part as Sullivan decides to go to South America for a year. Four years later, she has begun to live a life of her own as an architecture student. She begins to fall for her lecturer Lorenz (Magne-Håvard Brekke), but has never truly managed to get over Sullivan. When he returns to her life, she is conflicted over the memories of her feelings of first love and the place that she has found herself in.

Those who felt that the similarly crazed Like Crazy moved at a far too fast a rate might be well served by the languidly paced Goodbye, First Love. Yet where that film perfectly captured the intensity of a growing relationship between two young people, and the difficult to maintain that relationship over time and distance, Hansen-Løve is all about the spaces in between. It’s unfortunate, then, that those spaces are not terribly interesting. From the moment that the young lovers part company, Camille falls into a deep malaise that she never fully emerges from. Frustratingly, the character of Camille is so weakly drawn that she only exists in relation to the two men in her life, and any independence she does achieve is immediately undone by the return of her first love. Her two options are stability without passion, or intense love with no prospect of reliability. Hansen-Løve’s view seems to be one of nostalgia, and the indelible mark that first love leaves, but gets stuck on the ennui switch a little too long.

Relative newcomer Créton, perhaps best known for Catherine Breillat’s Bluebeard, intrigues and manages to maintain our gaze for the entire film. Playing a character over the course of four years, the then 18-year-old actress conveys innocence and maturity in various stage, unafraid to bare everything to audiences. Her ingenue beauty captivates, but she is also a difficult character to like, with her intense moroseness. The film’s flat out refusal to support shifts in tone with explanatory dialogue is admirable, and suggests Hansen-Løve’s clear vision, but it also keeps us at arm’s length. None of us may ever forget our first love, and it is a shame that the same cannot be said of Goodbye, First Love.

Goodbye, First Love is released in Australia on 5 April 2012 from Palace Films.

April 4, 2012
Review: This Must Be The Place

A truly unique film not only showcases the superb Sean Penn, but examines America from the outside in the ultimate goth road trip.

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Director: Paolo Sorrentino

Writer(s): Paolo Sorrentino, Umberto Contarello

Runtime: 106 minutes

Starring: Sean Penn, Frances McDormand, Judd Hirsch, Eve Hewson

Distributor: Hopscotch

Country: France, Ireland, Italy

Rating: Certified Bitstastic (?)

More info

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Following Italian director Paolo Sorrentino‘s Jury Prize at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival for Il Divo, it is said that the head juror that year determined that he must work with this emerging master. That jury head was, of course, actor and director Sean Penn, who has made a career of reinventing himself on both sides of the camera. The resulting film, Sorrentino’s first in English, is a idiosyncratic blend of pictures, music and performance from the collective minds of the director, its star and musician David Byrne. Indeed, it was Byrne’s amazing track “This Must Be the Place (Naïve Melody)” that served as the inspiration for the film’s title.

Cheyenne (Sean Penn) is a retired American rock star, leading a bored domestic life in Dublin with his outgoing firefighter wife Jane (Frances McDormand). Learning of his estranged father’s death, he travels to New York, where he learns the full extent of his father’s humiliation at the hands of the Nazis during the Second World War. Cheyenne embarks on a journey across America to not only find the SS officer in hiding, but to rediscover something about himself as well.

At the heart of this compelling personal journey is Penn’s outstanding performance of Cheyenne, quite unabashedly based on The Cure’s Robert Smith. Despite retirement, he maintains his full stage makeup at all times, whether reading the paper or dragging his cart down to the shops to do the weekly shopping at a Tesco. He is initially presented as a lost soul, one that only has an identity in relation to others: husband, rock god, weirdo with a black shock wig, son or simply friend to Goth follower Mary (Eve Hewson). With his diminutive voice, Penn is the most unassuming rock star to ever drift through life. Jane tells him that she can’t live without him. “That’s not true”, he replies in resignation “but it’s kind of you to say”. It is only when Nazi hunter Mordecai Midler, portrayed with an amazing richness by Judd Hirsch, that Cheyenne is given any solo direction in his life.

