Gringo Cert: 15 / 110 mins / Dir. Nash Edgerton / Trailer
Gringo is the new all-star-vehicle from STX and Amazon Studios, the vast majority of whose budget appears to have gone on casting David Oyelowo, Charlize Theron, Amanda Seyfried, Thandie Newton, Joel Edgerton and Sharlto Copley for pivotal roles in the movie, and apparently leaving enough in the marketing pot that I watched it on its opening day in the company of four other people.
Oyelowo stars as Harold Soyinka, an admin-exec for a US pharmaceutical company which specialises in medical marijuana and a shady means of manufacturing it. When abrasive CEOs Richard (Edgerton) and Elaine (Theron) unexpectedly accompany Harold on a routine trip to their Mexican processing plant, malevolent forces and sheer bad luck conspire to blow the wheels off the latter's life. Stranded south of the border, our hero decides to take matters into his own hands...
I distinctly remember the first time I saw the trailer for this and thinking 'well, that looks... loud'. I may have harrumphed and eye-rolled my way through the awards season, but I'm pleased to report that my instincts remain on-target. As entertaining as it often is, Gringo is an erratic, undisciplined mess.
The main (or at least, recurring) problem is that the film feels like it has no idea what it wants to be. Touted as a black-comedy, there are certainly laugh-out-loud moments in there but they're not consistent enough to be a feature. Anthony Tambakis and and Matthew Stone's screenplay is too cynical to wear the badge of a comedy, but too flippant to be a thriller. With the disparate threads of supporting characters and their associated sub-plots, this feels like the intention was to make a sharp, sassy romp, reminiscent of Guy Ritchie's early gangster-oeuvre. If only.
Much of the scene-pacing feels improvised and ultimately there just aren't enough likeable characters to drive the whole thing forward. Oyelowo is as much fun as Nash Edgerton's direction will allow, while Theron and Copley are on their usual solid form, but playing thoroughly unsympathetic roles. Joel Edgerton never quite gets to grips with the corporate monster he's meant to be, while Thandie Newton and Amanda Seyfried just simper away in the background. As-and -when we get to Carlos Corona's 'Black Panther' (not that one) and his Mexican drug-empire, the actual central plot device seems like an afterthought, full of autopilot tropes and lazy stereotyping.
Gringo is distracting fun, but its sporadic successes feel far more like accident than design. It sort of works but could be so much better, especially with this cast…
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.
And like that March is upon us, which can mean only one thing: The year's first Graveyard Slot™. The home of all the movies which aren't worthy enough to go up against the Awards-nudgers of Jan/Feb, and not loud or jazzy enough to be scheduled alongside the superhero flicks that populate the rest of the year. It's a sad state of affairs, but there we are. The release-window yields some fascinating oddities, of course, as distributors take a gamble on their less-categorisable fare and some unexpected gems come our way.
This isn't one of them, though.
Modern-day Russia*1. When promising Bolshoi ballerina Dominika Egorova (Jennifer Lawrence) is badly injured during a performance*2, the loss of her dancing career threatens to tear her fragile family apart. But Dominika's uncle Dimitrevich in the Russian government (Matthias Schoenaerts) offers an alternative way to make use of her talents, by becoming a ruthless spy and extracting information from American agent Nate Nash (Joel Edgerton). Obviously in this game, truth is a commodity as flexible as currency, and trust is even harder to come by…
While it's certainly a solid enough premise for a story, Red Sparrow is best at being a very ordinary, throwback thriller, boasting a strong primary cast and an impressive supporting-array of British acting talent (Charlotte Rampling, Joely Richardson, Jeremy Irons, Ciarán Hinds), none of whom can carry their intended accents from scene to scene. And while she's basically fine in the central role, you never forget you're watching 'Jennifer Lawrence In A Film'. For a secret agent, she sure stands out. The screenplay delights in being grotesquely provocative, albeit a way as thoroughly hackneyed as the steamy thrillers it thinks it's better than.
More quiet brooding than calculating action, this isn't as tense or dynamic as its trailer might suggest, and while that's not necessarily a bad thing, there just isn't enough intrigue to fill the vacuum which is left behind. Unfortunately, Jennifer Lawrence and Joel Edgerton receive neither the plot nor direction to be able to lose themselves convincingly in their performances. While I'm all for complex characters, the script has our main players be so wilfully convoluted that their actual motivations cease to matter after around 90 minutes. After that I just waiting for it to either kick off, or end.
It occasionally kicks off, and it takes its sweet time to end. While the film certainly has its moments, there's just too much padding between them to make a satisfying movie. At least Charlize Theron didn't need a sit down and a little cry every time she had to get her hands dirty.
