Okay, join in if you know this one. Something-something Joel Kinnaman stars as Peter, a former gangster who’s now a Family Man™ and off-the-books double agent for the FBI. Something-something Polish mobsters doing a drug deal that goes wrong. Something-something Peter cast adrift by his corrupt handlers and facing a five-stretch to avoid blowing his cover. Something-something Peter has to work this whole damned thing through himself not knowing who he can trust, to find some version of justice, keep his family safe and spend more of the run-time giving glowering glances than reading his lines. Etcetera. Etcetera.
BOOK Apparently adapted from the sort of book which keeps the shelves warm in The Works, Andrea Di Stefano’s The Informer shows an equal paucity of ambition, all soundtracked by a shop-demonstration mode of Dark Ominous Tones™. Between the cardboard characters and clockwork plot mechanism, I’m surprised that the cast and crew managed to channel the concentration to finish making it.
It's like Russell Crowe handed down the mantle of po-faced, put-upon, anti-hero Family Man™ to Liam Neeson, he gave it to Matt Damon, and now Matt's passed it on to Joel Kinnaman and we all have to go through the cycle again, nodding politely and pretending to be impressed by the fight choreography when none of the shaky-cam shots therein last for more than a fifth of a second*1.
BOOGIE Kinnaman simmers throughout, precisely the performance needed for a role which could have been written by a computer. Meanwhile, Rosamund Pike and Clive Owen plough through the screenplay like they’re resigned to starring in TV procedural cop dramas now. Ana De Armas is in this as The Girl One, the big-eyed wife of the hero who spends the film flitting between simpering and screaming.
The villains of the piece are pretty clearly defined, and it was only ever going to end one way. Fair enough. And yet the movie could have cut to the Directed By credit at any moment and I’d have been absolutely fine with that. I had no emotional involvement with this film either way. Worse, I suspect that’s intentional.
TALLADEGA How, in a world where Sicario exists, does a thriller as clock-punchingly perfunctory as The Informer even get made? I mean, I know how movies get made, but why was this greenlit? Who read through this screenplay and decided it was bringing something new or worthwhile to 2019? Whose favourite film will this absolute, unremitting filler actually be?
Don’t get me wrong, The Informer is never bad*2.
But I think it might have been more interesting if it was...
*1 The honourable exception being the 1-on-1 scrap in the prison dorm, which goes to the ground almost instantly and is just grappling and grunting until it's over within 90 seconds. That part is a far more realistic depiction of how most fights work. Unfortunately it's also boring as hell to watch, and is the reason than movie-fighting was developed for movies.
That's right, The Informer really can't win either way... [ BACK ]
*2 Clive Owen, though. Clive Owen is bad.
Christ, his accent here sounds like he comes from the New York suburb of Walford... [ BACK ]
*3 Statham, Butler & Wahlberg sounds like the absolute worst solicitors' firm in the world.
Someone should make a sitcom out of that. [ BACK ]
*4 Seriously, Rosamund Pike was in Gone Girl and was fucking magnificent. What the hell are her mortgage repayments like that she's signed up for this absolute autopilot of a movie? All it's doing is using up toner by making the CV longer and dragging her Rotten Tomatoes average into the middle. Who benefits from that? [ 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.
Suicide Squad (2D / SPOILER-FREE)
Cert: 15 / 123 mins / Dir. David Ayer / Trailer
A Preface:
As regular readers will be aware, I'm not a DC-geek in any way shape or form. If anything, I bat for the other side. There's no agenda behind that, it's just the way my childhood/adolescence panned out, and that's the universe I'm at home in. As a result, I'm not familiar with the principle characters in this latest DC ensemble-flick. I know The Joker, of course, and I'm aware of Harley Quinn in the same way that a movie-goer who's never seen Star Wars still has a rough handle on who Darth Vader is*1. But the other members of the team and their assorted handlers, and hangers-on? Not a clue. I'll be honest, it's all I can do to ignore the fact that I'm quite looking forward to a movie that stars both Will Smith and Jai Courtney. That doesn't feel right.
