Oh, Gerard. Still growling his way through action movies. Still hoping this is just a phase as the his craggy features become ever-more pronounced. Still picking up the Embittered, Alcoholic, Rule-Breaking Cop™ roles that Neeson is too busy for, most likely because they both share a similar level of accent-control. Anyhow, some casting-call listed that aforementioned part along with the character name "Big Nick O'Brien" and his agent evidently thought it was tailor-made for Paisley's finest. And so it came to be.
Big Gerard stars as Big Nick, a police detective in charge of a specialist counter bank robbery squad in downtown Los Angeles (the bank robbery capital of the world, according to the helpful overlay cards we get in the opening moments). When the boys in dress-down body armour get wind of an imminent job on the Federal Reserve*1, it's scowling all round as we follow the cops and criminals alike through a maze of meticulous planning and frantic gunfire. Nick is constructed entirely from tattoo-ink, cigarettes, scotch, coffee, donuts, Pepto-Bismol*2, a weakness for hookers and a maverick disdain for The Suits™. Textbook stuff, to put it diplomatically.
And amazingly, it's not awful.
Although it's pretty far from great.
It also appears that all of Hollywood's script editors are currently on strike. Den of Thieves should be a clock-punching 95 minute romp of shakycam car chases and punch-ups. Instead, director Christian Gudegast self-indulgently ambles along for 140 of them, seeming to believe the movie has something profoundly unique or meaningful to reveal to the audience and the genre itself. Long brooding scenes of Nick's incidental domestic strife try to shore-up a character who hasn't been built in the first place.
In one over-long interrogation scene, Nick explains to a kidnapped suspect "you're not the bad guys - we are". Probably just as well he cleared that up, since other than himself, getaway driver Donnie (O'Shea Jackson Jr) and chief-crim Ray Merrimen*3 (Pablo Schreiber), the members of each 'crew' are underwritten and interchangeable. For the last hour, even the film itself has no idea who it's actually rooting for. But the end result is the same: a £3 Father's Day DVD assembled from offcuts of every heist movie made in the last 40 years.
Packaged like absolute filler and delivered like it too, Den Of Thieves is fine, if unremarkable. The core idea is solid enough, but the movie lacks character.
As well as characters.
Fuck it, even Triple 9 manages to keep the same shit under two hours..
Nope.
Stream it, tops.
Nope.
Nope.
Nope.
Level 1: This film features Uncredited Stormtrooper from The Last Jedi. And you may well snort at that, but if it was on my CV, that's how I'd be introducing myself at dinner parties.
*1 And I'm pleased to report that the line from the trailer in which Pablo Schreiber describes the Federal Reserve as being "like Fort Knox" has been removed in the final edit. Because as we've all known since 1995, that's a false equivalence. [ BACK ]
*2 Although no packaging is displayed on-screen, Pepto-Bismol is specifically namechecked in the final shooting-script. Although that's still nowhere near as cool as that time Seabrook Crisps got a product-placement deal in a Fast & Furious flick. [ BACK ]
*3 'Ray Merrimen'? Surely he should be Robin Merrimen, if anything? That said, if a movie titled 'Den of Thieves' can be made without Dennis Waterman or Hugh Dennis as the lead actor, we shouldn't expect too much from naming conventions within it.
[ BACK ]
DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
Southpaw (PLOT SPOILERS)
Cert: 15 / 124 mins / Dir. Antoine Fuqua / Trailer
Okay, full disclosure (although regular readers will probably already know), I don't really do boxing-movies. Nothing personal against boxing-movies, but I don't really do boxing, because I don't really do sport. If you want to watch sport, watch sport; it's not inherently cinematic in itself, and it's generally not narratively interesting. That said, there are movies (case in point, Rush) which use sport as a background to tell great stories, and in doing so become great films. And for the first 45 minutes or so at least, Antoine Fuqua's Southpawis a great movie.
The film begins with Billy 'The Great' Hope securing the World Light Heavyweight championship title winning his 43rd consecutive match, and then guides us to a tragic event, following which Billy loses everything; his family, his job, his house and the vast majority of his friends and entourage as he uncovers a clearer picture of who had his back all along. The events of the film's first act are emotionally stunning, and Jake Gyllenhaal, Rachel McAdams and Oona Laurence give incredible performances accordingly.
Once Billy hits rock bottom however, and arrives at a run-down gym owned by Forest Whitaker's grizzled veteran trainer Wills, it seems that director Antoine Fuqua loses interest in the human drama and just wants to make a boxing-movie after all. Every tired old trope is duly rolled out, from the starting-again-at-the-bottom approach to Billy's training, through the I'm-a-disappointment-to-my-kid and the associated quivering bottom-lip, all the way to a-training-montage-set-to-music (yes, really). I should point out that it's never a bad boxing movie, but it certainly becomes a one you've seen before (and as mentioned, I don't watch boxing-movies and even I've seen it before). Because quite frankly, when the promo-material trumpets that it's "from the director of The Equalizer", how groundbreaking do you expect the end product to be?
But saving the film, indeed lifting it triumphantly, is Gyllenhaal's performance. Even in its most pedestrian moments, the screenplay is graced with the presence of one of the finest screen actors of his generation. Countering this perfectly is Oona Laurence as his daughter Leila, a role which could easily have come off as bratty and contrary with any other actress, but to which she brings a genuine sense of internal conflict*1. And last but not least is Rachel McAdams, demonstrating once again that while she doesn't always pick the most challenging roles, she's got the skills when the part calls for them*2.
