Author: Alistair Nunn

Caravaggio (1986)

Nigel Terry is Caravaggio in Derek Jarman’s extraordinary meditation on art Caravaggio

Director: Derek Jarman

Cast: Nigel Terry (Michelangelo de Caravaggio), Sean Bean (Ranuccio Thomasoni), Tilda Swinton (Lena), Garry Cooper (Davide), Dexter Fletcher (Young Caravaggio), Spencer Leigh (Jerusaleme), Michael Gough (Cardinal del Monte), Nigel Davenport (Giustinani), Robbie Coltrane (Cardinal Scipione Borghese), Dawn Archibald (Pipo), Jonathan Hyde (Baglione), Jack Birkett (Pope)

Derek Jarman started his career as a painter, before he began making his own eccentric, art-house films, shot through with a fascination with visual imagery, colliding time periods, abuse of power and homosexuality. For years, Jarman had sought funding to make a biographical film about Caravaggio – one of his (and my) favourite artists. The film he eventually produced, Caravaggio, is quite simply not like anything you’ve really seen before – partly a masterpiece of striking imagery and inventiveness, partly a groaningly semi-pretentious, self-conscious piece of art cinema. What it never is though is dull.

Told in a disjointed series of flashbacks, in which not every scene necessarily connects with the scenes preceding and following it, Caravaggio as a young boy (Dexter Fletcher) is taken under the wing of Cardinal del Monte (an imperiously controlling Michael Gough): creepy part art patron, part pervert. Caravaggio (Nigel Terry) becomes a successful painter, while never losing his taste for the wildness and violence of the streets of Rome. He becomes fascinated by street fighter Ranuccio Thomasoni (Sean Bean) and Thomasoni’s lover Lena (Tilda Swinton), the three of them forming a sensually suggestive menage-a-trois, which eventually leads to tragedy. All this is framed with the dying Caravaggio, remembering in a semi-poetic voiceover feelings and moments from his life.

Firstly, for any fan of Caravaggio, this film is a visual treat. Every frame is lit and framed to be as reminiscent as possible of the style of the master. Many scenes are framed either in bare, stone rooms with single windows, or in sets emerging out of an inky blackness. Lighting often strikes diagonally across the frame, just as in Caravaggio’s best work. A number of scenes seem lit from a single source, such as a candle. On top of this, a number of scenes feature either the creation of, or inspiration for, a number of Caravaggio’s most memorable artworks: for those familiar with his work, it’s a delight to see these either recreated in the studio by models, or suggestively composed out of scenes. For an art lover, it’s a visual treat.

Jarman also has an intricate understanding of the creation of art, and when we watch Caravaggio at work it genuinely feels like watching a real artist, engaging with the world, recording images in his mind’s eye, and preparing his next work. The scenes watching Caravaggio create his masterpieces are fascinating in their detail and the careful build-up of paint to create an effect. The effort of models to stay still for the painter is constantly stressed. It’s a tribute to the work that goes into creation, even if the film succumbs to a few pretentious clichés (at one point Caravaggio and Ranuccio fight playfully with knives and Ranuccio cuts Caravaggio: of course Caravaggio smears the blood over Ranucci’s face. That tends to be what artists in films do). 

Jarman, however, makes a film that is deeper and more suggestive than that. This is a fascinating meditation on power and patronage in the world of art. Caravaggio is a genius, but also a tool of the people above him in the pecking order. One of the first things we see is the teenage Caravaggio selling first a painting, then his body, to a pervy art collector. The patrons call the shots here, and if they want to put your work on their wall, or their hands down your pants, the artist just needs to fall into line. Caravaggio himself is little different – the models he works with are treated with a certain warmth, but there is a clear hierarchy here. His relationship with Ranuccio and Lena is rooted initially in power – he can effectively buy them or their bodies, because he controls the money available to them. The renaissance was not a time of equality: everyone is in hock to someone else, and everyone is defined by what they can trade, be that their art, their body or both.

The film has a clear sensual charge to it in every frame, despite not containing a single scene of sex. There are highly suggestive moments of sexual abuse and desire throughout. It’s heavily implied Cardinal del Monte’s interest in the young Caravaggio is not completely innocent, as del Monte sits with him in bed teaching him to read. During their first modelling session, Caravaggio tosses a series of coins at Ranuccio, each of which the man inserts suggestively into his mouth. Every scene with Lena tingles with sensuality – either with Caravaggio, Ranuccio or the mysteriously powerful Cardinal Borghese (a corrupt looking Robbie Coltrane). 

Perhaps the most striking feature of the film though is its highly unique look. Taking his cue from Caravaggio himself – who painted the subjects of his historical pictures in contemporary dress and locations – Jarman and costume designer Sandy Powell dress the cast in a series of shabby, 1940s-1970s clothing (with the exception of a scene in the Vatican, which is established as a fancy dress party). Caravaggio is barely seen without a cigarette in his mouth, and dresses like a bohemian from Montmartre. Plenty of modern props are introduced – a banker fiddles with a pocket calculator, the writer Baglione hammers his criticisms into a typewriter while flicking through a luscious magazine of Caravaggio prints. Ranuccio cleans a motorbike.

All this manages to not only make the film continually visually striking, but also playfully reminds the audience all the time that they are watching a version of a reality – not a true story but a fictionalisation of the painter’s life. It gives Jarman an artistic licence that he exploits to the full, and makes this a film that really sticks in the memory. It’s an inventiveness you wish you saw more in films rather than slavish historical recreation.

Caravaggio is not a masterpiece – it’s a little too self-consciously arty for that. It almost delights at times in being disjointed and hard to follow. Some scenes leap over what seems like years of events. There is no real narrative through-line. The poetic voiceover can start to wear you down – I searched it for meaning, but I’m not sure if there was much there. Saying that, although this is very much a director’s film, there are some fine performances. Terry does a very good job as the artist himself, capturing a sense of the creative spark behind the eyes. Bean is excellent in one of his first roles as the earthy, insecure Ranuccio. Tilda Swinton however steals the film (it’s easy to see why she became Jarman’s muse) as the beguiling and mysterious Lena.

Caravaggio is that rare thing: a film about an artist that seems to understand art, and feel like a work of art itself. It’s unique and eye-catching and memorable as well as having a neat eye for the tragic. I was strangely mesmerised by it throughout. It’s not a perfect film, but it’s a very good one.

The Deadly Affair (1966)


James Mason deals with marital and professional deception and betrayal in spy thriller The Deadly Affair (in every meaning of the word!)

Director: Sidney Lumet

Cast: James Mason (Charles Dobbs), Maximilian Schell (Dieter Frey), Harriet Andersson (Ann Dobbs), Harry Andrews (Inspector Mendel), Simeone Signoret (Elsa Fennan), Kenneth Haigh (Bill Appleby), Roy Kinnear (Adam Scarr), Max Adrian (Adviser), Lynn Redgrave (Virgin), Robert Flemyng (Samuel Fennan), Corin Redgrave (David)

The Deadly Affair is a faithful adaptation of John Le Carré’s first novel, Call for the Dead, that first introduced to both Le Carré’s distinctive vision of espionage (a world where spying is a dirty, depressing business, miles away from Bond), and also his principal recurring hero George Smiley – although Smiley here is renamed Charles Dobbs (Paramount held the rights to several recurring Le Carré characters as it was making The Spy Who Came in From the Cold). The Deadly Affair often gets forgotten in the list of Le Carré films, which is unfair – this is a fine, gripping, character-led thriller.

