Game Night Cert: 15 / 100 mins / Dir. John Francis Daley & Jonathan Goldstein / Trailer
Now obviously, trailers notwithstanding, the audience's initial frame of mind before the movie even begins is in no way, shape or form the fault of Game Night screenwriter Mark Perez, directors John Daley and Jonathan Goldstein, nor indeed the plentiful cast. So, as the Cineworld Unlimited faithful were gathered for the latest advance screening to which they'd been invited, the patron to my immediate left waited until the point in the trailer for Wes Anderson's Isle of Dogs where the names of a lot of famous people are listed on-screen for doing the voices. They then observed loudly "Oh, they've got a lot of famous people doing the voices for that!". What I'm saying here is that I tried to give Game Night a fair crack of the whip, but may not have been quite as receptive to A Good Time as the rest of the crowd*1. This, I thought to myself, is going to be a long night. And so it proved.
So. Super-competitive suburban couple Annie (Rachel McAdams) and Max (Jason Bateman) host regular game-nights at their house with a group of friends, playing everything from charades to board-games. But when Max's high rolling investment-trader brother Brooks (Kyle Chandler) arrives one evening, he soon devises an idea to raise the stakes, and arranges an interactive role-playing experience in which one of the players will be kidnapped while the rest have to track them down. It's here that Brooks's shady private life catches up with him and the lines between gaming and gangsters become dangerously blurred. But by this point, the players have little choice...
So by now you'll be thinking Oh, so is 'Game Night' like David Fincher's 1997 movie 'The Game', but played more for laughs? Yes, frankly. There's the feeling watching the trailer that it can't quite work out what it wants to be, action-comedy or character-led, dynamic thriller. And in that respect, the trailer is a very fitting representation of the final film. From the off, it becomes clear that everyone's trying slightly too hard, here. But with a cast headed by seasoned performers such as McAdams and Bateman, this feels like it could be more the result of over-direction than flat-out overacting.
That's not to say there isn't fun to be had in the meanwhile, however. The action and comedy setpieces work well in and of themselves (with many laugh-out-loud moments), there's just slightly too much plot, too many sub-plots and too many inevitable twists for the already-weighty run-time, bludgeoning the audience into not thinking too hard about anything. It would also be a much smoother (not to mention shorter) ride without the weapons-grade application of film references*2 and characters constantly stopping to point out the punchlines*3.
Our players never give the less than their full attention, but Game Night feels like it's been cast entirely with supporting-actors, even though McAdams and Bateman should be (and have been) above that level by now. I suppose I should just be grateful that the whole thing isn't being headed by Will Ferrell and Amy Poehler. Within the first ten minutes, Annie and Max's surly, withdrawn, policeman neighbour, Gary (Jesse Plemons), feels like a joke which is going to wear thin very quickly, but actually turns out to be one of the most restrained and consistently funny high-points of the whole affair.
Interestingly uneven, Game Night is an amusing time-passer which certainly beats sitting round the backgammon board for the evening. But in terms of real skill and excitement, Daley and Goldstein are still trying to understand the rulebook…
The Game, Date Night.
I mean it's basically that.
Not unless it's raining and you've got a couple of hours to kill.
Entertaining as this is, rewatch-value will be low; stream/rent.
Nope.
Nope.
Nope.
Level 2: This film stars Sharon Horgan who was in that Man Up, as was Simon 'Plutt' Pegg, Harriet 'Kalonia' Walter and Phoebe 'L3-37' Waller-Bridge.