Once Cheyenne begins his road trip, in a pick up truck a random Texan entrusted him with, Sorrentino’s vision of America shares some similarities with Wim Wenders’ Paris, Texas, another European perspective on the roads of the United States, right down to the presence of Harry Dean Stanton. Penn’s Cheyenne could be the spiritual twin of Stanton’s Travis Henderson. “At this particular moment I’m trying to fix up a sad boy and a sad girl, but it’s not easy. I suspect that sadness is not compatible with sadness”. Cheyenne encounters David Byrne, playing himself, and once again he feels his accomplishments pale in comparison to Byrnes. There is also a mother and son living in the desert who remind him of the importance of the family unit in his quest, and an exchange between the boy and Cheyenne is priceless. Together they perform the title track, which the boy insists is an Arcade Fire track despite Cheyenne’s insistence that the song is, in fact, from Talking Heads.

If This Must Be The Place is the successor to Paris, Texas, then it comes from a far less nihilistic place, one where humanity is full of surprises. Visually striking, veteran cinematographer and frequent Sorrentino collaborator Luca Bigazzi brings a look similar to Quentin Dupieux’s Rubber (2010) to this brightly contrasted and often leisurely odyssey. The diversions into Nazi hunting may seem tangential to Cheyenne’s redemption, but it is the impetus he needs to get him back in the world. The trip back is a strange and sometimes surreal one, but like all the best voyages it is ultimately the journey and not the baggage that make this an enjoyable one.

This Must Be The Place is released in Australia on 5 April 2012 from Hopscotch.

April 3, 2012
Review: Salmon Fishing In the Yemen

A pleasant enough adaptation of Paul Torday’s satirical novel threatens to drown itself in some standard plotting and convenient plot turns.

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Director: Lasse Hallström

Writer(s): Simon Beaufoy

Runtime: 106 minutes

Starring: Ewan McGregor, Emily Blunt, Kristen Scott Thomas, Amr Waked

Distributor: Roadshow Films

Country: US

Rating: Wait for DVD/Blu-ray (?)

More info

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With the exception of the awkward title, everything about Salmon Fishing in the Yemen is programmed to conjure up the feeling of snuggling into a warm blanket that may or may not contain a fish. Filled with beautiful stars, stunning landscapes on both sides of the pond and an unlikely romance against the elements, the film could almost be the travel brochure for the Yemen that Out of Africa was for its subject in the 1980s. Yet like any picture postcard, flip it over and you’ll get a mish-mash of stamps, compressed writing and surface level sincerity.

Following a PR disaster in the Middle East, the Prime Minister’s press secretary, Bridget Maxwell (Kristen Scott Thomas) is desperate to find a feel-good story from the region. She latches on to a series of communiqués from consultant Harriet Chetwode-Talbot (Emily Blunt) to fisheries expert Fred Jones (Ewan McGregor). Sheikh Muhammad (Amr Waked) is proposing bringing British salmon to the Yemen for the purpose of fishing, and despite his reluctance, Fred finds himself inexplicably drawn into the Sheikh’s schemes and becomes hopelessly lost in the feelings he has for Harriet.

Buoyed by a solid cast of likeable actors, the first half of Salmon Fishing in the Yemen pulls in audiences in the same way that Fred Jones is compelled to join a mad scheme. The high concept behind the story is one of pure madness, as McGregor’s emotionally restrained character repeatedly reminds us, so a certain leap of faith is required to just go with it. This is incredibly easy for the most part, at least in the early stages of the film. Here it is more screwball comedy that sweeping romantic drama, where the inevitability of the McGregor-Blunt coupling is a foregone conclusion to everyone but McGregor. Yet there is a point where this comedy stops, at the film becomes a series of incidents designed to delay this eventuality.

Without any sense of irony, the film rapidly transforms into the selfsame warm and fuzzy story that Kristen Scott Thomas’ Maxwell is chasing from the start. Here seasoned romance director Lasse Hallström falls back on familiar paint-by-numbers elements that not even Academy Award nominated screenwriter Simon Beaufoy can manage to avoid. Terrorist threats and a last minute revelation feels tacked on, elongating this fishy tale past its due by date. At best it becomes the kind of story that requires little effort for positive rewards, but at worst the tedium of the obstacles amount to a whole lot of treading water before the destined ending.

Salmon Fishing in the Yemen is released in Australia on 5 April 2012 from Roadshow Films.

April 2, 2012
Review: Le Havre

Finnish filmmaker Aki Kaurismäki heads to France to enjoy their sense of whimsy, fairy-tale northern seaside towns and happy endings.