Charles Dobbs (James Mason), a senior case officer in British intelligence, meets with Samuel Fennan (Robert Flemyng): a civil servant in the Ministry of Defence, who has been anonymously accused of being a Russian agent. Dobbs all but agrees to clear Fennan in a friendly meeting – only for Fennan to go home and commit suicide. Dobbs investigates, but quickly finds that the facts – and the story of Fennan’s wife Elsa (Simone Signoret) – don’t seem to tie up. Working with retired police inspector Mendel (Harry Andrews), Dobbs investigates further – against the wishes of his superiors. This also helps to distract Dobbs from his disastrous home life with his serially unfaithful wife Ann (Harriet Andersson) and her growing closeness to his old war friend Dieter Frey (Maximilian Schell).

The Deadly Affairhas an old-school, unflashy, Hollywood professionalism to it, very smoothly directed by Sidney Lumet. Lumet and photographer Frederick A. Young slightly exposed each shot of the film to give the colours a drained, murky quality, which works extraordinarily well for the grimy Le Carré feeling. Lumet uses a series of careful POV and shot-reverse-shots to involve the audience neatly in the action – we are nearly always seeing events from someone’s perspective, and this helps us empathise with the characters and action. He also uses London locations expertly – everywhere is carefully chosen and shot for maximum impact, creating a world of dingy backstreets that perfectly matches the feeling of the story.

It also helps that Lumet changes very little from what was already an excellent source novel. It’s an intricate “whodunnit” puzzle, twisty and challenging enough to keep the audience guessing. What the film does really well is introduce Dobbs’ wife Ann as a central character in the storyline, and to make marital betrayal and deception a complementary subplot, alongside Dobbs’ involvement in the world of professional bluff and counter-bluff: during the day he practises the very same deception that pains him so much at home. (Le Carré would effectively lift some of the ideas of this film adaptation and reproduce them in later books, most especially Tinker, Tailor, Solider, Spy.)

This marital disharmony becomes a key theme in the movie – two people who are totally reliant on each other but can’t seem to stop hurting each other. Ann is in many ways the hellish wife – serially unfaithful and largely unrepentant – but Dobbs is equally difficult, unnervingly patient and silently (but never vocally or perhaps even consciously) judgemental. They have a complex arrangement, but also a clear understanding of each other, and their conversations sound like careful, familiar routines. Like a scab, Dobbs keeps picking at this wound of his wife’s infidelity – early in the film he returns home after a late call out to find his wife naked in bed. She rises to greet him provocatively, and they kiss, but Dobbs seemingly can’t let go of his own sense of impotence. Later Ann demands Dobbs expresses some rage and jealousy – as if looking for him to show some sort of feeling.

It’s a neat sub-plot for a film that focuses on a series of major personal and professional betrayals – I counted no fewer than five over the course of the film but there are probably more depending on how you define it – and which shows how spying can become wrapped up in personal affairs. Despite Dobbs’ apparent pride at treating his work with a determined coolness, everything is so very personal in this film. Characters react often with emotions rather than cool rational thinking – with the exception of one character who uses the emotions of others very rationally to manipulate them. Even the final confrontation of the film has a sad loss of emotional control at the centre of it – and leads to actions bitterly regretted by the survivors.

 

James Mason is very good as Dobbs, buttoned-up but slightly run-down, a man who presents a face of calm control and wisdom to the world, but at home is an insecure, deeply pained, impotent mess. Determined and principled in the world of espionage, he is hopelessly in love with his wife, to the extent of practically allowing her free rein to do as she wishes. Despite being in nearly every scene, it’s also a very generous performance, quiet and unshowy, that often cedes the scene to his partners. Harriet Andersson (though clearly dubbed) manages to make Ann someone who feels sympathetic and understandable – even though she is a colossal pain.

Lumet also gets some wonderful performances from the rest of the cast, not least from Harry Andrews who I think steals the movie as a narcoleptic Inspector Mendel, obsessed with facts and possessed of a dry professionalism. The film also gives a gift of a role to Simeone Signoret, a woman with a troubled past and indeterminate motives, bubbling with guilt and resentment. She is given no less than three tour-de-force scenes (one played almost in complete silence) and plays each brilliantly. There are neat cameos as well from Max Adrian (as a campy popinjay running Dobbs’ department) and Lynn Redgrave as an eager stagehand for an amateur theatre company with some vital evidence. 

The film’s conclusion revolves around two masterfully done sequences: one during a performance of Edward II (by the real Royal Shakespeare Company – spot several familiar actors on stage), the second an emotional confrontation at a dock that erupts into violence. It’s a wonderful dwelling on betrayal and its impacts. It also works an absolute treat as a low-key counterpart to Bond at his Swinging Sixties height, while still packing a jazzy score from Quincy Jones (which at first seems completely incongruous but actually helps to establish the mood really well). Directed with professional assurance with a host of fine performances – it’s a little bit of an overlooked gem.

Free Fire (2016)


The calm before the storm in Ben Wheatley’s gun-fight Free Fire

Director: Ben Wheatley

Cast: Sharlto Copley (Vernon), Armie Hammer (Ord), Brie Larsen (Justine), Cillian Murphy (Chris), Jack Reynor (Harry), Babou Ceesay (Martin), Enzo Cilenti (Bernie), Sam Riley (Stevo), Michael Smiley (Frank), Noah Taylor (Gordon), Patrick Bergin (Howie)

At some unspecified point in the late 1970s, IRA men Chris (Cillian Murphy) and Frank (Michael Smiley) meet with Vernon (Sharlto Copley), via an intermediary Justine (Brie Larsen), to buy a lot of guns in an abandoned New York warehouse. Unfortunately, Frank’s druggy brother-in-law Stevo (Sam Riley) the night before was badly beaten by one of Vernon’s men Harry (Jack Reynor), after Stevo had maimed Harry’s cousin. Next thing anyone knows, guns are drawn and the shooting starts…

And that shooting lasts for the course of the rest of the film. Free Fire is like some sort of slightly odd concept album. As if Wheatley and co-screenwriter Amy Jump sat down and wondered “can we make a gunfight that basically lasts the entire course of a film”? The answer was, as it turns out, yes they could. Was it actually a good idea? Well that’s less clear.

The good stuff first. The film looks terrific, and is very well shot. The mix of beige and slightly over-saturated colours capture a hilariously flashy look at the 1970s. Soundtrack choices are very well made. The sound design – surely the main focus of any film focused on gunfights – is excellent, with bullets sounding like they are ricocheting past your ear. It’s cut with intelligence and clarity – it’s always immediately clear where you are and where everyone else is (Wheatley even patiently films our characters entering the warehouse through a series of doors – and old trick but it immediately gives us the geography).

The screenplay is also pretty funny in places, and does a good job of sketching out characters incredibly quickly. It’s lucky it also has a fine cast of actors to inhabit these swiftly drawn characters. Best in show is probably Armie Hammer as a suave, cock-sure hired gun who clearly believes the whole shebang is a little beneath him. Cillian Murphy as the nominal lead makes an engaging double act with Michael Smiley. Sharlto Copley adds maverick, overblown colour as a cocky weapons dealer. Brie Larson plays the long game as the intermediary whose loyalties seem a little unclear. Sam Riley is engrossingly pathetic as the whining loser whose actions lead to the whole disaster.

The gun fight itself is a neat combination of the realistic and the comic book. Our heroes are hilariously inaccurate with their weapons (as you expect most people would be in this situation) but this doesn’t stop every single character getting shot in the arms, legs and other body parts multiple times. Adrenalin means they largely shrug these off for the first half hour of the film, but by the final third each character is unable to walk and visibly struggling with growing shock and loss of blood. I’ll admit it’s rather fun to see a gunfight conducted largely by people crawling around on the floor groaning, in between whining and complaining at each other.