*1 And not to get too far ahead of myself, but boy did I know that they enjoyed it. I mean I quite enjoyed it too, but when the adorementioed patron bellowed with laughter every single time someone fell over (that's quite a lot), it's difficult not to resent the film for going so low, so often. But hey, I'm here to judge the movie not the audience, right? Haha. Right. [ BACK ]
*2 At one point, Annie brandishes a handgun in a bar, directly quoting the entire "If any of you fucking pricks move..." line from Pulp Fiction. Max immediately follows this up with "Haha yeah, a bit of Pulp Fiction there for you!". As if a) the people who remember Pulp Fiction hadn't noticed, and b) this will then become funny to anyone who hasn't seen Pulp Fiction and therefore has no reference point for the gag. On top of this there are many other heavy-handed (although some reasonably subtle) references to movies from across the years. Like, 'fan-film' many. You don't have to convince us you're a film geek, Mark Perez - you're writing screenplays for a living now, we'll sort of assume that to be the case... [ BACK ]
*3 Using the same gun, Annie accidentally shoots Max in the arm (this is in the trailer). After a moment of realisation, including a lengthy framing of the bullet wound, Annie then shrilly exclaims "Oh no, I can't believe I shot you!". Oh, is that what happened there? Thanks for pointing it out. [ 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.
One of the main reasons I go to the cinema on a Friday afternoon is that there's a smaller footfall than evening screenings, so the film is less likely to be disturbed by badly behaved patrons. That said, even I was surprised when I was one of four people watching the August-release of a Tom Cruise™ movie. Either the diminutive screen-god's appeal is waning, or Universal have absolutely no idea how to market this movie. And after the overall reception of their last collaboration, either is eminently possible…
Cruise plays Barry Seal, an airline pilot making a sideline in the late 1970s smuggling low-level contraband from South America, when he's recruited by the CIA to use his skills for more sensitive operations. Before long, his successes catch the attention of drug cartels, revolutionary forces, the DEA and FBI, all of whom want some of That Seal Magic, all of whom are willing to pay handsomely. Whether Barry's wife and children share his professional enthusiasm is a different matter…
Well, this is a pleasantly interesting mess. Skimming through events from 1976 up to a framing device in 1986, director Doug Liman presents a barrage of vignettes rather than a continuous narrative. Our protagonist's first-person narration does its best to stitch the scenes together, but there's always the feeling that this is an 800-page biography hacked down to just under two hours. The movie certainly captures the air of barely-controlled chaos, probably a little too well in fact.
There's always the feeling that Seal's enterprise is one step away from going completely south, even during the second-act high. The problem then is that you can't ramp up the tension for the climax because the audience is exhausted trying to keep up. The necessarily convoluted story is made needlessly more so by the erratic editing and camerawork. Many of the shots have fantastic Instagram-type filtering applied but this is used inconsistently, even within individual scenes. Visually, this film is all over the place.
While Sarah Wright and Caleb Landry Jones do their very best in supporting performances as Barry's wife and brother-in-law respectively, pretty much every shot revolves around That Guy Who's Smiling On The Poster. And young Tom is woefully miscast here; great at being Tom Cruise™ in a role crying out for another actor (his character's Southern Accent rears its head every ten minutes or so, only to skulk immediately away again). Without having met the real-life Mr Seal, one would imagine an actual drug-smuggler, arms-supplier and money-launderer would have a requisite level of roguish charm, rather than Tom's casual naivety. After two hours in his company, I'm still none the wiser as to how much of Barry Seal is in Tom's undemanding performance. American Made is never unpleasant to watch, but at the same time you know it often needs to be.
A more cynical version of me might even suggest that Liman is afraid of making Tom Cruise™ the bad guy, or even the anti-hero, of the story. In which case you'd have to wonder what the point of the film is, exactly. 2015's Black Mass is a perfect example of an almost uniformly bland actor (these days, at least) getting their teeth into a thoroughly reprehensible yet magnetic character. And when Johnny Depp is out-acting you, you're really not trying.
Yet for all my complaining, it's fun. From Domhnall Gleeson's wonderfully enigmatic government agent to the volatile drug-cartels and law enforcement agencies, the brisk pacing leaves little-to-no downtime and the lion's share of runtime is like a GTA-inspired farce*1. But it's a story told from a barstool, rather than from an armchair.
Entertaining, if thoroughly unfocused and ultimately forgettable, this is Scarface for the Hangover generation. If only Barry Seal had half the character of Tony Montana…
This film's a bit War Dogs, although it tries to have more fun.