So, with all this in mind, I decided to forego any frantic background reading/viewing in the run-up to Suicide Squad*2, since I believe a movie this early-on in the franchise should be introducing its characters properly to a civilian audience anyway. Also, I did read the faintly disappointing lead-in comic, Suicide Blonde, then decided the film could speak for itself ;)
As usual with a movie of this prominence and audience, my first review will be free of plot-spoilers. If the film really impresses me, we can get into picking apart the story another time…
A Review:
And so, after the queue for much needed coffee-at-midnight, the ads, the trailers, and not one but two post-trailer ads, the BBFC card displayed the words Suicide Squad, and the very respectably-sized audience in Screen 5 exhaled, their (our) wait over.
DC's chronological - if not tonal - follow-up to Dawn of Justice finally swings into our cinemas with all the swagger of unwanted party-guests, but also with the reassuring fun that it's not your party they're trashing. In fact let's be fair: the party needed livening up a little. But I know what you're thinking: 'yeah, what music do they use to open the film though, eh?'
Well, what with House of the Rising Sun, You Don't Own Me and Sympathy for the Devil all making an appearance in the film's first five minutes, it soon becomes clear that all non-orchestrated soundtrack here is going to be the cinematic equivalent of a needy child repeatedly tugging on your sleeve as you try to concentrate on the movie. Ironically, the problem is made worse the more familiar you are with the songs being used, as the connection between on-screen events and the tongue-in-cheek audio accompaniment feels even more tenuous and threatens to pull you out of the film each time*3.
Jukebox aside, with the twin barrels of Viola Davis' narration and stylised flashbacks, the members of Task Force X are individually introduced with sequences whose length correllates almost exactly with the billing position of the actor in question. Will Smith's Deadshot and Margot Robbie's Harley Quinn each get around three minutes of character-building exposition, Adam Beach's Slipknot gets a hurried four-word aside as he walks on-camera. Everyone else is on the sliding-scale between the two, their intro-scenes being a good indicator of how much attention the script is going to pay them.
But of course, the question on everybody's lips is how is Jared Leto's Joker? A mixed bag, frankly. Leto certainly brings a dangerous unpredictability to the character, but I'm not convinced that's what Joker really needs. He's less the scheming maniac here, and more an ADHD Godfather. The best moments with the clown-prince are his quieter ones; unfortunately, they're also the moments when he evokes The Spirit of Ledger. There's also been some concern online as to his share of screen-time. A fair way of putting it would be to say that Mista J is a recurring character here, but not a central one. This is his introduction to the timeline, it's not 'his film'.
And as much as Harley Quinn tries desperately to steal the show (completely in line with the film's marketing focus, to be fair), the most interesting characters here are Cara Delevingne's Enchantress and Jay Hernandez's Diablo. Both go some way towards developing throughout the film*4, both have backstories and motivations which aren't fully fleshed out, and both pay the price of trying to fight for screen-time with a cast this expansive.
Although the plot-mechanics of Suicide Squad are sketchy at best, and the central conceit makes little-to-no sense*5, the film is quite fun. It finally feels like DC are starting to feel comfortable playing by their own rules in the timeline (although the shadow of the Bat looms comfortingly over proceedings, too).
All in all, Suicide Squad is rather good. Although without the pop-soundtrack and misguided one-liners, it would be rather great...
A Post-Script:
Hang around at the end as there's a mid-credits scene, but there's no after-credits, so once the names start rolling up the screen you can make your way to the exits.
If comic-book movies being big and loud is your bag, yes.
In light of the cinematically turbulent time DC's had of late and of the reported reshoots for Suicide Squad, I think it probably does.
No, but that only means the best could be yet to come.
No.
I think there's one buried in the subway-scene, yeah.
Level 2: It's not too long ago that Margot Robbie appeared in About Time alongside old General Hux himself, Domhnall Gleeson.