A calculating cultural juxtaposition, Jason Matthews' 2013 source-novel has been heralded by those in the know for its detail and authenticity. If Francis Lawrence's film follows suit and realism is this disbelievable, then maybe in the 21st century war of misinformation, the Kremlin has already won…
*1 There's a line dropped into the script early on referencing social media, a nod to the audience to let them know that the film is either set 'now' or in the very recent past. So imagine my subsequent amusement when some International Secrets™ are sold, bought and delivered on five 3.5" floppy disks, the slow, bulky and pitifully small data-storage format that the '90s couldn't get rid of quickly enough. I suppose this is fantastic security for each agency as nobody else would be able to conveniently read what's on them. "I just have to verify the data" says Comrade J-Law, firing up a conspicuously modern laptop which presumably has a USB floppy drive attached that the cinematographer goes out of their way not to show us. Then again, Joel Edgerton is still using a pen-and-paper encryption method here. I expect the eventual arrival of a fax machine is going to blow his mind… [ BACK ]
*2 Her leg snaps. Across the shin. Just like that. I think the skinny male-dancer she's prancing around with accidentally somehow puts five times his own body-weight on it or something. It looks painful enough and then you think - wait, what? Dancer, trained, athletic. Leg, snapped. "Sorry, I can't come into work today Terry, my leg's snapped". Not to get too spoilerific, but she's interrogated at one point later by a bloke hitting her with a cosh and nothing snaps then. I'm definitely banking 'snapped leg' for the next time I want to sneak in a mid-week #FilmDay… [ 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.
It Comes At Night (SPOILERS! …I suppose?)
Cert: 15 / 92 mins / Dir. Trey Edward Shults / Trailer
Credit where it's due, if you want to give your film a strong opening, go for someone leaving the house with an incapacitated elderly relative in a wheelbarrow, whilst carrying a rifle and a can of petrol. Yeah, that got my attention. It Comes At Night is a film which both infuriated and delighted me (despite everything I'm about to go on and say) in equal measure.
In the near-future in an undisclosed U.S. woodland location, a family struggles to subsist in a remote farmhouse, having barricaded themselves away from the remnants of a civilisation destroyed by pestilence. Anonymity is synonymous with longevity when you don't know who you can trust, and the arrival of a desperate, bedraggled stranger throws their delicate routine into turmoil…
On the plus-side, Trey Edward Shults has written and directed a beautifully tense film. It's a languorous chiller which delights in disturbing rather than throwing jump-scares at the viewer (although there are a few of those as well, to be fair). The cast buy into this ethos perfectly, their muted and repressed performances adding to the claustrophobia. Defined, perhaps unofficially, as post-horror, the film is almost a mood-board, rather than a picture-book. An montage of feelings, rather than a linear chain of actions. And if that description gives you pause for thought, you'll probably be on the same page as I was for It Comes At Night…
What comes at night? Well, I've been down on 'studio-horror' for some time now*1; the ludicrous plots, the quiet-quiet-bangs and that thing they do at the beginning of the third act where a character conveniently uncovers the entire back-story of their supernatural nemesis. That's paint-by-numbers horror for lazy audiences and I think it's insulting. Shults' film on the other hand takes a more casual approach. At the start of the movie, we don't know the mechanics of the apocalypse which has befallen society to bring it to the point where Paul and Sarah are barely surviving entirely self-sufficiently in a remote farmhouse. We don't know why they're far enough down the line that they're not using their TV or radio to scan for information or help despite having solar-power, yet at the same time they don't seem to be so far into isolation that they've gotten rid of things like the bedside lamps they no longer use. We don't know the specifics of the airborne virus they're trying to guard against, or the reason they daren't venture out after darkness. We don't know why the family wear gas-masks to protect against the infection outside, yet don't appear to have a hermetically sealed house and aren't worried about cross-contamination from particles trapped in their clothes etc. We don't know why they're living in a house large enough to have brick chimney stacks (ie it's not a wooden shack) and have working plumbing (we see the shower being used), yet we're told they use an outside toilet and they pump their drinking water from a well outside (which would be more prone to compromise, surely?).
We don't know these things at the start of the movie, and we don't know them by the end, either. Just… not explained. It feels a little like Shults shot his film saying to the cast "don't worry, all the context and backstory will be done through flashback sequences", then the time and budget ran out before those could be filmed. At only 92 minutes and with so many unanswered questions, I couldn't help feeling a little short-changed. What comes at night? Hallucinations, memories and nightmares, apparently.