Structurally there isn’t a lot to the film. There is a twist of sorts as both sides are double crossed (the identity of the double crossers should be worked out by most astute watchers) and the film occasionally throws enemies together in odd partnerships and alliances. But the plot is basically a real-life survival film – who is going to get out of this warehouse alive?

Which is what brings us back to this concept album idea. Yes this an entertaining enough film – and it’s very short – but is a single gun fight between characters we’ve only vaguely got to know in the opening 10 minutes really enough to sustain long term interest? Is this something I can imagine re-watching? It’s got some funny lines and some decent moments, but honestly no not really. It’s an inventive idea, like a challenge Wheatley has set himself. But instead of seeing what is clearly a talented director playing with toys and seeing if he can make a film centred solely around an action set-piece, imagine if he turned that creative fuel on making an actual film. We know he can – he’s got some fine material on his resume. So why make this?

Free Fire feels like a conscious attempt at making a cult film, with its 1970s aesthetic, its eclectic cast of characters, its witty moments and punchy action sequences. I’ll agree it’s very different from anything else I’ve seen. Does that necessarily mean that it’s a good film? I’m not sure. It’s a challenge and almost a joke. It’s different from action scenes in Hollywood blockbusters – but at the end of the day, for all the fact that the gun shots have consequence, it’s just an extended action set-piece without context. Very entertaining but kind of empty.

Victim (1961)


Dirk Bogarde takes on both blackmailers and the vilest of laws in Victim

Director: Basil Dearden

Cast: Dirk Bogarde (Melville Farr), Sylvia Sims (Laura Farr), Dennis Price (Calloway), Nigel Stock (Phip), Peter McEnery (Boy Barrett), Donald Churchill (Eddy Stone), Anthony Nicholls (Lord Fullbrook), Hilton Edwards (P.H.) Norman Bird (Harold Doe), Darren Nesbitt (Sandy Youth), Alan MacNaughton (Scott Hankin), Noel Howlett (Patterson), Charles Lloyd-Pack (Henry)

Victim is both a film of its time and hugely daring. It was released in 1961, six years before homosexuality was decriminalised. It feels slightly old-fashioned and coy in its language and style – but at the time would have been almost unbelievably daring. It not only presented gay people as normal people (and not limp-wristed comic figures) but sensitively and sympathetically argues that the law (or “blackmailer’s charter” as the Chief Inspector calls it) was morally wrong.

Melville Farr (Dirk Bogarde) is a married lawyer, about to be offered the position of Queen’s Counsel. One day he rebuffs the entreaties of a young man named Barrett (Peter McEnery). The man later hangs himself in police custody, the victim of blackmail. Farr held deep feelings for Barrett – but cut himself off from contact, having been haunted by his consciously suppressed homosexual feelings. Heartbroken and angered by Barrett’s death, Farr decides to take on the blackmailers – even if it means destroying his career and endangering his marriage to Laura (Sylvia Sims).

In 1961 Dirk Bogarde was one of the most popular actors in the country, a romantic leading man, best known for a series of light British comedies. He was also a gay man, who lived for decades with his manager and partner Anthony Forwood. It’s almost impossible to understand today how brave it was, how much of his career he put on the line, to play Farr. At a time when many people (including characters in this film) considered the very idea of homosexuality a revolting aberration, for Bogarde to play this role could have been career suicide. When even today Hollywood actors are afraid to come out for fear of damaging their careers, here in 1961 was an actor who was actually gay, playing a gay lawyer, at a time when that part of his life was a crime.

What’s particularly impressive about Bogarde’s performance is its calmness, its control. Farr rarely raises his voice, and never hectors us or the characters about the morality of the law. Only once does he show real rage – punching another man after a comment too far about a university “friend” who committed suicide. Bogarde’s Farr is a man, who (the movie implies) has constantly denied that part of himself (much to his pain and of those closest to him). His decision to take a stand is as much accepting a part of himself, as it is doing the right thing.

It’s the scenes with his wife where Bogarde excels. These are deeply, searingly painful scenes of a man struggling to express to his wife his own feelings. Farr makes it clear he ended contact with Barrett because he desired him, because he loved him – more (or rather in a different way) than he loves his wife. Bogarde allegedly wrote his own lines for this key scene, effectively Farr’s coming out. It’s a powerful scene of a man letting a burden fall from his shoulders, of finally saying something he could barely admit to himself. 

The relationship with his wife is one of the central points of interest in the film, the story developing in a way that feels natural and unforced. Sylvia Sims is equally good as a woman who is sympathetic, but can’t completely comprehend the depth of Farr’s feelings. There’s no condemnation or recrimination – but there is a low-key feeling of something being broken, of the two of them realising that they have companionship and a platonic love – but not the passion that marriage should have. It’s a testament to the un-showy realism of the film, that it avoids outbursts and fury in these scenes in favour of a quietly powerful, mutually supportive uncertainty.

The rest of the film treads a fine line between polemic and procedural. It’s a well-written, heartfelt piece that wears its research lightly. It’s crazy to think this is first film to actually use the word “homosexual”. The characters are a neat snapshot of the personalities of the time. Some of the straight characters are violently opposed to the “degenerates”. Others, such as the lead Inspector, enforce the law because they must. The homosexual characters are similarly wide-ranging: some are dignified, many are deeply scared, some have a patrician smugness and arrogance (it’s telling Farr gets more angry at these than anyone else in the movie). 

There are wonderful opportunities for a host of character actors. Charles Lloyd-Pack (as barber Henry) in particular suddenly unleashes a heartfelt, achingly sad speech of defiance in which he says he has been to prison twice for what he is, and will not go again. Norman Bird’s bookshop owner Harold is a mix of guilt, frustrated feeling and fear – a man deeply confused by his feelings. Nigel Stock is also marvellous as a car dealer terrified of losing out on an inheritance from his father-in-law should the truth be known. 

I also loved Noel Howlett’s quiet dignity as Farr’s assistant – and his matter-of-fact statement (after learning the truth) that he has never doubted Farr’s integrity and sees no reason to do so now has a brilliant stiff-upper lip emotion to it. The film contrasts this subtly with Alan MacNaughton’s thinly veiled disgust as Farr’s brother-in-law when he learns the truth.

The film wraps its careful research into the issues of the homosexuality laws – and the dangers of blackmail they expose people to – within an engaging whodunit mystery, set in a very real-feeling London of the sixties. The film has a wonderful eye and ear for the social life of the time, and it throws enough red-herrings and police detective tropes in there to keep the film entertaining. Despite its constant references back to the laws of the time, and the criticisms it makes, it never feels like a polemic – it’s first and foremost a human story.

Yes it is a little dated – very much of its time, and it’s shot with a careful conservatism by Basil Dearden, though he has an expert control of pace and there is no doubting his passionate commitment to this film and its subject matter. That’s what you need to remembe: how daringly, unbelievably controversial this film would have been to make. All the major players put their careers on the line here: and it pays off. It would be six years before the revolting laws were repealed, and this happened for many, many reasons – but this film was a genuine help for making people see the wrongheadedness of these laws.