*1 Not the best analogy, obviously, as the most direct comparison to Vader from an outsider's point of view would be The Joker, not Harley Quinn, but you get the idea. Some characters manage to seep into the mainstream (or at least, wider geekdom) consciousness by force of personality alone; others are General Madine.
*2 Partly because previous comics, cartoons etc wouldn't gel with the continuity of this movie so would probably just make things worse; partly because I've got a lot on at the moment and I just haven't had the time.
3 It's not like these are tracks that the characters can hear in-movie. Most seem to just be there because someone in the mixing department wanted to win a bet; a prime example being "$15 says I can get Eminem's vocally-heavy 'Look Who's Back' laid right over some dialogue!"
4 As much as I enjoyed Suicide Squad, there's little in the way of actual character development here. The film serves to introduce (some of) its players well, but by the time the closing credits appear, most are basically where they were to begin with. Literally, in some cases. It's basically stalling until Justice League comes along. Entertaining stalling, but stalling.
5 Because if you were putting together a black-ops task force designed to have the prowess to "stop a bad-Superman", why would you have it comprising of people who a) don't want to do what you tell them, b) are basically uncontrollable and c) are situated in a completely different timezone? It's hardly rapid-response, is it? Any evil-alien worth their salt will have gleefully committed genocide by the time these cats are scrambled to the chopper. You'd almost think it was a wafer-thin excuse to make a movie consisting largely of loveable villains since DC's heroes tend to be largely uninteresting…
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.
Child 44 Cert: 15 / 137 mins / Dir. Daniel Espinosa / Trailer
Now, I haven't seen Child, Child 2, Child 3, Child 4, Child 5… [ I should point out at this juncture that as a dyed-in-the-wool devotee of Lee & Herring, I will never tire of this joke. Never, I tell you.] … Child 42 or Child 43, so I had a fair bit of catching up to do in the first ten minutes. Luckily, the film makes little-to-no mention of previous installments, so this should be ideal for newbies to the franchise.
Stalinist Russia, 1953, and a series of child-deaths determined by the authorities to be 'accidents' bear all the hallmarks of a serial killer. MGB agent Leo Demidov is determined to unravel the case, but finds his progress hindered by his superiors, colleagues and even those he thought of as friends. Because how do you track down a killer when "there can be no murder in Paradise"..?
The film's setting is its unique selling point, but it the darkness of the era and that of the story never seem to gel the way you know they should. Not especially cinematic in either tone or form, Child 44 feels like a solid four-hour TV drama which has been compacted for a single big-screen outing, often at the expense of the narrative-flow. The film does a fantastic job of following the 'show, don't tell' ethos, resulting in some solid character building for Hardy's Leo, but things still feel rushed, even at two-and-a-quarter-hours. Noomi Rapace and Tom Hardy are reliable as always, but are crying out for stronger scripting and more focussed direction. In fact, it feels like Paddy Considine is the only member of the cast really grabbing the dramatic bull by its horns, and he outshines everyone with the momentum he brings to the film.
A major stumbling block (for me, at least) is that stretches of dialogue feel casual to the point of being improvised (and if they're not improvised, that's even more of a problem). This results in 21st century, English speech-patterns inserted into a 1950s Russian setting. Not quite as jarring as the way Julian Fellowes writes characters in Downton Abbey saying "…as if", but on the same page, certainly. The assortment of accents are distracting enough*1 without being pulled out of the story by the script itself. The worst offender in this department is Tom Hardy's line: "Obviously we are all guilty by association, irregardless." You can have irrespective, or you can have regardless. But 'irregardless' isn't a real word. How did this make it into the final edit?
A great story let down by dodgy accents, mumbled, off-the-cuff dialogue, atrocious shaky-cam and a rushed approach to storytelling, Child 44 is thoroughly intriguing but fails to live up to its full potential.
…not really.
Probably a rental; I doubt you'll get more than a couple of watches out of it.
With the best will in the world, no.
Narratively, yes. Dramatically, no.
I won't.
