In The Loop

In The Loop (2009)
Directed by Armando Iannucci
Starring Peter Capaldi, james Gandolfini, Mimi Kennedy, Tom Hollander

British political satire based on a successful BBC TV Show 'Thick of it'. The film is a satire of the Anglo-American governmental wranglings leading up to the invasion of Iraq. A UK minister played brilliantly by Hollander is used as a pawn by both sides when remarks he makes to the press are used as key phrases to start the war.

The film is bitingly funny. Capaldi steals the show as the Prime Ministers enforcer, a hard-core foul mouthed Scotsman who fears no man and takes no prisoners. Gandolfini is also hilarious as a US General. The film reminded me in parts of Kubrick's Dr Strangelove (Peter Sellers), In the Loop is a whole new take but it felt similar in tone. The film is very well written and the performances were dead-pan and spot on.

The approach is anti-West Wing in this film, its raw, doco, hand-held, gritty and real. The performances never become silly which is what keeps the satire in tact. It's a very funny film that has done well in Europe. Not sure how it will go down in US. Shows like The Office are a good appetizer for a film like this. If you like Gervais you will enjoy In the Loop.

The film is worth seeing just for Capaldi's performance alone. Must rent DVD.

Good Hair

Good Hair (2009)
Directed by Jeff Stilson
Starring Chris Rock, Maya Angelou, Andre Harrell,

Funny and entertaining documentary starring Chris Rock that digs deep into the wonders of of African American hair, the salons, the customers, the product manufacturers.

When Chris Rock's daughter asked him 'Daddy why don't I have good hair?' he went on a mission to find out who put this question in his daughters head. The film follow Chris around from Salon to Salon interviewing working class women who spend upwards of $1,000 on their hair. He visits an insane hair contest in Atlanta and interviews the makers of the top selling products. They visit manufacturer processing plants etc. We learn all about the art of the weave. Chris visits India to look at where the hair comes from for the weaves. He interviews an independant chemist and they do a lab-test on hair straightener, the #1 hair product used by African Americans, the straightener eats through a coke cans in minutes.

Rev Al Sharpton makes an appearance and is quite amusing with his tales. Maya Angelou also shines a light. The doco is informing and cute, not ground breaking or revelatory film making in any way, but worth checking out. Ice T makes a cameo and reflects his Pimp take on the whole hair issue, this had me cracking up. My good friend at Video Hut recommended this and I must say I enjoyed it. Chris doesnt dominate the documentary at all, I learned and laughed, always a good thing.

Must rent DVD.

Taken

Taken (2008)
Directed by Pierre Morel
Starring Liam Neeson, Maggie Grace, Leland Orser.

Saw this movie in theatres last year and just watched it again on dvd, what a treat. Morel knows how to direct action, his style is raw-edgy and abrupt. This director doesn't cut around the action, he shows the fight with great choreography, stunt work and a moving camera.

The story is simple; a pretty American student and her best friend take a trip to Paris to follow U2 in concert. Her nervous father Neeson doesn't want her to go, she is only 17. Her mother and wealthy step-father want her to go. Neeson is over-powered and gives in. The girls get tricked at an airport in Paris and kidnapped by Albanese Human Traffickers forcing them into the sex slave trade. The girls only have a 98hr window before the chances of them being found alive again disappear.

Neeson plays the lead girls' father, an ex CIA paramilitary operative who puts his skills to work hunting down the men who kidnapped his daughter and rescuing her. His daughter calls him as the kidnapping goes down and the limited scraps of information he hears on the call - the accents, his daughters descriptions of the men as she hides under the bed etc - are all Nesson needs to piece together a plan.

Nesson travels immediately to Paris and recruits an old friend in French Intelligence to help locate the Alabanese gang neighborhoods. He travels into the underbelly and carves a trail in blood and broken bones that eventually leads to his daughter, he discovers her best friend dead from an overdose. The French Intelligence officer gets in Neeson's way and double crosses him, but Neeson makes it to his daughter as she is being auctioned off. He gets caught but manages to escape and kill the kidnappers and save his daughter.

The action is top notch and the performances are taught and realistic. Neeson is a great actor, he embodies strength. When he says to the kidnappers in this movie "I will find you, I will kill you.." we believe it and know that he will. It's great to see an action film with a kick ass super-dad fighting for the life of his daughter. In the end Neeson's connection to his daughter is strengthened. Great action, simple story, well directed, shot and edited.

This is a must own DVD.

The Ugly Truth

The Ugly Truth (2009)
Directed by Nick Luketic
Starring Katherine Heigl, Gerard Butler.