Jake Gyllenhaal is giving everything he's got as an immersive screen performer to a story of trust, loss, regret and redemption.
Forest Whitaker is in a boxing movie.
Oh, and I mentioned plot spoilers.
Do not read if you haven't seen the film. Now, as the film goes on, the converging screenplay makes it perfectly clear that this underdog-story is only going to end one way. And I'm fine with that. Of course Billy is going to accept the grudge-match fight against his moral enemy. Of course that fight is going to go on for twelve rounds with both fighters in increasing states of disrepair. Of course that last round is going to go on until the final few seconds when our hero will land one final uppercut which sends his nemesis flying backwards in a high-framerate/slow-motion spray of blood, sweat and saliva. But when Escobar then gets up again before the bell rings; when the winner is decided by the judges and even then Billy only squeezes through by two points, he hasn't really redeemed himself, has he? It may be a technical victory, but it's not the moral, narrative one if he's only "slightly" better than his opponent. He hasn't spent the last two hours of our time proving that he's "about the same" as the major-league arsehole from act 1, has he? He hasn't gone on this elliptical journey of self-realisation and fulfilment only to be validated not by his own actions and determination, but by a judge who frankly couldn't made a decision either way, has he? Really, Fuqua? Really? Apart from that, I really enjoyed it.
Oh, and…
When Maureen is shot in the scuffle at the hotel lobby, the police tell Billy that they suspect it was one of his minders that had the gun, but they can't go any further because "no-one's talking". What the actual fuck? A hotel that opulent would have CCTV everywhere, especially in a public-area like the lobby. Even if the gun was concealed at the time of the shot, the CCTV would pick up the muzzle-flare and/or the recoil easily. Are the NYPD really lazy enough to suspend a murder investigation of an international sporting champion's wife in public because "no-one wants to talk"? What's worse is that no-one outside of the police force really seems to give a shit about it for the rest of the film, either. …it's still rather good, though. Really.
If boxing movies are your thing, yes.
Probably a rental, you may not get enough rewatch-value to buy it.
Gyllenhaal is on fire, once again.
Only just.
Nah.
There isn't.
Southpaw stars none other than Forest Whitaker, due to make an appearance in 2016's Star Wars: Rogue One.
*1 Although during the final, climactic match, her section of the script devolves to "Oh! Daddy's getting hurt!", as if she's been previously unaware that he's a boxer and has forgotten all the nights he's come home and kissed her goodnight, drooling blood all over her duvet. No seriously, this happens in the film. That won't come out at forty degrees...
*2 One of McAdams' first scenes sees her sending an apparently surreptitious text to an unknown recipient, in a sort of "oh, we'll be coming back to this one later" type way. Then it's never mentioned again. What gives there, then? Trust-issues sub-plot lost in the edit?
DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
Escape Plan Cert: 15 / 115 mins / Dir. Mikael Håfström
So let me get this straight, my local will show the movies with Arnie and Sly in them together, but not the ones they make separately? There's clearly a line between the two that's not being crossed by their solo work. I suppose it's because they're little-known indie actors? Ah well. Anyway…
Escape Plan is as 'Saturday night' as they come; all muscles, glaring and shouting. No hunks in sight, just a bunch of gnarly middle-aged*1 men, ready to knock the shit out of each other in the name of cinematic adrenaline. And viewed on those terms, it works well. The film's not trying to be a game changer, it's just giving Mr. S and Mr. S a well deserved break from the knucklehead characters they're used to playing. The guys actually have a coherent script to read for once, they pull it off, and it's very welcome.
All things considered, it's standard double-cross-thriller fayre, but executed with enough conviction to be very watchable throughout, and could well have been a lesser film in other hands. Amy Ryan and Fifty Pence*2 put in decent roles as Sly's contacts on the outside, but are ultimately reduced to exposition-bearers, as all the action's taking place at the prison. The same goes for Sam Neill who stars ably as the prison doctor, and whose part seems to have been reduced after the part was written, somehow. I definitely wanted to see more of all these characters, but with already 'adequate' runtime of just under two hours, that wasn't to be.
There's a feeling early on that the film wants to be an episode of Hustle, although this subsides as the action increases. It would have been nice to have kept riding that wave (like Now You See Me does), but it's no great hardship; it's there to wind up the machine so we can enjoy it playing itself out.
Undemanding without being stupid, entertaining without resorting to slapstick, Escape Plan is the direction that messrs Stallone and Schwarzenegger need to be pushing their careers in, not the live-action cartoons of wisecracking mercenaries. Best enjoyed with a beer in your hand, so you may want to wait for that BluRay?
Yep.
I did.
Pretty much.
It's nice on the big screen, but that's not essential for enjoying it.
No.
More than likely, yes.
I thought I heard one buried in there, but it was in an explosion which didn't require the sound of someone screaming alongside it, so I'll go with no.
That bit when Sly's in solitary and we see the camera looking down on him. Why doesn't that shot show his bunk? It's there in the in-cell shots, but the ceiling view has it missing. And it's not the overhead grille blocking it out, because you can see the walls clearly. Come on, Summit Entertainment, why oh why oh why etc?
*1 You're right, I am being kind, there.
*2 Yes, I am hilarious.
DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