Well, who makes a film featuring a full-on battle scene in the first ten minutes and doesn't insert a Wilhelm Scream? The guy who hires sound-designer Christopher Assells, that's who…
Gary Oldman and Tom Hardy are both Nolan-era Batmanalumni of course, as is Liam 'Qui-Gon' Neeson.
^^ That's a strong four, but a four nonetheless.
*1 Although I'm also aware that Noomi Rapace and Vincent Cassel both speak heavily accented English to begin with, so maybe giving fake Russian accents to the cast puts everyone on the same handicap, so to speak? That said, Child 44 contains another small role for Charle Dance, illustrating that he either can't do All The Accents, or just chooses not to.
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.
Y'know, snarky comments about Liam Neeson as an alcoholic estranged father, punching and shooting people in a leather jacket are becoming almost as clichéd as films featuring Liam Neeson as an alcoholic estranged father, punching and shooting people in a leather jacket. Although despite today's neatly-timed announcement*1, Liam shows no sign of stopping just now, so I don't see why I should either.
Mr Neeson's latest (well…) offering bestows upon him the honour of The Opening Line. As he lies bleeding and surrounded by shrubbery, his sonorous transatlantic grumble delivers the absolute gem, "I've done terrible things in my life… things for which I can never be forgiven", with either an over-indulgence of self-awareness, or none whatsoever. I can't be sure which it is. Poor Liam is on autopilot for the entire movie, and Joel (Robocop) Kinnaman can't seem to muster the likeability required to be An Actual Protagonist. The screenplay makes no attempt to offer us anyone else to really root for, so it's just a case of sitting back and watching the claret.
The plot of the film takes place over the course of 16 hours, and the episodic nature of the father/son adventure does make it feel a bit like a mission-arc from Grand Theft Auto (complete with expository cut-scenes, naturally). The script itself seems to have been compiled by a computer working from a database of action-movie catchphrases and platitudes, hoping that the mumbling of the actors will fudge the audience's aural déjà vu. Strangely, one of the best scenes is the downtown New York chase, in which Neeson tries to ram the patrol-car of corrupt police officers off the road. Coincidentally, it's also a scene with almost no dialogue for four minutes.
Despite my moaning, Run All Night isn't 'awful'. As bullet-ridden action-thrillers go, it's actually on the better side of alright until dear old Liam keeps playing His Film Character. He's supported by Ed Harris (who can't seem to believe what he's doing), Joel Kinnaman (see above) and Boyd Holbrook, who puts in a reasonably interesting turn until he's killed in the first act (that's a plot point. It's in the trailer. It's not a spoiler.) The cast are so elderly, listless, or elderly and listless that Common*2 has to be drafted in during the second act to do some of the heavy lifting (and in fairness, Liam and Common duelling with flaming table-legs was rather nice, I thought).
Despite some interesting stylised transitions between scenes, there's really very little here that you haven't seen before. The film doesn't do anything too badly, it just doesn't do anything new. Although it doesn't really promise to, either. And when you're asking people to hand over a tenner to watch it? That's going to be a stumbling block.
With a smarter script and more inspired casting, Run All Night could have been just the thing. As it stands, it's another also-ran in the Liam Neeson box set of mediocrity.
Actual fact: Run All Night's distributor, Warner Bros UK, have thought long and hard, and decided that a 15-rated violent revenge-thriller should be preceded by the trailers for Home, Spongebob and Cinderella. No, seriously. Who the hell do they think is watching this movie? Well, me, evidently since I plan on watching at least two of those three movies. Although I was going to anyway, so…
Oh, and by all means write your screenplay and call your hardened, grizzled mob-boss Shawn Maguire. But whenever he gets mentioned, I'll be thinking of Sean Maguire. Threat-central, yeah.
Not really, if I'm being honest.
Unless you star in the film, I can't see that you'll want to watch it more than once. Rental, it is.
Well I doubt it'll be in Ed Harris' obituary-reel, somehow.
It probably does, actually.
Not really.
There isn't. For shame.
Run All Night stars Qui-Gon Jinn himself, Liam Neeson, of course.