But I thoroughly enjoyed the film I watched, in fact it'll be great when it's finished. This feels like a really good standalone-episode of The Walking Dead, where the larger world is already established in the audience's mind, and the more danger comes more from social interaction with the living than any monsters roaming about. But it's not that. At least, not that we're shown. Post-horror apparently means not having to worry about details, only snapshots and fragments. It's difficult to empathise with any of the players when we don't know the broader context of their situation, only the minutiae of their domestic existence. New characters arrive in the story, which would normally be the storytelling device by which the past is fleshed out, but they're giving up little-to-nothing, either. Every character we meet (with the possible exception of the 5yr old kid and the dog) has a greater knowledge of the story than the audience, at the start, middle and end of the film. We don't go on a journey with anyone, we're just looking into the bus as they cruise past. So other than in the broadest, most circumstantial sense, it's impossible to feel anything for them. An air of mystery is nice, Mr Shults, but don't leave it up to me to imagine the wider narrative; you're the one being paid to tell the story after all…
Too loose and open-ended to be a narrative-piece, but too fixated on quarantine procedures to be a conceptual-work. I'm pretty sure It Comes At Night is allegorical, I just have no idea what for.
Scariest line:
"You don't like bread pudding? What's wrong with you?"
Assuming, that is, that it's not in screen 6 of Cineworld Fulham Road, who show a film where darkness is not only key but almost a character in itself, by having the 'dim' house-lights on throughout. Not the big house-lights which come on during the credits (and obviously not the 'cleaning' lights which the public rarely sees). But the central strip running down the centre of the ceiling, and illuminating everyone in the room. The film's characters are padding around in suffocating darkness, while I can see the patron a few rows in front of me picking their nose. I didn't have to worry about deciphering my scrawled notes for this film, since it was light enough to write by. Added to this is the Fire Exit sign which bleeds onto the lower-left of the screen, yes Fulham Road have previous on this one…
*1 Having watched a metric shit-ton of it in my youth, as well as countless straight-to-video duds where the cover art is head and shoulders above anything the actual film has to offer, hence my selecting it at Ritz Video… [ 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.
If the only thing you have to do to get a film optioned these days is name it loosely after an Aerosmith song, then I'm clearly in the wrong job. Hopefully my screenplay for biscuit-factory based zombie flick, Eat The Rich Tea!, should be hitting cinemas this time next year…
Meanwhile, Gavin O'Connor brings us Jane Got A Gun, a sand-worn tale of revenge, regret and survival. When Jane's ex-outlaw husband Bill arrives home carrying bullets inside his body as well as on his belt, it becomes apparent that his old boss, Bishop, has a score to settle. With Bill in no shape to defend either himself nor his family, Jane has to marshal her resources for a last stand. And for this she'll need the assistance of the man she used to be with before her life fell apart for the first time. This will get messy...
The actual framework of the story is pretty timeless, and I can't help get the feeling that it was originally written for a modern setting (probably with Russian/Eastern-European mafia as the film's bad guys) and then retrofitted as a Western. It's this genre-blurring aspect that I enjoyed the most*1, although given my track record with with modern Westerns, it's probably for the best that I found something else in there. At least Jane Got A Gun stands out more this way.
We get off to a fairly low-key start, the lack of any grand title-sequence foreshadowing how the story is going to be told. Additionally, the main narrative is punctuated by two sets of (albeit shared) flashbacks, which give us the characters' back-story, but in a non-linear order. This helps the dramatic unfurling of the tale, but not the rhythm of its telling. This movie has all the visual hallmarks we've come to expect from the genre, with the notable exception of broad, sweeping vistas of barren scrubland. The environment is there, and the photography is great nonetheless, but the landscape here is painted with the same brush as the drama; intimate and understated.
Natalie Portman is very good as the eponymous Jane in both the film's quieter and louder moments, but struggles to find the balance for anything in between. I like Portman as a performer, but I don't think she's right for the leading role, here. Joel Edgerton, on the other hand, is reliably solid as Dan, the representation of Jane's former life. And finally, although he has far less to do on a thespic-level, Ewan McGregor's clearly enjoying himself as the black-hatted, moustache-twirling villain of the piece. Together, they make for a fascinating central trio, and that's what's really important.
That said, for all the good and interesting things the film does, Jane Got A Gun loses a point for the dialogue frequently being needlessly indistinct in the sound-mix. Even in the quiet scenes. Edgerton and McGregor might get away with blaming the facial hair for the mumbling, but Portman's go no excuse…
Generally, most other modern Westerns.
But as I tend to have problems with those, let's go for The Salvation, in particular.
Only if it's nearby.
Just about, although it struggles more than it should.
Hmmm…
Nah.
There isn't. Shameful.