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Director: Aki Kaurismäki

Writer(s): Aki Kaurismäki

Runtime: 93 minutes

Starring: André Wilms, Kati Outinen, Jean-Pierre Darroussin, Blondin Miguel

Distributor: Sharmill Films

Country: Finland, France, Germany

Rating: Highly Recommended (?)

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Aki Kaurismäki has led a sometimes controversial career for the last decade or so, protesting US foreign policy by declining to be a part of the ceremonies for both of his Academy Award nods, including his most acclaimed work, The Man Without a Past. In 2003, he boycotted the famous New York Film Festival for the inability of Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami to secure a visa in time for the trip. This politically active voice is in stark contrast to the films of a very simple cinematic storyteller, one who has influenced the works of Jim Jarmusch who in turn made a cameo in his Leningrad Cowboys Go America. Although primarily setting his films in Helsinki, Le Havre relocates to northern French town of the same name.

Once a bohemian, Marcel Marx (André Wilms) now ekes out a humble existence as a shoe-shiner, visiting his local pub and spending his evenings with wife Arletty (Kati Outinen). When Arletty falls gravely ill, an underage illegal immigrant from Gabon, Idrissa (Blondin Miguel), enters Marcel’s life. Taking it upon himself to look after the boy, the townsfolk all rally to aid Marcel hide him from the authorities, including the fairly ineffective and sympathetic detective Monet (Jean-Pierre Darroussin).

Le Havre is a bubble in time, not nostalgic but rather stubbornly anti-modern. Film buffs might recognise the presence Pierre Étaix, here playing a doctor, but an accomplished filmmaker in his own right. Having worked with the likes of Jacques Tati and Robert Bresson, Kaurismäki is acknowledging not only his own influences but the direct lineage that Le Havre has with those films of the 1960s in particular. Indeed, the presence of retro French rocker Roberto Piazza, better known by his Elvis-like persona Little Bob, captures the essence of the area. Kaurismäki refers to the Le Havre as “the Memphis, Tennessee of France”, although his film makes it seem more Magic Kingdom than Graceland thanks to a gentle and whimsical fairy-tale approach to storytelling.

Like Amélie without the tweeness, Le Havre is so very Gallic in its demeanour, but filtered through the eye of an outsider. Using the same bright colour palette of that film, Kaurismäki and regular cinematographer Timo Salminen create a look that is not entirely real, which is exactly what is needed to ultimately gain buy-in from increasingly cynical filmgoers. It is not a film that aims to change your life, but rather remind us of simple joys, the commonalities we all share and that sometimes, all’s well that ends well.

Le Havre is released in Australia on 29 March 2012 from Sharmill Films.

March 28, 2012
Review: The Deep Blue Sea

Terence Davies’ latest film keeps a stiff upper lip on all things going on down below, but holds us at arm’s length despite some terrific performances.

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Director: Terence Davies

Writer(s): Terence Rattigan

Runtime: 98 minutes

Starring: Tom Hiddleston, Rachel Weisz, Simon Russell Beale

Distributor: Transmission

Country: UK

Rating: Worth A Look (?)

More info

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Terence Rattigan’s 1952 play The Deep Blue Sea, dealing with the difficult subject of suicide in post-war Britain, has gone through various waves of revivals over the years. Although its initial season was successful, the subsequent Broadway run was cut short due to a poor reception. Adapted to the screen in 1955, with Vivien Leigh and Kenneth Moore, a 1994 revival saw Colin Firth, Ian Holm and Penelope Wilton tackle the roles. The emotionally raw piece was bound to eventually attract the attention of a filmmaker known for roles that tested the emotions of its leads, and House of Mirth and Distant Voices, Still Lives director Terence Davies is perhaps the ideal person to tackle it.

Following the attempted suicide of Hester Collyer (Rachel Weisz), the much younger wife of High Court judge Sir William Collyer (Simon Russell Beale), we begin to learn of her affair with the dashing young former RAF pilot Freddie Page (Tom Hiddleston), who is still coming to grips with his time in the war. Told through a series of flashbacks, we not only learn of the start of the affair and its discovery, but the effects of her attempted suicide and the inability for either pairing to fully satisfy Hester’s emotional and sexual desires.