Murder on the Orient Express (2017)


A dishevelled Kenneth Branagh (and tache) investigates a Murder on the Orient Express

Director: Kenneth Branagh

Cast: Kenneth Branagh (Hercule Poirot), Tom Bateman (Bouc), Penélope Cruz (Pilar Estravados), Willem Dafoe (Gerhard Hardman), Judi Dench (Princess Dragomiroff), Johnny Depp (Samuel Ratchett), Josh Gad (Hector MacQueen), Derek Jacobi (Edward Masterman), Leslie Odom Jnr (Dr Arbuthnot), Michelle Pfeiffer (Caroline Hubbard), Daisy Ridley (Mary Debenham), Marwan Kenzari (Pierre Michel), Olivia Colman (Hildegarde Schmidt), Lucy Boynton (Countess Elena Andrenyi), Manuel Garcia-Rulfo (Biniamino Marquez), Sergei Polunin (Count Rudolph Andrenyi), Miranda Raison (Sonia Armstrong)

Is there a murder mystery with a more widely known resolution than Murder on the Orient Express? Possibly not – if for no other reason that film and television versions of this story are as numerous as the suspects in the actual mystery. If that wasn’t a big enough challenge for Branagh to take on, he also joins a list of umpteen actors to play Poirot himself: following in the (very precise) footsteps of the big guns: Finney, Ustinov and of course, above all, David Suchet. How does his version of this most famous detective in his most famous adventure measure up? Well, with mixed results.

For those who don’t know, Hercule Poirot (Kenneth Branagh) is “possibly the world’s greatest detective”. Here, he is travelling back from Istanbul  on the Orient Express, a berth having being secured at the last minute by his friend Bouc (Tom Bateman) the director of the line. En route he is approached by the sinister Ratchett (Johnny Depp), who asks if he can serve as his bodyguard. Poirot refuses – only for Ratchett to be murdered that night. Bouc asks Poirot to investigate – and it soon becomes clear that the dozen other passengers in Ratchett’s carriage could all have had motives to kill him. But who is the killer?

Murder on the Orient Express is on the cusp of being a very good film. But, like the train itself, it gets bogged down too often in changes from the source material that add nothing, action scenes that feel toe-curlingly out of place, and bombastic filming that goes a little bit too far. In many ways it captures some of the faults of its director, my much-loved hero Kenneth Branagh – and I do love him, but as a director he has a tendency to make things too big, to wear his love of the complex shot on his sleeve; to basically try too hard. As a director, that’s what it feels like he’s doing here.

It’s filmed with a luscious, chocolate box, old-school Hollywood grandeur. The camera swoops and zooms over some gorgeous landscape as the train puffs through snowy mountain scenery. There are some loving travelogue tracking shots of Istanbul and Jerusalem. The film lingers with a loving eye on the luxury and class of the Orient Express itself (including some egregiously clunky product placement). The costumes look lovely.  But the end result of all this lavish filming is that it sometimes goes too far towards the reassuring, Boxing-Day-afternoon treat. 

Everything is a little too technicolour at points. It also means that some of Branagh’s more self-consciously tricksy camera work stands out a little too much. A “birds-eye” view of the discovery of the body (the camera above the heads of the actors looking straight down) is oddly disconnecting – it works a lot better when Poirot and Bouc examine the crime scene, giving the audience a god like view of the scene. Some overly complicated shots swoop up along the aqueduct where the train is stuck, past Poirot speaking to characters, then over the top of the train. It’s a rather too overblown and clumsy attempt to make a conversation seem cinematic – it feels a little forced.

It’s one of many points where the film feels like it is trying too hard to make the story edgier or more overtly cinematic. Not the least of these are sequences that up the action quotient. I feel very confident this is the first Poirot film you’ll ever see where the hero is involved in not one but two dynamic fights. One of these is a bizarre chase down the aqueduct with Poirot and another character. The second involves gunfire (an effective shock to be fair) and Poirot using his cane as a weapon in hand-to-hand combat. 

There is nothing wrong with making Poirot more active – Branagh’s character is very much the ex-soldier and policeman, busting open the door to Ratchett’s berth to investigate, walking over the train’s roof, brow-beating the odd suspect (at one point at gun point). It’s just all too much – what audience is this playing to? Who really goes to a Poirot film expecting a goddamn fight scene? Even Count Andrenyi is introduced ninja-kickboxing photographers (I’m not joking here) – is this really what Agatha Christie would have wanted?

There are some odd choices made to deepen Poirot’s character. He is given some sort of lost romantic interest – no less than four times in the film he is given scenes where he holds a photo and bemoans “mon cher Kat-a-rean”. In the opening sequence, Poirot’s love of symmetry is introduced by him accidentally stepping in a cow pat and then stepping in it with his other foot to make each equal. Not only does a “stepping in shit” joke seem wildly out of place, but I don’t believe someone as fastidious and observant as Poirot would even step in it in the first place, let alone choose to step into it twice.

The train doesn’t just stop, it’s nearly taken out by an avalanche. A knife isn’t just discovered, it’s literally found stabbed into a character’s back. Characters have been changed to allow a more diverse cast – which I applaud – but making Arbuthnot a soldier turned doctor is a change that makes very little sense. The claustrophobia of the original is lost by having workers turn up almost immediately to dig the train out. Several scenes are filmed outside, with workers surrounding the train digging it out. Some of these undermine the original or are a little silly.

The suspect assemble

But I’m being really hard on this film because there are major flashes of promise here. Not least in Branagh’s performance as Poirot. I’m very confident in saying that, after David Suchet of course, this is the second best Poirot committed to film. The first thing anyone will notice is of course the moustache. Yes it looks absurd, but you attune to it quickly. It’s also a plot point: Poirot uses it, and his eccentricities, to lure people (Columbo style) into a false sense of security. When the film relaxes into just letting Poirot investigate (and hues closer to the original), Branagh gives Poirot a warm humanity and gentleness. His eyes are a wonder – intense disks of sadness. 

Branagh gives Poirot a love of order and justice that defines his world view – and the film introduces a moral conundrum for Poirot in the solution of the crime. I would say David Suchet’s TV version did this better – stressing Poirot’s Catholicism and belief in the rule of law as major factors that conflict him when confronted with the solution. But Branagh captures a real sense of Poirot’s conflict (even if the solution reveal is overplayed and overshot – right down to a “last supper” style tableaux in a railway tunnel) and his sadness, confusion and decency are really lovely – there is even a very neat touch with him forgetting to straight and smarten his appearance, as he deals with the ramifications of his solution to the murder. He looks like cartoon character, but he makes Poirot a real man. I would definitely like to see him do the role again.

The rest of the all-star cast rather struggle for crumbs, as the focus remains solidly on Poirot (largely because the film is intended as the possible first in a series). Tom Bateman is excellent as Bouc, charming and endearing but also given a character arc that sees him develop and change. Of the stars, Depp is suitably grimy as Ratchett, Pfeiffer imperiously stylish and skittish as Hubbard and Odum Jnr affecting as Arbuthnot. I was very taken with Daisy Ridley’s Mary Debenham, a young charm hiding steel underneath. Dafoe, Dench, Colman, Jacobi and the rest are given little to do but are reliably excellent when they are. Others like Cruz feel wasted. 

When the film focuses on Poirot simply investigating, it is very good. Each interrogation of the passengers is brilliantly played by Branagh – Poirot subtly adjusting his methods and approach depending on the person he is talking to. Poirot’s introduction sequence in Jerusalem has a playful Sherlock feel to it: Poirot solving a crime in seconds (having been dragged from his hotel, where he pickily demands eggs that are perfectly equal), including accurately predicting how the criminal will try and escape. There are lots of lovely moments – but just when you settle down to enjoy it, something wildly over-the-top or silly happens.