Decent romantic comedy set in the world of television. Hiegl plays a control freak female TV producer who is having problems with with her ratings. Her worst nightmare is realized when, in an attempt to boost the ratings, the network hires a crass Butler to work alongside her and spice up the show. Butler runs a sleazy hit local television show 'The Ugly Truth', a cynical 'relationship advice' call-in program. The two do not like each other, they are opposites and so at first their friendship is rocky.

Soon Butler has charmed her and is giving her relationship advice, 'tests' straight out of his 'Ugly Truth' manifesto. Heigl follows his advice and it works, she gets the man she wants but soon realizes she doesn't love him. She has fallen in love with the exciting and fresh Butler, who speaks his mind and knows what's up. These two are so opposed its refreshing when they actually connect, they have good on screen chemistry.

Heigl is forced to follow and beg Butler to stay at the network after he appears on Late Night With Colin Ferguson and is offered a bigger and better deal elsewhere. They almost have drunken sex but don't. Her ex shows up and Butler leaves, but the two ex's don't connect. Pretty soon Heigl and Butler are both working a state Fair for different local networks. He tells her he turned down the big network to stay close to home. They get in an argument on a hot air balloon which takes off. He tells her he loves her and they fly off in the balloon.

It sounds rather milquetoast but it's not, its good fun. The two leads make it happen. Its a date flick, good for some giggles just dont expect 'Wuthering Heights'. Must see DVD.

Cape Fear

Cape Fear (1991)
Directed by Martin Scorsese
Starring Robert De Niro, Nick Nolte, Jessica Lange, Juliette Lewis

One of the best from Martin Scorsese. This is masterful dramatic work with suspense, horror, violence, eroticism and unforgettable dialogue. This story is a tightly wound spring that keeps winding until it eventually snaps setting hell loose and leading to one of the best climaxes in film history.

The story opens with murderer/rapist Max Cady (De Niro) being released from jail. Cady has come back to seek revenge on his rich Southern Attorney (Nolte) for burying evidence that could have prevented his 14 year jail sentence. Nolte plays an attorney so perfectly fragile, he is a man with everything but a backbone. Even though Cady is a demon we relate and sympathize with his 14 years in jail, sodomized and beaten. As the plot thickens and pets start dying, Nolte begs and offer money to Cady to go away but Cady doesn't want money and he isn't going away. Cady wants truth and justice, so he terrorizes the family.

Cady seduces the daughter (played brilliantly by Lewis) in a scene with superb tension and dialogue. Cady gets into the mind of the teenage girl, using her anger towards her parents to manipulate her. Cady is an intellectual, very well read, versed in law from his time spent well in prison. He quotes scriptures and authors in almost every monologue. This is one of the best film psychopaths ever to hit the screen. De Niro embodies malevolence in this role.

Nolte hires a dumb private-eye who arranges thugs to attack Cady with pipe, scare him off. Cady is attacked but overcomes the gang, takes their weapons and beats them up instead. Nolte watches all this from behind a dumpster, Cady has a hunch and shouts out loud 'Counseller, are you there, could you be there?' classic stuff. The murder of the nanny sets the family on the run to the Florida Keys to get away from Cady, who straps himself under their car traveling with the family for the big climax. The family hide on their houseboat in the keys and of course Cady follows them where he attacks the family beating up Nolte and preparing to rape the wife and daughter. A storm intervenes and the houseboat is sent into a swirling hell of ocean storm. Cady is not match for the elements and is overpowered by the family fighting together to beat him. Classic moment with lighter fluid in the face set alight.

Cady is eventually over-powered and drowned by being handcuffed to a boat rail by Nolte, the boat sinks Cady drowns. We think right up to the last moment that this man cannot be killed, and there is even a few teasers thrown in to suggest maybe he didn't die. The family jump to safety off the boat and all survive, brought closer by this nightmare event.

Lange is astounding in this film her arc is dramatic. This is the best role Nolte ever played. Lewis is smouldering cute and gives a brilliant performance as a curious teen. De Niro needs to be seen to be believed in this film, its not only a physical mountain he climbed but his transformation of face and voice should have won him the Oscar that year. The story is thrilling and the action and tension start from the first frame and don't let up until the last. Its fantastic Noir, Scorsese borrowed a lot from the original in terms of tension and mood but he made this Cape Fear 100% his own.

A must own dvd.

Law Abiding Citizen

Law Abiding Citizen (2009)
Directed by F Gary Gray
Starring Gerard Butler, Jamie Foxx

Loop de loop Thriller about a man (Butler) who exacts Justice on the 'killers' who brutally raped/killed his wife and daughter and the 'justice system' that failed his family. It's 10 years after the crime and Butler has come back for revenge. Foxx plays the egomaniacal city-prosecutor who in protecting his trial success rate takes a plea bargain letting the 'real killer' serve 5 years while the 'accomplice' gets the death sentence, this destroys Butlers life and belief in the justice system.