*1 Seriously though, "two years"? John Candy died and they were releasing 'his last film' for the next five years. Two years of Neeson actioners is like a decade in human-years, or something.
*2 He's one of those rapper-actors, I think. He's generally used as background-scowling in movies, but he's pretty good in this. Certainly better at action-movies than the rest of the cast, anyway.
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.
Robocop (2014)
Cert: 12A / 118 mins / Dir. José Padilha
Like officer Alex Murphy, the initially challenging part of all this is trying to disengage your brain from what went before, and get on with the job at hand; to wit, enjoying an action movie in which an emotionally repressed cyborg shoots the shit out of some bad guys. And how. This is quite a 'hard' 12A, in that lots of people get shot, but mostly at some distance and there's very little in the way of claret; that said, it's really not for the younger ones. I only bring it up because the original is still rated 18 by the BBFC, and although times change, this reboot isn't too far behind in terms of tone and content (although little-to-no swearing, interestingly). In short, if your local cinema ran both films back-to-back, they'd instantly be cutting out the demographic that the new version is aimed at. How's that for moving with the times?
But what you really want to know is, is it any good? Well, yes. Yes it is. If only for the reason that it never tries to be anything more than A Robocop Movie. This telling of the tale still takes potshots at the right and left-wing branches of government and media, but at its core it really just wants to be a dumb action flick; and in this, it succeeds. Sam Jackson completely owns his scenes as an opinionated television news-commentator, and Michael Keaton is having the time of his life as publicity-conscious CEO of OmniCorp, the pleasant conglomerate set to sell robot police and pacification forces to the US government once a plot-centric bill is repealed in congress.
But what you really want to know is, is Joel Kinnaman any good as Robert Coppington™? Well, he makes a reasonable contribution, yes. His Robocop is good, but his Alex Murphy is a little patchy, although he's never substandard; I'm just not sure he's right for the part. The same goes for Abbie Cornish who plays his wife, Clara Coppington™. She's okay, but the role is so sketchily written that anyone could have been okay in it, and I wonder if she was the best choice. But the segment of the film based around their relationship, and how they're each coping with Alex being 90% metal, is largely glossed over because it's more fun when he's Shooting At Things.
But what you really want to know is, is ED-209 in it? FUCK, YES! THROUGHOUT! He/it/they don't have as pivotal a role this time round, but there's a clear fondness there for the bipedal death dispenser, and the new version looks every bit as badass as its predecessor. We also get EM-208, a humanoid law-enforcement robot, which is essentially a person shaped version of 209. They're used heavily in one shootout sequence, then sparingly for the rest of the movie.
So, there's intrigue, suspicion, corruption, politics and robots firing massive guns. Why reboot? Well, while the story is clearly structured around the original, and the tone remains the same, it's varied enough to be its own film (albeit a formulaic actioner), and it's a great way to revitalise the series for a new audience. Opinions will vary (as they always, and should, do), but I thoroughly enjoyed Robocop. Then again, I enjoyed the last Verhoeven Rebranding, too.
There are plenty of references and nods to the 1987 film without it becoming overly reliant on nostalgia, and all the time, it feels like Robocop. Although hold onto that feeling, because it won't leave you with a lot...
While I appreciate that rebooting the franchise might be anathema to some, I don't think we should get too precious about a Paul Verhoeven film which spawned twosequels and an animated spin-off. As a social and political satire, Robocop is a bit of a blunt instrument, but for all-out empty-headed entertainment, you won't go too far wrong here.
It's also good to see Batman and Commissioner Gordon reunited, even if they are butting heads for most of the film. Luckily, Nick Fury's on hand, and in this movie, he's positively livid.
Oh, yes.
I did.
Yes, although not a lot else.
If you like 'em big and loud, this is the cinema-trip for you.
No.
Yes.
I didn't hear one.
The things that you could, and indeed would, buy for a dollar in 1987 seem a world apart from those which you'd be able to purchase for the same amount of money now. Discuss.
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.