Indeed, the title The Deep Blue Sea is said to refer to the dilemma Hester faces, caught as it were between the devil and the deep blue sea. On the one had she could return to a passionless marriage, on the other is a passionate man who cannot love her the way she wants to be loved. An opening title tells us that the film is set “around 1950″, speaking volumes of the post-war malaise that Great Britain found itself in, no longer at war but yet to find the revolution that the swinging 60s would provide. Yet while Rattigan’s play may keep this macro-level view in the background, bringing to light the realities of the British view of sex and class during the period, it is principally about the indecision of its character.

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Terence Davies rivals Terrence Malick in the pace of his cinematic output, and takes the same measured look at 1950s Britain as he does with his other films. Davies unashamedly refuses to update the material, capturing his period and the characters within it down to the dingy flat that Hester and Freddie share in their final days together. This includes a somewhat caricaturish performance from the always-reliable Hiddleston, complete with a plethora of “old beans” general toodle-pippery. This is contrasted with some roguish bastardy that Freddie later reveals in his inability to deal with either Hester’s emotions, his inability to respond and his own realisation that his wartime fiascoes haven’t translated to post-war glory. Both leads can turn on a dime emotionally, and extended yelling spats are sometimes a little too real for comfort.

The Deep Blue Sea may explore stereotypes, and this might be the point, but it is also a cold emotional barrier towards truly getting a handle on any of the characters. The Deep Blue Sea is undoubtedly a downer of a piece, with amazing performances and stunning photography, but another “because of the times” piece is ultimately all we get here. Perhaps Rattigan, speaking directly to this Greek tragedy parallel through Hester, sums it up nicely “sad perhaps, but hardly Sophocles”.

The Deep Blue Sea is released in Australia on 12 April 2012 from Transmission.

March 26, 2012
Review: A Dangerous Method

David Cronenberg returns for a spanking good time in his first film of the decade, opening the cases files on the relationship between Freud and Jung.

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Director: David Cronenberg

Writer(s): Christopher Hampton

Runtime: 94 minutes

Starring: Michael Fassbender, Kiera Knightley, Viggo Mortensen, Vincent Cassel

Distributor: Paramount/Transmission

Country: UK

Rating: Better Than Average Bear (?)

More info

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Since Canada’s David Cronenberg began making moves away from the “body horror” genre, which he pioneered in the 1970s and perfected with Shivers and Videodrome, his source material has become even more eclectic. As he struck a winning partnership with actor Viggo Mortensen in comic book adaptation A History of Violence and Russian mob picture Eastern Promises, his films have become increasingly layered and sophisticated. Cronenberg’s work has always explored the limits of the human mind, and a biopic on two of the world’s most famous analytical psychologists perhaps reflects the director’s own recognition of the basis of many of his nightmares and dreamscapes.

Just before the start of the First World War, Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender) stands on the verge of breakthrough in analysing his mentally ill patients with the so-called “talking cure”. He spies an opportunity to test out those theories with Russian patient Sabina Spielrein (Kiera Knightley), an intensely neurotic case who is aroused over physical acts of violence. As Jung begins an intense intellectual relationship with his mentor and eventually friend Sigmund Freud (Viggo Mortensen), he also begins an explicit affair with Spielrein, who is destined to become one of the first female psychoanalysts. This unconventional triumvirate challenge each others ideals, and ultimately leads to a convergence in the profession.

Christopher Hampton’s script, based on the on his own National Theatre play which was in turn based on the John Kerr novel A Most Dangerous Method, is an engaging character study of a moment in history. Hampton takes this event and spins it into a dramatic retelling of the beginning of an era, or the end of one if you prefer. The skills of the twin brains of Hampton and Cronenberg working in their Freud/Jung symbiosis, probably without the sexual dysfunction and extended episodes of spanking, weave what could have been an endlessly talky stage-focused piece into a dramatic interpretation of the realisation of a new set of ideas.

Fassbender earnestly throws himself into the character of Jung, remaining aloof and distant with his wife at times, loving at others, even when he is engaging in unfettered acts of lust with Knightley. Mortensen, knowing his way around a Cronenberg film by now, effortlessly slides into Freud, drawing out each line as if perched on a throne looking down at disciples. Trying a Russian accent on for side, possibly in preparation for the upcoming Anna Karenina, Knightley is initially off-putting in a slightly overplayed version of her malady, threatening to dislocate her jaw with every jarring take. Yet she too finds her voice in this tale, that as we later learn has a tragic ending at the start of Holocaust and the Second World War. Also worth singling out is Vincent Cassel as the hedonist Otto Gross, who was himself an analytical pioneer, for completely playing the yin to Jung’s yang.