Only if you have a burning need to see the film soon; you won't lose too much by catching this at home.
*1 I say this a lot, but during this movie I really had a hankering to play Vice City Stories. And it's not so much that American Made lost my attention at all, just that I really fucking love Vice City Stories… [ 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.
So, this is my third Jesse Plemons film this month; the cinema staff are beginning to talk. Everyone's favourite grump-faced young Texan is just one supporting pillar of many in the fantastically cast Black Mass, the true/dramatised story of Massachusetts crime-kingpin James 'Whitey' Bulger and his 20 year grip over Boston, all of which was in fact aided and abetted by his state-senator brother, and their childhood friend who became a crooked FBI agent.
First and foremost, Johnny Depp is on blistering form as Bulger. It's great to finally have Johnny back in a role which gives him something to do, boldly striding down the line between charismatic and repellent (and often being both). As Black Mass progresses though, it becomes as much Joel Edgerton's film as Depp's, and he's shaping up to be a classic character-actor in playing the FBI's John Connolly. Backed by understated performances from the likes of Benedict Cumberbatch, Dakota Johnson, Kevin Bacon, Corey Stoll, Rory Cochrane and Juno Temple (okay, and Jesse Plemons), director Scott Cooper isn't afraid to use some quiet restraint with his cast, opting for lengthy, scathing glances rather than Tarantino-esque shoot-outs (although rest assured, there's a not-insignificant bullet-count in here as well).
In other hands, the film could easily have been a straight-to-DVD thriller starring Russell Crowe, but Cooper's unflinching treatment of his subject matter (this is a hard 15 Cert), Junkie XL's melodically imposing score, and the fantastic sets, make-up and costumes make Black Mass far more than the sum of its parts…
…although it's duly noted that Mr Cumberbatch seems to have mastered his Massachusetts accent by studying Peter Griffin, Depp's criminal mastermind barely ages between 1975 and 1995, and his accompanying semi-receded hairline doesn't seem to budge at all;)
If you're in the mood for unrelenting grimness on a large screen, yes.
It'll be one to buy, but maybe once the price has dropped.
Almost certainly.
Almost certainly.
Maybe a bit.
There isn't.
Black Mass stars none other than young Owen Lars himself, Joel Edgerton.
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.
Ah, the Cold War, those were the days. Remember when you could have a long-term international stand-off based purely on fear, suspicion and non-racial xenophobia? The days when ideas alone were just as dangerous as actions? Y'know, before it all got a bit too heated?
Well, our Steven remembers, and he's brought us a film all about Jim Donovan, the US Insurance Lawyer who was tasked in 1960 by the government to negotiate with the Soviet/East-German authorities for the release of US spy-plane pilot, Francis Powers, in exchange for one of their captured snoops, Rudolf Abel. Armed largely with determination, an intricate understanding of American law and a compassion often absent from his colleagues in the CIA, Donovan also attempts to barter for the release of American economics student, Frederic Pryor, from the West-Germans. What? A two-for-one spy-swap, you say? But that's crazy! Will he succeed..?
Well, this is a Steven Spielberg film…
Okay, maybe I've been overly flippant about the whole thing, and Bridge of Spies is definitely a story worth telling. The film is earnestly made, and while it occasionally gets a little too hand-wringy, it's nowhere near as mawkish as the likes of War Horse. Fantastic performances from Tom Hanks (as the lawyer) and Mark Rylance (as the Soviet spy) make it all worthwhile, as do the occasional moments of wry wit. The pacing's a little patchy however, as is the notation of the passage of time.
There's also the feeling throughout that Spielberg's holding back; that a quiet respect for the factual events and the people involved is preventing this from being a more dynamic and entertaining film. At the same time, much of the political and historical minutiae is merely sketched in (as is a dazzling array of accents), so the final movie can't really be held up to Lincoln as a semi-educational piece, either.