Murder on the Orient Express is by no stretch of the imagination a bad movie. In some places, it’s charming and a lot of fun. If it’s designed for watching on a bank holiday afternoon it works very well. But it’s, at best, the third best version of this story on film (after the 1974 Lumet film and the Suchet TV version). Do we really need to watch the third best version of an already familiar story? If we could transplant Branagh’s performance into Lumet’s film, now that would be something. But as it is, we’ve got a decent if flawed film that just tries too hard to do too much.

Fargo (1996)


Frances McDormand investigates one of many pointless slaughters, in the Coen’s bleak but fantastic Fargo

Director: Joel and Ethan Coen

Cast: Frances McDormand (Marge Gunderson), William H. Macy (Jerry Lundegaard), Steve Buscemi (Carl Showalter), Peter Stormare (Gaear Grimsrud), Harve Presnell (Wade Gustafson), John Carroll Lynch (Norm Gunderson), Steve Reevis (Shep Proudfoot), Kristin Rudrüd (Jean Lundegaard)

Sometimes you see a film and, for whatever reason, you expected something totally different. It can throw you when something is so different from your expectations. With Fargo I had been led to expect a comedy. A comedy with dark undertones, but a comedy never the less. Fargo is in fact such a blackly, violently, grim piece of work – with lashings of dark comedy – that I was completely turned off by it. Watching it again, understanding the quirky blackness and nihilistic optimism (yes that’s right!) it contains, I appreciated it more and more as the masterpiece it is.

In Minneapolis, Jerry Lundegaard (William H. Macy) is a down-on-his luck car dealer, heavily in debt, who arranges for two small-time criminals (Steve Buscemi and Peter Storemare) from Fargo, North Dakota, to kidnap his wife, splitting the $80,000 ransom (while telling his wealthy father-in-law the ransom is actually $1 million). However, the kidnapping quickly gets bogged down in an escalating cycle of murder and violence, and events quickly spin out-of-control. All this is investigated by heavily-pregnant and relentlessly positive police chief Marge Gunderson (Frances McDormand).

Only the Coens could have made film that is so nihilistic, in which life is so cheap and death so meaningless, but yet at the same time strangely hopeful and life-affirming. Because even after all the horror and casual murder that fills the film, its heart remains the warmth of Marge Gunderson. The film continually returns to the simple affection of her relationship with her husband (a hugely sweet John Carroll Lynch). Even her pregnancy (and their obvious, unshowy delight in it) suggests a hopeful new world, moving away from the horrors of this one. It’s a genuine, emotional heart at the centre of the story, which grounds all the violence and mayhem.

And there is a lot of violence. The film is punctured at several points by brutal and unexpected killings. The body count is extraordinarily high (seven people die during the film, which considering the cast is so small and the running time so tight is pretty darn high). The camera doesn’t shy away from the horrific after-effects of killing – the suddenness, and the cold grimness of the bodies left behind. The killing is often random and pointless, with several bystanders suffering: at one point the camera pans past a parking attendant, in the wrong place at the wrong time, slumped dead on the floor of his booth. And all of this over some money. Well, that and the fact that Peter Storemare’s thug is a psychopath.

All this disaster of course spins out from the feckless vacancy of William H. Macy’s Jerry Lundergaard, a sad-sack loser and overtly “nice guy” who you feel has been an unimpressive, quietly resentful failure his entire life. Macy has never been better, not only making Jerry empty and desperate but also quietly bitter and frustrated. He’s never actually that sympathetic – there is an un-empathetic shallowness in him. David Thomson described him as “a scoundrel, and in the end amiability is as nothing.” Even when he’s being humiliated, you can’t really warm to him. There are several brilliant sequences where Lundergaard’s anger and resentfulness bubble under his “Minnesota-nice” attitudes – be that facing his over-bearing father across the dining room table, or furiously scraping at his car in the ice.

That “Minnesota-nice” accent and rhythm of speaking, its impeccable good manners, are the source of a lot of the films fun and warmth. Every character around the edges of the drama is sweetly optimistic, scrupulously polite and positive. It’s part of the Coens’ genius to set such a cold and violent drama within the confines of a world which is upbeat and positive. There is a brilliant contrasting comedy to the harshness of the world against the gentle happiness of Minnesota. It’s endlessly endearing and sweet.

The centre of this is Frances McDormand as Marge Gunderson, perhaps one of the quickest and sharpest investigators you’ll see in drama, able to compartmentalise the brutality of crime from the warmth of her home life. McDormand is simply excellent, the beating heart of the movie, despite the fact she doesn’t even appear until it is almost a third of the way in. Her gentle but astute investigation of the crime is marvellously Miss-Marple-like in its sharpness. But she extends the same shrewd and generous understanding of human nature to her personal life: there is a marvellous sequence where, having agreed to meet an old friend from college, she gently lets him down after recognising the lonely divorcee wants something very different from the meeting. That’s not surprising, considering the gentle supportiveness and love in her relationship with her husband gives the film a constant respite of humanity.

Marge may see the world of violence, she may even be able to live in it sometimes, but she doesn’t really understand it. And that’s not surprising because the Coens’ plot here revolves sort of around money, but it’s mostly around mistakes, fuck-ups and confusion. It just so happens that a number of the people involved are dangerous, proud, devoid of conscience or all three. It’s a disaster of epic proportions. But it spins out of no planning, just events going out of control. Jerry’s father in law (played excellently by Harve Presnell, a truly imposing slab of masculinity and the prototype bully) is of course far too controlling and arrogant to not take matters into his own hand by playing hardball with killers.

And those killers are both excellent. It’s a perfect role for Buscemi – scuzzy, fast talking, weaselly – with a look of panic behind the eyes. He’s a small-time hood, out of his depth, who makes some terrible mistakes and resorts to killing and violence. He’s a perfect match with Peter Storemare’s softly spoken, chillingly blank killer who goes about “cleaning up” any mess with a ruthless simplicity.

But that’s the thing about this film. It might be full of ruthless people and killers, but it ends with Marge and her husband, together in bed, spending time together. They have a future and it’s one of simple family values and hope. There may be mindless, terrible killing out in the world – senseless violence that goes nowhere and means nothing – but there is still the warmth of family relationships, the charm of simple home values. It’s a nihilistic film where life is cheap – but it leaves you with a warm and happy feeling.

It’s also of course marvellously made – if you had any doubt about the Coens’ mastery of cinema, watch this – it’s superbly edited and brilliantly paced. It’s a perfect length, short, sharp and achingly profound. It’s also marvellously shot by Roger Deakins. I hated Fargo when I first saw it. But re-watching it twice since then, it’s a marvel. A truly unique and deeply wonderful film.

The Thing (1982)


The men of an Antarctic base encounter a deadly force from space in The Thing

Director: John Carpenter

Cast: Kurt Russell (MacReady), Wilford Brimley (Blair), TK Carter (Nauls), David Clennon (Palmer), Keith David (Childs), Richard Dysart (Dr. Copper), Charles Hallahan (Norris), Peter Maloney (Bennings), Richard Masur (Clark), Donald Moffat (Garry), Joel Polis (Fuchs), Thomas Waites (Windows)

In a curious coincidence, The Thing was released on the same day as Blade Runner. Both have since gone on to become landmark science fiction films, hugely influential to future film makers. Both have scenes that linger in the memory, and have ambiguous endings fans have discussed for decades. Both were also disastrous box office bombs and with negative critical reactions.