If A Dangerous Method had simply been a biopic of the origin of two of histories most famous minds, then Cronenberg’s film wouldn’t have been anything that a first year psych study could have taken you through. Instead, Hampton, Cronenberg and the incredibly capable cast prove that Freud’s contention of their work being forgotten within the century was completely unfounded for good reason. There are times it dwells on the psycho-sexual aspects of the tale, and like Spielrein it begins to get off on the regular spankings, but it was over these points that Jung and Freud ultimately diverged, and it is doubtful now that their story could have been told in any other way.

[stextbox id=”custom”]Cronenberg takes a familiar story and together with his excellent cast, he makes something brand spanking new. [/stextbox]

A Dangerous Method is released in Australia on 29 March 2012 from Paramount/Transmission.

March 22, 2012
Review: Headhunters

Jo Nesbø’s novel is the latest adaptation in a cold climate to get an export, and is solid example of what not to do when things go wrong.

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Director: Morten Tyldum

Writer(s): Lars Gudmestad, Ulf Ryberg

Runtime: 100 minutes

Starring: Aksel Hennie, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Synnøve Macody Lund, Julie R. Ølgaard

Distributor: Rialto

Country: Norway

Rating: Worth A Look (?)

More info

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Thanks largely to the success of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, distributors are getting a little bolder in testing out Nordic thrillers on global audiences. With Norwegian author Jo Nesbø’s The Snowman due for a Hollywood adaptation from Martin Scorsese, Headhunters offers a window into his world as a bit of advance homework for what will no doubt start a whole back-catalogue of adaptations in the coming years. Although twisty and filled with cat and mouse chases, Headhunters is likely to thrill Stieg Larsson fan and induce knowing yawns from audiences in equal measure.

Roger Brown (Aksel Hennie) is not a tall man, and he exists on the notion that he must overcome this in all walks of life. Married to the beautiful Diana (Synnøve Macody Lund), his role as a successful job recruitment headhunter is not enough to provide her with the life he thinks she deserves. So he leads a double life as an art thief, and his latest mark is Clas Greve (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau), a businessman from the Netherlands who is said to have a rare original Rubens in his apartment. Yet his attempt to take it leads to all manner of trouble when he suspects Diana is cheating on him and people start trying to kill him.

Like the Coen Brothers’ Fargo, another thriller set in a frosty environment, Headhunters is the kind of film that shows how things go from bad to worse when you try to put a bad deed right. Plotted like a loose thread on a sweater, things rapidly unravel for Roger as he attempts to cover his own tracks. Theft leads to death, resulting in murder and the needs to hide bodies, of course, and it all builds to a unwieldy series of events that disaster is inevitable. It’s a thrill a minute cat and mouse chase to be sure, but following that loose thread of a thought, the film wraps its bundle of wool up a little too neatly by the end, resulting in a fairly clean ending for all involved. Worse yet, it uses a high-tech deus ex machina to get there, which leaves a very threadbare garment when you dig too deeply.

Hennie’s central performance is quite strong, his overconfidence belying his insecurities and eventually giving way to the inner rage he feels over a continuing string of bad luck. Quite literally transforming in appearance by the end of the film, he is largely responsible for audience buy-in for the often incredulous turn of events that leads us on a merry journey through the darker side of human nature. Game of Thrones‘ Coster-Waldau is also impressive as the slick opponent, cooly giving off a vibe of smarmy.

The film is also beautifully shot by cinematographer John Andreas Andersen, who is has recently been impressing arthouse audiences with his work on King of Devil’s Island. Contrasting the crisp whiteness of the hinterland with the slick metropolis gives the film a distinctive vibe, even if thematically audiences have seen it all before.

[stextbox id=”custom”]A cracking thriller hampered only by an ultimate sense of familiarity and an all-too-neat ending.[/stextbox]

Headhunters was released in Australia on 1 March 2012 from Rialto.

March 19, 2012
Review: The Raid

Kicking down the doors of restraint, director Gareth Evans follows up the acclaimed Merantau with another relentless action film.

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Director: Gareth Evans

Writer(s): Gareth Evans

Runtime: 101 minutes

Starring: Iko Uwais, Ray Sahetapy, Yayan Ruhian

Distributor: Madman

Country: Indonesia

Rating: Wait for DVD/Blu-ray (?)