What comes across the strongest is the story's ethical/humanitarian message, and while it's delivered from the heart, I think Spielberg may be preaching to the choir for the most part. This isn't the Oscar-bait of a January release, but nor is it an intricate legal/espionage drama in the run-up to Holiday Season.
Had it been an entirely fictional story, Bridge Of Spies could have gone further and been a great movie; although it's still a good one in the meanwhile…
For most audiences, not quite.
Unless you're a massive fan of Hanks or Rylance, this will be a rental.
Best, I couldn't say, but incredibly solid, certainly.
It does, but in a rather staid fashion.
Nope.
Nope.
(And there's one bloody perfect moment for it, too.)
Bridge of Spies is directed by that Steven Spielberg who also made those Indiana Jones movies starring that Harrison 'Solo' Ford bloke.
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.
Fair play to Armstrong though, he won those races not only when he was off his box on steroids, but also riding what's essentially a girl's bike. I imagine the bullying he sustained for having a racer instead of a proper BMX is what spurred him on to cheat, and there's a lesson in there for us all; play nice, kids.
Anyway, the Stephen Frears biopic of Lance Armstrong's rise and fall is well-paced and affecting, given that the audience already knows the outcome of the story. That said, I'm pretty sure I wasn't the only one expecting to see more of 'the fallout' once Armstrong's cheating was brought to light at the end, considering up until that point, the film paints Lance as a cheat, liar and chronically insecure narcissist. If anything, the screenplay almost undermines its own point, not kicking the cyclist further once he's completely fallen, but also failing to sufficiently vindicate Walsh, the journalist who helped expose him. While I can well imagine Walsh took no great glee in being proved right, the film seems to take even less.
(Although am I the only one who finds it fascinating that Armstrong successfully sued the Sunday Times*1 for claiming he cheated in much the same way that Liberace successfully sued the Daily Mirror for implying he was gay?)
Portraying everyone's favourite two-wheeled cheat, Ben Foster is quite-remarkable in a film which is only ever quite-good. Even Chris O'Dowd is great, demonstrating that he actually has a far better hand for drama than comedy. There's a delightfully meta scene in which Foster's Armstrong runs through a list of acting candidates being touted to play him in the movie of his life. Naturally, Foster's name was nowhere to be seen, yet he's probably given a far better performance than any of those mentioned would have (although they weren't being touted for this version of the story, obviously). Understated plays from the supporting cast work in the film's favour, although Guillaume Canet is one step away from Going Full Frankenstein™ in his portrayal as the dope-endorsing sports doctor Michele Ferrari, and his heated, ethical discussion on the subject gets a bit pantomime when he's let loose.
It's not a point which is played upon for too long, but I liked that The Program pokes into the science and biology of sports performance, to at least explain how the drugs were helping the team win races, even if the why is left as 'because they're cheating dicks coerced by their lead cyclist'. On a more technical level, what's going on with the camera-focus in the post-mountain-leg restaurant scene? It's almost as if Cinematographer Danny Cohen is trying to blur out people mid-frame who don't want to appear in the film. Except they're, y'know, the extras. It doesn't de-rail the film (obviously), but in a dialogue-heavy scene it's very distracting.
Although I had no interest in cycling (and still don't, to be fair), The Program is a fascinating movie dramatising human psychology more than sportsmanship. That said, it's debatable whether viewers who are familiar with the proceedings will get more or less out of the film…
As engaging as it is, probably not.
Rental.
This film should open the door for both Foster and O'Dowd to take on more challenging roles, yes.
Up to a point, absolutely.
Nah.
Not a one.
The Program stars none other than Lee Pace, aka Ronan The Accuser from Guardians Of The Galaxy, a movie which starred Peter 'the voice of Darth Maul' Serafinowicz.
[All roads lead to Darth Maul, today.]
*1 *It also wasn't lost on me that since The Times has been under the Murdoch banner, their institutional approach to journalistic integrity bears a striking similarity to Armstrong's sportsmanship ethos. It's been noted that way, at least.
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.