The Thing is a creeping masterpiece of sci-fi, body horror and paranoia. On an Antarctic base, an American research team rescues a dog being pursued by two Norwegians from a base close-by (the two Norwegians are both killed, one accidentally, one shot dead after firing at the Americans). Investigating the Norwegian base to see what happened, they find it destroyed and a series of grisly corpses, including one with two faces. Soon it becomes clear the Norwegians fell victim to an alien who has the power to perfectly copy and replace living organisms. The Americans realise they are trapped on the camp, with no idea who them may now be a “Thing” rather than human.

John Carpenter’s creepy, atmospheric horror film is an endlessly gripping thriller that rewards constant rewatching. Its shot with an unnerving simplicity of movement, with the focus getting tighter and tighter. We start with an unsettling helicopter shot taking in the panorama of Antarctica but, before long, the action is confined to single rooms in the American camp, with our leads shouting suspiciously at each other. The whole film is underplayed by an eerie Ennio Morricone score that really gets under your skin with its haunting electronic strains. It’s a classic by any definition of the word, and it never, ever gets old or tired: I’ve seen it a dozen times, and each time new small moments grab me, shots enchant me – and it never fails to be tense, unnerving and scary.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding” a character states at one point. It’s pretty easy to imagine that this was the reaction of the critics at the time, at the onslaught of body horror. The Thing’s process of absorption is not only disgusting (usually involving flesh and skin peeling back to reveal all sorts of crazy shit), but its defence mechanisms involve similar depths of insane grossness. By the time our heroes are incinerating replacements with a ruthless lack of concern, we’ve already seen chests turn into massive tooth jaws, a dog Thing peel its own face off, and a head of a Thing separate itself from a burning body, grow spider legs and scuttle away. You’ve got to be fucking kidding indeed.

The Thing is pretty much a landmark in prosthetic work (you’ve never seen anything like this before). And the body horror still packs a major punch – I couldn’t eat my sticky bun while the Dog Thing ripped itself apart in the middle of a kennel early on (those poor other dogs by the way…). Some of the most effective stuff is actually the smaller scale moments – there is a great moment where a Thing grabs another character by the face and hand and face merge together. It has a truly yucky feeling to it. It’s all so carefully constructed and inventive that it haunts and fascinates. But if it was just a parade of gross images and nightmare fuel it wouldn’t have lasted. What makes it work is that it has a cracking story and a great set of characters. 

Carpenter collects a terrific group of actors, headlined by Kurt Russell. Russell’s MacReady is the perfect lead for this sort of film, a grizzled maverick slacker who reveals (when the shit hits the fan) the natural charisma of the born leader, the only man there able to make the hard calls. He even has a perfect little introduction scene, playing chess with a computer (whose voice makes it the only female character in the film incidentally). Having narrowly lost the game against a tactically more cunning opponent, he pours his drink into its workings, effectively destroying the game board. That gives you a pretty accurate idea of where the film is going. The whole film is Macready’s struggle against an opponent who is cunning, brilliant and (almost literally) faceless – is it any wonder he decides that destruction could be the only way to win? 

The rest of the cast give a lot of depth to their otherwise trope-based characters. In particular, Dysart, Brimley, David, Hallahan, Moffat and Masur stand out for creating unique feeling characters, each of them feeding into the growing paranoia that infects the camp. Because that’s what makes this film last: it’s a brilliant study of paranoia, suspicion and a group of macho men (to varying degrees) squabbling aggressively with each other in a confined space. Carpenter really captures this sense of twisted group dynamics – establishing plenty of tensions and personality flaws and clashes even before the horror begins. It feels like a real cold war movie: interlopers in our midst, but we don’t know who they are. It’s a slow burn that really pays off when the action explodes in the second half of the movie. 

And that pay-off is compelling. A particularly masterful sequence involves a series of blood tests (now a hoary old stable of these things, but at the time something really new). MacReady essentially ties up all the other remaining characters (living and dead) and sticks a scolding hot wire into a blood sample from each man. The idea being the blood of any Thing will react aggressively to the “attack”. Carpenter really lets this scene build slowly – not least because MacReady is holding all the men at dynamite and gun point. The slow build-up reveals a few innocent men, each untied to help Macready. Then just as MacReady (and the audience) begin to relax – someone fails the test and the scene jumps into body horror chaos. Completing the tests after that is a near wordless sequence of jump cuts from test to test, with the number of untied men slowly growing. It’s brilliantly done: slow – quick – slow. Perfect tension drama. It’s the centrepiece of the whole damn movie.

The other thing Carpenter really understands is that set-ups like this are perfect discussion fodder for fans. Just as we love to debate whether Deckard is a replicant or not, there are plenty of similar points in this film. Most of this revolves around Blair, the first to work out the danger the Thing will cause if it reaches civilisation: when does he become infected? How many of his actions are human, how many Thing? At one point MacReady visits him (isolated in a hut) and finds him sitting calmly asking to come back in. Creepily beside him, an unused noose hangs from the roof: it’s not commented on in the scene at all, but it speaks volumes for possible interpretations. This sort of stuff throws itself open to a debate for the ages – the film enigmatically provides enough clues without definitive answers. It does this for a number of events – deaths go unexplained, materials are destroyed and we never find out by whom. The film is full of shady events, of key moments happening off camera, of mysteries going as unanswered for the characters as they do for the audience. Ripe for you to add your own interpretation.

The final scene of the film continues this: the surviving characters sit in the burning wreckage of their base. For all they know, either or neither of them may, or may not, be Things. But it hardly matters: the cold is coming in and we (and they) know anyone left in these conditions will be frozen in a matter of hours. So you get this brilliantly low-key, weary but charged exchange:

Survivor #1: Maybe we shouldn’t.

Survivor #2: If you’re worried about me…

Survivor #1: If we’ve got any surprises for each other, I don’t think we’re in much shape to do anything about it.

Survivor #2: Well, what do we do?

Survivor #1: Why don’t we just… wait here for a little while… see what happens?

So – the question stands? Who is a Thing and who isn’t? It’s a perfect, unsettling, final frame discussion point – and one that has kept feeding debate for years.

The Thing is a nasty, grimy, tense, unsettling, gruesome, gory, yucky, scary, paranoia-inducing masterpiece. It’s easily the best thing John Carpenter ever made (its failure at the box office seemed to break the director’s spirit, as nothing he did ever again reached this). As a slow-burn, cold war flavoured conspiracy and suspicion story it’s out of the top drawer – it captures perfectly the psychosis and fear that can be brought on by trapped isolation. It’s crammed with perfectly formed scenes. It has a terrific, nearly nihilistic feel to it – even the most competent of the men (MacReady) is way out of his depth here. Our alien nemesis is a master of psychology and tactics. So is the film.

The Mask of Zorro (1998)

Antonio Banderas buckles his swash as Zorro

Director: Martin Campbell

Cast: Antonio Banderas (Alejandro Murrieta/Zorro), Anthony Hopkins (Don Diego de la Vega/Zorro), Catherine Zeta Jones (Elena Montero), Stuart Wilson (Don Rafael Montero), Matt Letscher (Captain Harrison Love), Tony Amendola (Don Luiz), Pedro Armendáriz Jnr (Don Pedro), LQ Jones (Three Fingered Jack), Julieta Rosen (Esperanza De La Vega), Maury Chaykin (Prison Warden)

Zorro is a classic, musketeers/Robin Hood style hero from the old school. A dashing, duelling nobleman who battles the cruel rich to save the struggling poor. It’s the formula of a thousand post-war B-movies. The great thing about that formula is the sense of fun around them is already there – a decent film can capture it. And The Mask of Zorro manages to be lot more than just a decent film.