More info

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When the martial arts stars of the 1990s began to fade on the international stage, audiences were hungry for a new type of action, meeting the realistic expectations of their day-to-day lives of gang warfare and familial vengeance. Stunt choreographer Panna Rittikrai introduced us to a new world of fast-paced pain of Muay Thai in 2003’s Ong-Bak, and upon Welsh director Gareth Evans‘ discovery of Indonesia’s Iko Uwais, Merantau took it all up a notch. Now that latter team is back together again for the highly anticipated The Raid, already riding a wave of hype from its debut on the notorious Toronto International Film Festival’s Midnight Madness program.

The premise behind The Raid is straightforward enough. In the middle of Jakarta’s slums there is an apartment block controlled by the city’s biggest crime lord, who rents out the wretched hive to scum and villainy . Considered untouchable for years, an elite squad of police storm the castle to bring down drug lord Tama Riyadi (Ray Sahetapy). First they have to get to him, and there are fifteen floors of bad guys between them and their goal. Rookie Rama (Iko Uwais) finds himself in a world of flying fists, bullets and crunchy skulls.

Those looking for any plot beyond that need check out at the first floor, as the next fourteen levels of madness have little need for things like narrative or character development. Instead, Evans borrows the incompetent lieutenants, the skilled rookie and the weary sergeant from other films. This is action at its most visceral, and as a piece of pure adrenaline it is unquestionably unsurpassed in the last few years. From moment to moment, each set-piece builds on and escalates from the previous one, culminating in the final boss battle. Nobody could accuse the action genre of ever been to plot-heavy or intellectually taxing, and that is certainly not the point of The Raid. It’s an assault on the senses, even the good ones.

The Raid‘s action strips things back to basics, initially bringing guns, then knives and machetes before finally running out of ammo and focusing on fists and limbs instead. This is where the film excels, especially when Mad Dog (Yayan Ruhian) steps into the fray. A whippet of a fighter, he is as fast as he is brutal, and every flying punch and kick can be felt at neck-breaking speed. When he ultimately goes head-to-head with Iko Uwais, it is and epic sweat and blood soaked brawl that will no doubt go down in the annals of martial arts history.

Yet you can have too much of a good thing, and The Raid seems determined to take each awesome moment and stretch it to its longest possible conclusion. This is basic video game stuff, complete with numbered levels, yet even the most basic of brawlers should create a sense of menace around the final boss. By the time the top most floor is reached, the most awe-striking moments have already struck, leaving every subsequent hit failing to have any impact. The appeal of this simplicity has already been pegged for a 2014 remake, which will undoubtedly strip even the impressively brutal action out of the mix.

The Raid is released in Australia on 22 March 2012 from Madman Films.

March 15, 2012
Review: Margin Call

The first great film to follow the global financial crisis follows a superior cast through a nail-baiting night in big business.

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Director: J.C. Chandor

Writer(s): J.C. Chandor

Runtime: 106 minutes

Starring: Kevin Spacey, Paul Bettany, Jeremy Irons, Zachary Quinto, Simon Baker, Demi Moore, Stanley Tucci

Distributor: Becker Film Group

Country: US

Rating: Highly Recommended (?)

More info

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Given the widespread impact of the current economic crisis around the world, it is baffling that more fictional treatments of the subject haven’t already taken place. With the exception of the lacklustre Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, the little-seen The Company Men and the documentary Inside Job, the film industry has probably been too busy checking their bottom line to worry about insights on The One Percent and their far-reaching influence on the lives of the majority of the planet. With writer-director J.C. Chandor‘s debut Margin Call, recalling David Mamet’s Glengarry Glen Ross in both theme and quality of casting, the people who set the rules around the money that makes the world go around can be found in the crosshairs.

Set during a 24-hour period during the early days of the financial crisis, a group of people at a large investment firm rapidly uncover everything they knew collapsing around them. The firm begins a round of brutal mass redundancies, including the long-serving analyst Eric Dale (Stanley Tucci), who hands over a file to newish employee Peter Sullivan (Zachary Quinto) as he is being escorted off the premises. Keen to apply his rocket scientist brain to the problem, he soon discovers that the entire formula the company has been basing its dealings on is bursting at the seams, bringing the company to the point of collapse. The problem is passed up the line from supervisor Will Emerson (Paul Bettany), to the mainly reasonable Sam Rogers (Kevin Spacey), the slick Jared Cohen (Simon Baker), the cold Sarah Robertson (Demi Moore) and ultimately the enigmatic CEO John Tuld (Jeremy Irons), who travels by helicopter. Their actions ultimately decide the fate of the economy.