Level 1: Quite remarkably, Jane Got A Gun sees the on-screen reunion of Ewan 'Kenobi' McGregor, Natalie 'Amidala' Portman and Joel 'Lars' Edgerton, all from Attack of the Clones.
*1 Okay, I enjoyed the head-shots the most. Then the genre-blurring.
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, I sat in Screen 1 tonight wondering '...what are the actual guidelines on advertising alcohol in the UK?'. It's not unusual to see cinema ads for Smirnoff or Russian Standard, but only really in front of 15-rated movies and above. And obviously the statistical majority of the audience will be above 18 even for a 15 film anyway, so it's not like you're telling kids to buy the stuff. I only ask because the post-FACT/pre-BBFC ad tonight was for San Miguel, and as it's followed directly by the 12A Certification card it seems like an odd call. I don't really want to mention it officially as I've already got the projection-operator at my local in trouble once this week (no, really). Then again, Midnight Special isn't exactly aimed at youngsters, that's just the rating it has. And obviously there were a slew of booze-ads running in front of the 12A Spectre. Although above all else, maybe it got the go-ahead because it's 'the Story of San Miguel' advert, a whole minute of badly dubbed, patronising bullshit which is so excruciating that it should put even hardened alcoholics off touching the stuff. I guess we'll never know...
Which is a feeling that also accompanied me as I left the cinema two hours later. Jeff Nichols' Midnight Special is a movie that enjoys teasing the audience into asking questions, and enjoys witholding the answers even more. And you get the impression that it's not playful world-building, but that the answers just don't exist. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
The film opens in a Texas*1 motel room, with Roy (Michael Shannon(2) and Lucas (Joel Edgerton) having apparently abducted the young Alton (Jaeden Lieberher) from a religious cult living on a nearby ranch; a boy with inexplicable abilities and powers*3. Convinced that Alton is their saviour, the cult are anxious to see him returned, but Roy is determined to reach Sarah (Kirsten Dunst), Alton's mother. A trail of destruction follows them across state lines as the FBI and NSA (Adam Driver as Sevier) become involved, in a bid to figure out if the boy is an alien, a god or a weapon*4…
It's a strong start for a compelling movie. The problem is that the film seems to lose its way the further it goes down the road. Or rather, I began to lose faith in the film the more it tried to wiggle out of giving any firm explanations. I suspect the 'genre-defying' label that's being bandied about is a polite way of saying that Mighnight Special is never quite sure what it wants to be (even though it's clearly Sci-Fi), so can't settle on a narrative-format as a result. The closest compare/contrast I can draw would be Looper, a film which carefully places down unconnected jigsaw pieces, until sharply pulling back in the third-act to reveal the completed picture. A film which demands a second-viewing to appreciate the craft which has put it together. Unfortunately, I don't think I'd get any more from watching Midnight Special again. I wanted to love the film, but could only like and be intrigued by it.
You see for all my moaning, this is a very watchable flick. It's just nowhere near as clever or revelatory as it'd like to be. More a study of film-making than storytelling, it feels a little like an extended episode of The Twilight Zone, missing the closing narration of "yeah, that was a bit weird, wasn't it? No, there's no reason...". I enjoyed Midnight Special, but it left me more frustrated than satisfied. And not in a good way.
But you'll probably love it, and I'll love that you love it because then you can tell me what it was that I missed...
Looper, Close Encounters and, to a lesser degree, From Dusk Till Dawn.
Probably best as there are stretches of this movie which are so (visually) dark that you don't stand a chance of making out what's going on if you watch it in your living room.
Yeah, probably. It's just, y'know. Me.
Difficult to say as it's a real mixed bag on the performance-front.
Nope.
Didn't hear one.
Level 1: And it's a straight-A triple whammy! Midnight Special's Special Effects Coordinator John McLeod also worked as a stage-technician on Return of the Jedi for the Original Trilogy; the film stars Joel 'Owen Lars' Edgerton from the Prequel Trilogy and Adam 'Kylo Ren' Driver from the Sequel Trilogy. All of that doesn't happen too often...
Just, y'know… frustratingly noncommittal…
*1 And you know we're in Texas because every fifth line of the script has someone saying "y'all". No, really.
*2 Michael Shannon, reinforcing the rule that there's something distinctly unsettling about any man that does up the top button of his shirt when he's not wearing a tie. How the fuck am I suppose to sympathise with that kind of freakery??
*3Inexplicable in this case meaning that it's not really explained. "Aliens did it". Yep, that's all you're going to get. Transparent, light-up aliens living in a parallel dimension that (it's inferred) have relative super-powers but still build their cities in swampland and out of concrete. Okay, then?
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.