In 1821, as the Spanish leave California, Don Rafael Montero (Stuart Wilson) sets a trap to defeat his arch-nemesis Zorro (Anthony Hopkins). Knowing his real identity is Don Diego de la Vega, Montero throws de la Vega into prison after accidentally killing his wife (the woman they both loved) and kidnapping de la Vega’s daughter to raise as his own. Twenty years later, de la Vega escapes just as Montero returns to California to steal its resources. De la Vega teams up with Alejandro Murrieta (Antonio Banderas), a young bandit hungry for revenge. Taking him under his wing, he trains him as the new Zorro – though both have conflicted feelings when de la Vega’s daughter Elena (Catherine Zeta-Jones) arrives, knowing nothing of her true heritage.

Few films have captured the magic, Errol Flynn-style thrills of old-school Hollywood swashbuckling as well as The Mask of Zorro. Characters swoop and tumble, and swords swish and clash. It sounds odd to say, but the sound design for the sword fights is amazing, each clash has a metallic, ringing clarity that sounds incredibly cool. Match that with the fact that all five of the principals have clearly spent their time in sword school, and you’ve got pure, sword-clashing entertainment.

The plot also keeps things simple. The story is a fairly straight forward heroic revenge drama, with more than a touch of The Count of Monte Cristo (de la Vega’s prison escape is pure Dumas, while Murrieta disguising himself as a rich don to destroy his enemies from within is straight out of Cristo’s playbook). We also have (in another Monte Cristo touch) the Pygmalion mentor-pupil relationship, with de la Vega tutoring Murrieta not only in sword play, but also the manners of a gentleman. The villain’s plot is not exactly clearly explained (it has something to do with stealing Mexican gold to buy California from the Mexicans) but fortunately (a) the film doesn’t really spend too much time worrying about it and (b) since the plot involves enslavement and ruthless murder, it hardly matters anyway as their villainous credentials are very well established.

As the young Zorro, Banderas (at the height of his roguish charm) is very fine, giving it just the right balance of cocksure confidence and playful exuberance. He also weights the character with a genuine love for his murdered brother, which expands as the film progresses into a sincere empathy for the poor and downtrodden. He also has great chemistry with Zeta-Jones (basically establishing her career here) – they meet in no less than three guises, and with each the romantic spark is exceptional. The famous foreplay sword-fight scene (culminating with Murrieta using precise strokes to remove Elena’s top) works because their sword fight is not only playful, but their romantic interest and mutual respect is clear.

Anthony Hopkins also relishes the chance to take an action role (it’s quite something to think he was nearly 60 at the time of filming). Sure, not all the stunts are him of course – and he had to have a generous application of fake tan to give him a Spanish appearance – but the performance works because Hopkins gives it a perfect playful charm, while never losing the sight of the pain under de la Vega’s surface. He gives a lot of weight to what could otherwise have been a straight “mentor role”.

Campbell directs all this with a brisk, old-school simplicity – the film has a true 1930s swashbuckling feel to it. It’s not exactly the last word in exciting film making, but it doesn’t have to be. The important thing Campbell understands here is keeping the pace up, and presenting us with something fun or exciting (or both) every scene. So whether it is a decent gag, a piece of cool looking sleight of hand (de la Vega using a whip to extinguish candles from a distance) or the clash of swords, something always keeps you entertained.

When you match that with some performances you’ve got a great piece of Sunday afternoon entertainment. It’s possibly a bit too long, and Wilson’s Rafael (while in some ways an interesting, conflicted character) is never really allowed the space to become an effective counterpoint to the heroes. But despite that, it offers more than enough entertainment, excitement and fun. It’s got a decent, fun script with plenty of good lines, and by keeping the focus on a small core cast it really allows us to bond with those characters. It lacks a certain undefinable quality that makes it a beloved film, but it has enough to make it a welcome guest whenever it comes round.

Churchill (2017)


Brian Cox does his very best Greatest Britain as Churchill

Director: Jonathan Teplitzky

Cast: Brian Cox (Winston Churchill), Miranda Richardson (Clementine Churchill), John Slattery (General Dwight D. Eisenhower), James Purefoy (King George VI), Ella Purnell (Helen Garrett), Richard Durden (Jan Smuts), Julian Wadham (Field Marshall Bernard Montgomery), Danny Webb (Field Marshall Alan Brooke), Jonathan Aris (Air Field Marshall Trafford Leigh-Mallory)

Someone should open a club: The Churchill Club. Every actor who’s played the Great Man gets instant membership. President the late Robert Hardy (seven times!). Other members? You name it: Finney, Gambon, Burton, Spall, Gleeson, Russell Beale, West, Hoskins… Think of a shorter, slightly rotund British character actor and inevitably they’ve had a go. Even the decidedly non-rotund, non-short, non-British John Lithgow aced the role in Netflix’s The Crown. With Gary Oldman also making his pitch this year in Darkest Hour, this film sees renowned character actor Brian Cox join the club. 

1944. Its three days before D-Day and Winston Churchill (Brian Cox) is getting cold feet. Haunted by memories of Gallipoli, he fears that the attack on Northern France will lead to disaster and oceans of blood. Against the advice of his Generals Montgomery (Julian Wadham) and Brooke (Danny Webb), he attempts to push General Eisenhower (John Slattery) to change the plans. As depression takes its grip on him, only his wife Clementine (Miranda Richardson) can get through to him. 

Churchill is a bit of a mess. It’s pretty well acted but highly televisual, shot with a self-conscious flourish that only emphasises its micro-budget. Teplitzky is in love with the cross-fade (or even worse the half fade) – constantly cutting from place to place for brief moments in the middle of scenes, often for lingering shots of actors staring out to sea or walking through fields. The action is often framed oddly, in long shot with full bodies in shot framed between ground and sky. Other scenes are filmed flatly – when Montgomery addresses his army, no amount of slow pans can hide that it consists of about 20 men.

On top of that, every single scene is scored within an inch of its bloody life. Now I love the power of film music, but this goes too far. The score is bland, predictable and unimaginative and just not that interesting to listen to. When it’s dropped heavy-handedly on top of every single scene it makes you want to scream. It’s also often completely misjudged or inappropriate – as gentle romantic piano swells during a key discussion between Churchill and the King, you almost expect them to kiss. 

That’s before we get started on the script, which is instantly forgettable. Alex von Tunkleman wrote a long running column in the Guardian on historical accuracy (or not) in films. Talk about a hostage to fortune, when you try to write your own film… I’ll go into historical issues in a bit, but there are lots of little things that feel wrong from Smuts (Deputy PM Of South Africa!) following Churchill around like some sort of valet too Montgomery addressing the Prime Minister to his face as “Churchill”. Stuff that just doesn’t feel quite right. The script also relies on a fictional “young secretary” who eventually speaks truth to the great man and wins his respect. Von Tunkleman is no writer of snappy dialogue, the film too often feeling like a wonky history lesson than a drama.

Historically the film does explore a different side of Churchill – enough to ruffle the feathers of the millions of Churchill fans out there. It focuses on his depression and self-doubt, within the framework of a period when he was starting to become sidelined by America. It also focuses on his little known opposition (certainly initially) to D-Day (he favoured a second front opened in Europe’s “soft underbelly” of Italy) – although it certainly expands this last-minute opposition for dramatic effect. I’m pretty sure he was on board by this point (however initially reluctant)!