In this relatively brisk film, a layered character-based approach is taken to analysing the causes of the financial crisis, and this is devastatingly effective. In what is essentially a dialogue-based piece, Margin Call manages to avoid many of the more obvious stagey moments of an ensemble piece, and despite the size of the cast, character details emerge and each of the group has a textured moment or two. Kevin Spacey, for example, is allowed to break out of his Swimming with Sharks persona to just be a nice guy with a dying dog. One of the best films made on high finance, and a compelling character drama in any genre.

[stextbox id=”custom”]Balancing a giant cast with a difficult subject, Chandor makes a stunning debut in this superior character study of an economy in crisis.[/stextbox]

Margin Call is released in Australia on 15 March 2012 from Beck Film Group.

March 14, 2012
Review: The Rum Diary

Johnny Depp returns as another of Hunter S. Thompson’s creations, keeping the Gonzo journalist alive to drink another day.

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Director: Bruce Robinson

Writer(s): Bruce Robinson

Runtime: 120 minutes

Starring: Johnny Depp, Aaron Eckhart, Amber Heard, Michael Rispoli, Richard Jenkins, Giovanni Ribisi

Distributor: Fox

Country: US

Rating: Wait for DVD/Blu-ray (?)

More info

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It has been a long time between drinks for Bruce Robinson, a claim that could not be made by the late and iconoclastic Gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson. After creating the cult classic Withnail & I in 1987, Robinson’s How to Get Ahead in Advertising and Jennifer 8 were critical disappointments, leading Robinson off into the wilderness. Two decades later, he is back in the director’s chair with an adaptation of one of Thompson’s earliest novels.

Paul Kemp (Johnny Depp) is a wandering journalist who lands in Puerto Rico to write for The San Juan Star. Frequently inebriated on rum and his itinerant lifestyle, Kemp becomes involved in the business enterprises of Hal Sanderson (Aaron Eckhart), and infatuated with his Sanderson’s fiancée Chenault (Amber Heard). Kemp and his newspaper comrade Sala (Michael Rispoli) are soon in trouble with the locals, the paper is on the rocks and the shady dealings of Sanderson land Kemp in more hot water.

Johnny Depp returns to the world of close friend Hunter S. Thompson, the pair frequently collaborating prior to the latter’s death in 2005. Having previously played the older Thompson, or at least his alter-ego Raoul Duke, in Terry Gilliam’s adaptation of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Depp slides effortless into Kemp. Taking a perpetually inebriated note from his Jack Sparrow character, mixed with a healthy dose of drug-fuelled bravado and a lost boy spirit, Depp’s ability is to weave the essential character details into a role with a history we may never learn, but is nevertheless present in every moment on camera. Although there is ostensibly a character arc for Depp, we forever get the impression he will ever learn nothing from his experiences.

Surrounded by a cast of increasingly eccentric characters, Depp’s idiosyncratic quirks seem tame in comparison to the madhouse that surrounds him. Unlike Raoul Duke, Depp is almost the wingman to the hedonistic Sala, who is forever picking fights with locals and showing scant regard to automotive safety. Yet as with this year’s Contraband, it is Giovanni Ribisi who takes crazy up a notch with the unhinged Moberg, a gravelly voiced sometimes-journalist who subsists on 470 proof alcohol and audio recordings of Adolf Hitler’s speeches.

Where The Rum Diary falls down is its lack of narrative focus, often feeling like a short film stretched out into feature proportions, or too little story spread thin over a full two hours. All the elements are there, but it’s a greatest hits package from Thompson’s novel rather than cohesive story. Figures and events drift in and out of Kemp’s field of vision, like so many miniature bottles of rum washed up on the shore, once individually filled with substance but collectively empty and fragile.

[stextbox id=”custom”]Despite some terrific performances from the central cast, The Rum Diary is a minor adaptation of a minor Thompson work.[/stextbox]

The Rum Diary is released in Australia on 15 March 2012 from Fox.

March 13, 2012