Butler intervenes in the lethal injection execution, making the inmate suffer greatly. He then captures the other criminal (the real killer) and dismembers him using a skill saw in warehouse, while videotaping the event. He sends the dismemberment videotape to the Prosecutor's (Foxx) family. His wife and kid see it, yuk. Butler is apprehended by police and eventually confesses to the murder blaming the justice dept for failing his family. He targets Foxx and while in jail wages a terror war on the police of Chicago, how does he do this? Keep reading, haha. It felt a lot like Cape Fear. I actually rented and watched Cape Fear again because this reminded me so much of it.

So while Butler is in jail the rampage and destruction continues. How, does he have cohorts? It is then revealed in an OMG rug-pull that he is in-fact an ex Special Ops, Black Ops, best in class, whatever, blah blah blah. Anyhow the ridiculous plot then has Butler tunneling his way out of the prison to pull off the terror attacks and going back to his jail at night - yes stupid. This reveal makes the film a farce. I guess they needed a way to explain how this regular guy could get hold of missile launchers and robot machine guns from jail, hahaha.

Anyway it was ludicrous but I must say very entertaining. Both actors have great chops and it was fun to see them go head to head. Foxx delivers and Butler is good, just his old Scottish accent pokes through. Also Butler must make 10 films a year. He is in everything, a new film a month, enough already. It's good to see Butler stick it to the man because he has been very badly wronged, but the whole film goes to far and uses a sentimental hinge (daughter) to explain and justify his rampage. The film is an excuse to blow shit up and shoot guns and for the two actors to look mean and be stressed and act all melodramatic. I don't think anyone mentioned the word plausible in the script meetings. If you are willing to switch off and go with the flow, you will enjoy it. It not so terrible its unwatchable, not by far, its just schlocky entertainment.

Rent it on DVD, the action will keep you entertained, if you like that kind of thing.

The Wolfman

The Wolfman (2010)
Directed by Joe Johnstone
Starring Benicio Del Toro, Emily Blunt, Anthony Hopkins

Remake of the Hollywood classic. I went in hoping to be impressed given the stellar cast involved, but the film was crippled by its B-movie approach to the story, bad dialogue and over the top melodramatic music. The film gets more interesting as the action ramps up and the characters talk less. The plot is easy to figure out and there is nothing new in the story or the visual effects that makes this an original or unique werewolf film. There is nothing in this film that we didnt see in the early 80's in 'American Werewolf In London' by John Landis; if you cant better that classic then why bother. It's basically the same story wrapped in a different coat. Surprisingly the visual effects are no better than in AWIL; okay there are some cool closeup inner mouth transformation shots that are crazy cool, but all in all it didnt feel new or have a 'wow factor monster'. The film is actually quite a snooze as we wait through tedious set-up for it all to go down exactly as we predict. No guess work needed with this plot.

Del Toro looks bored and he resembles an overweight Paul McCartney with bad hair, bad make-up and some real bad acting until he becomes The Wolfman, then he steps it up. I wont even get into the story or plot, its not worth it. The big problem is that the film lacked character development of any kind. The dialogue and performances are so hammed up its hard not be chuckling while you watch the splatter-fest. Yes it is very gory and this makes up for the lack of suspense or tension.

Hugo Weaving plays a supporting Role as a Scotland Yard detective who 'knows all along', and he is quite good until the very end of the film when its made clear he will be playing the next Wolfman. What does that mean? The Wolfman 2. No, please!

Danny Elfman's music (in my opinion) was a bad rip on Wojciech Kilar's score for 'Bram Stoker's Dracula' (91) by Francis Ford Coppola. Through and through its a clear rip-off, the beats, the tones, the movements, all of it - very disappointing.

There is no real twist in this film and the reveal of Hopkins as the Daddy Werewolf comes as no surprise. When father and son duke it out in a wolf-fight its quite comedic instead of climactic. An old grey and hairy Hopkins-wolfman had me cracking up.
Emily Blunt is fabulous as usual but she has nothing to do apart from 'fall in love' with her brother in law, yes yuck. When this happens it crushes the lead characters with bad taste and bad writing. Blunt looks beautiful as ever and cries on cue (a lot). She should have passed on this turkey. Its just a big corny laugh.

Props must be given for the fact that the Wolfman looks exactly like Wolfman from the Hollywood legend, ripped white shirt and all, the face is a total dead-ringer. The 3D is okay but clearly animated and the matte paintings are well below average, one too many timelapse moon shots. This film sat on the shelf for 2 years. Its easy to see why, it just doesnt hit the mark for such a classic title. Rent it on DVD to support these great actors regardless of the content. If you like Gore you might enjoy it, just don't expect to be gripped, moved or scared. It wont happen.