What the film looks like it might do (but never quite does) is really explore some of Churchill’s laws and vulnerabilities – to look at the negatives and see how overcoming (or dealing with these) made him a great man. It touches heavily on Churchill’s depression – the “black dog” – with a desperately worried Churchill retiring to his bed to despair, praying for bad weather to prevent the landing and bawling out his secretary. Churchill is frequently wrong or mistaken, and the film captures much of the frustration his generals had with this talented amateur. It also isn’t afraid to show that, with American muscle driving the war, Churchill was becoming more of a mascot than a major orchestrator of allied strategy.

It’s a shaded portrait, but the film is eventually seduced by Churchill’s magnestism – a King’s Speech style final radio broadcast is all swelling regard, and a coda of Churchill waving his hat on a beach towards France hammers home his legendary status – miles away from its careful look at his growing irrelevance (and his concerns about this) early in the film. For all we have characters constantly stressing to Churchill his time is passing, the film can’t help finishing with a flourish that hammers home his centrality.

Churchill is flat and unimaginative but it does have an energetic, engaging performance from Brian Cox. While not in the first rank of Churchills, he captures the charisma, without slavishly imitating the famous voice. His Churchill, with his depression and doubt, also feels different: a slightly counter-establishment actor like Cox fits nicely with this. It’s an assured, charismatic performance hampered by the material. The rest of the cast feed off scraps though Miranda Richardson is assured as a twinkly level-headed Clementine. Richard Durden also deserves mention as gruffly supportive Smuts, as does James Purefoy as a gentle George VI.

Churchill means well – but fails. It’s aiming to question some of the reverence we have for the past, but ends up falling between stools, in the end too in love with the myth, but too critical to please the die hards. Flatly filmed and woodenly written, too many scenes fade from memory too quickly. Brian Cox (and Winston) deserved better.

Thor: Ragnarok (2017)


Thor and Hulk: It’s the buddy movie you’ve been waiting for

Director: Taika Waititi

Cast: Chris Hemsworth (Thor), Tom Hiddleston (Loki), Cate Blanchett (Hela), Idris Elba (Heimdall), Jeff Goldblum (Grandmaster), Tessa Thompson (Valkyrie), Karl Urban (Skurge), Mark Ruffalo (Bruce Banner/Hulk), Anthony Hopkins (Odin), Benedict Cumberbatch (Doctor Strange), Rachel House (Topaz), Taika Waititi (Korg)

The Marvel franchise is now on to 17 films. That’s 17 films all in the same universe, with at least three more to come in the next year or so. The weight of franchise backstory has started to feel overbearing, with so many other films to tie into and characters to set up that the individual film itself is left with barely any identity or purpose. How refreshing then to have a film that cuts loose and takes a slightly different tone: a genuine action comedy. Thor: Ragnarok is so tonally different from the other Thor films (let alone the other films in the series) it actually manages to feel like its own beast – it’s as close to a director-led vision as the franchise has got.

Thor (Chris Hemsworth) has been all over the universe, working to stop Ragnarok (the prophesised end of Asgard). Returning to Asgard, he unmasks his troublesome step-brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston) who has been disguised as Odin (Anthony Hopkins). Travelling to Earth to rescue their dying father, they arrive in time to see his death. Unfortunately, this releases their elder sister Hela, Goddess of Death (Cate Blanchett). While Hela ruthlessly conquers Asgard, Thor is trapped on the planet Sakaar and forced to enter a deadly gladiatorial contest – against his Avenger ally the Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) – all while trying to escape back to Asgard to stop Hela.

Thor: Ragnarok has a plot that ambles at points rather than sprints. But this hardly matters, as its main focus is on entertaining the audience. Waititi creates a sort of punk 1980s wildness, mixed with a fun-loving wit. The result is a film with action, and high stakes – but never takes itself too seriously. It perfectly understands how to puncture grandeur or pomposity of the Asgardian gods with a neat one-liner or a bit of everyday conversational inanity (a lot of the latter comes from Waititi himself, hilariously playing chilled out rock gladiator Korg).

Waititi also allows Hemsworth to let rip with his comic timing rip in a way he’s scarcely been allowed to do since Branagh’s original. It drops the faux-Shakespearean seriousness of Thor: The Dark World, and Hemsworth repositions the character in a more relaxed and charming style. From his opening introduction, undercutting the monologing of a fire demon with a dry series of puns while dangling from a ceiling in chains, he finds a neat balance between seriousness and charisma. Waititi is also (like Branagh) not afraid to let Asgard’s mightiest warrior be the butt of a few sight gags – one laugh out loud moment involving a very strong window is a stand out. Hemsworth demonstrates here he’s a far more accomplished comedian (physically and verbally) than he gets credit for.

This more relaxed Thor is perfect for the rock-and-roll feel of the film. Expertly scored (there is particularly fine use of Led Zeppelin’s Immigrant Song) it has a groovy, 1980s feel. The planet Sakaar is a primary-coloured, odd-alien filled, campy explosion of energy and vibrant punky fun. Said planet is run by the Grandmaster, played by Jeff Goldblum at his most Jeff Goldblumiest ever – if you can picture that you’ve got the tone of the whole planet. This neon lit style is reminiscent of everything from Flash Gordon to The Last Starfighter. 

The film’s loose comic style also allows a series of fun match-ups, from Thor and Loki (a wonderfully weaselly, fun Tom Hiddleston – still one of the best things in this whole franchise), to Thor and Strange (a lovely cameo from Cumberbatch), Thor and Valkyrie (a neat mixture of drunken self-loathing and female Thor-ness from Tessa Thompson) and lastly Thor and Hulk. The latter provides a lot of the film’s comic gold, the Hulk finally turned into some sort of character with achildish vulnerability and swagger (though the film still finds time for a Hulk penis gag). Waititi also throws in some nice call-backs to previous films – the bunch here set themselves up as the Revengers, while there are multiple references to the mantra used to calm the Hulk in Avengers: Age of Ultron – without making it feel in-jokey. 

There is so much fun in the film, you almost forget the main plot of the film is fairly heavy-going, end-of-the-world stuff. For a Marvel film there is a large body count of recurring characters (at least four bite the bullet here), while Hela’s plot encompasses mass slaughter and destruction. Scenes with Hela are kept short (structurally the film effectively strands her on Asgard to contain her invincibility), so it’s just as well the part is played with such charismatic dryness and imperious arrogance by Cate Blanchett (easily the best Marvel villain since Loki). She’s ably backed up by Karl Urban, adding a lot of complexity to reluctant cowardly turncoat Skurge. Waititi shoots Hela’s rampage of destruction with an exciting dynamism – it’s an action scene that feels different, no mean feat in a franchise that has had so many fights.

In fact most of the action feels very fresh, the fights never out-stay their welcome, and there are some brilliant visual flourishes – the final battle in particular throws in some almost painterly images as Thor and his allies take on Hela’s zombie army. The arena fight between Hulk and Thor is about a million times more interesting than the dull Hulkbuster battle between Iron Man and Hulk in the past Avengers film as Watiti keeps the focus on character rather than pummelling. The film also manages to keep the stakes high – there are always innocent people our heroes fight to protect.

Thor: Ragnarok might well be the most entertaining, fun film Marvel has produced. It’s almost certainly the best Thor film. While The Dark World failed dismally to build on the mixture of earnestness and comedy in Branagh’s original, this one feels like a natural progression of the first, amping everything up into a vibrant, 1980s styled cocktail of action and fun. It’s terrifically entertaining, well paced, anchored in characters we care about, and it just wants to entertain the viewer. You’d have to be pretty cold for it not to succeed.