Category: Crime drama

Triple 9 (2016)


An all-star cast fail to make Triple 9 a classic, or even a decent watch

Director John Hillcoat

Cast: Casey Affleck (Chris Allen), Anthony Mackie (Marcus Belmont), Chiwetel Ejiofor (Michael Atwood), Clifton Collins Jnr (Franco Rodriguez), Woody Harrelson (Jeffrey Allen), Aaron Paul (Gabe Welch), Kate Winslet (Irina Vlaslov), Gal Gadot (Elena Vlaslov), Norman Reedus (Russell Welch), Michael K Williams (Sweet Pea), Teresa Palmer (Michelle Allen)

Triple 9 that never gets anywhere near fulfilling its potential. You look at the cast and you think “Wow! That has got to be one of the films of the year! Right?” Wrong. Triple 9 is another journey into the macho bullshit of the criminal underworld, where the “good” thieves have honour, the bad thieves are unscrupulous, the cops are all sorts of shades of grey, and the real baddies are foreign gangsters exploiting American criminals. All told with a backdrop of shouting, shooting and doping. You feel, and I suspect the filmmakers feel as well, that the film must be about something – but it really isn’t, it’s a super violent, dark Rififi with none of that classic’s touch.

Michael Atwood (Chiwetel Ejiofor) is a crack crook, leader of a gang that executes difficult jobs on demand for their Russian paymaster, mob boss’ wife Irina (a showboating Kate Winslet). Atwood’s crew includes dirty cops Marcus Belmont (Anthony Mackie) and Franco Rodriguez (Clifton Collins Jnr). Tasked to steal federal investigation data on Irina’s husband, Michael and his crew decide their only chance is to distract the police with a Triple 9 call out – the shooting of a cop. Their target? Belmont’s new partner, hotshot honest cop Chris Allen (Casey Affleck).

Triple 9 isn’t particularly inventive or unique. The problem is it also isn’t very interesting. This is largely because you don’t engage with any of the characters. Atwood is a blank, played by a disengaged Chiwetel Ejiofor. He has a standard sub-plot of a son he isn’t allowed to see. But it’s not enough to get us caring about him. Chris Allen isn’t particularly likeable (Casey Affleck is not the most relatable of actors) so it’s hard to get worked up over whether he’s going to be killed or not. The most interesting character is Anthony Mackie’s Belmont – but he has been saddled with an “I feel growing guilt” sub-plot that you’ve seen dozens of times before.

Perhaps aware that a lot of the writing was paper-thin, the film recruits a number of familiar actors to “do their thing” so that we can shortcut to what sort of person the character is meant to be, by seeing crude drawings of their more famous, nuanced roles. Aaron Paul’s performance will be familiar to anyone who has seen Breaking Bad; Norman Reedus essentially reprises his role from The Walking Dead. Woody Harrelson does his grizzled half-genius, half-dope fiend, difficult man schtick he’s done many times. Only Kate Winslet is cast against her type – and her scenery-chewing enjoyment of the role makes her feel like an actress doing a guest turn, rather than a real person.

Hillcoat’s direction doesn’t bring any of the film’s threads together. It never feels like a film that is about something. Where is the depth, where is the interest? It’s not even a particularly exciting film to watch, with the heist moments not particularly exciting or interesting, and its shot with a wicked darkness that never gets the pulse going. After some initial build-up, the plot never really goes anywhere unexpected, and the final pay-off is stretching for a narrative weight it just doesn’t have. 

Hillcoat and crew obviously feel they are making a higher genre film – but this is really just a pulp thriller, with actors acting tough but never convincing. None of the major events make a massive amount of sense: characters run into each other in a way that stretches credulity, the Russian mob runs its business with a counter-productive brutality, the dirty cops alternate between super cunning and horrendously dumb.  It’s a dumb, badly written movie that never comes to life. It doesn’t even have the real moments of excitement you need to at least grab you while the rest of the film drifts along. Not good. Not good at all. Triple 9? Not even triple stars.

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.

Blade Runner 2049 (2017)


Ryan Gosling does a man’s job filling some difficult shoes in Blade Runner 2049

Director:  Denis Villeneuve

Cast: Ryan Gosling (Officer K), Harrison Ford (Rick Deckard), Ana da Armas (Joi), Sylvia Hoeks (Luv), Robin Wright (Lt. Joshi), Mackenzie Davis (Mariette), Carla Juri (Dr Ana Stelline), Lennie James (Mr Cotton), Dave Bautista (Sapper Morton), Jared Leto (Niander Wallace), Barkhad Abdi (Doc Badger), Edward James Olmos (Gaff), Sean Young (Rachael)

SPOILERS: It’s pretty much impossible to discuss Blade Runner 2049 without revealing some of the workings of the plot. Since the film makers have gone out of the way to say “don’t reveal any of the plot” I thought it fair to say I’ll discuss some things fairly freely here. So you’ve been warned!

Making a sequel is a risky business at the best of times. Then imagine making a sequel to a film that is not just a cultural and artistic landmark film but one people genuinely love. The possibility of creating a massive disappointment? Pretty big. You need some guts to take that on – like announcing you are making Gone with the Wind: Blown Away or Casablanca: Everyone Back to Rick’s. That’s the sort of challenge for the makers of the long-awaited Blade Runner sequel. Could they make something that both complemented and expanded on the original?

The year is 2049 (of course!). K (Ryan Gosling) is a Blade Runner with the task of hunting down long-lived Nexus-8 replicants – the twist being (and its revealed in the opening minutes of the film!) that K himself is a replicant, a more obedient Nexus-9 model. After “retiring” aged replicant farmer Sapper Morton (a career best Dave Bautista), K locates the buried remains of a female replicant who died after an emergency caesarean section. Terrified that replicants may be developing the ability to reproduce, K’s superiors order him to “retire” the child and all who know of it. As K investigates, his loyalties become ever more divided – while sinister corporate genius Niander Wallace (Jared Leto) and his Nexus-9 hit-woman Luv (Sylvia Hoeks) have their own plans for the replicant child.

So the big question is, does Blade Runner 2049 succeed? The answer is a firm and reassuring yes. The big issue is, does the existence of this film affect (or even ruin) the previous film? Blade Runner 2049 not only complements the original, it builds on and expands its themes, and poses far more questions than answers. In some ways it’s even more profound and searching than the original – arguably it engages with ideas and concepts even more overtly (and richly). If your concern going into this film was it would end any discussion about whether Deckard is a replicant or not, then have no fears – the question remains as open as ever (and works either way for this story).

Even more than the original, this film tackles what it means to be human and how we define humanity by the ability to express emotions and empathy. It comes at this from a different stand-point from Blade Runner by removing any doubt about our hero’s nature. What is more, he is a replicant deliberately designed to be more obedient than earlier models. A cool, minimalist actor with a mastery of small expressions, Ryan Gosling is almost perfectly cast as the quiet K, developing deep yearnings to be more than what he is. The entire film revolves around this question of how capable K is not only of forming emotions, but of making his own choices.

The ability to live freely and choose is at the heart of the conundrums for all our characters. To what extent are they able to do this? K goes about his work of dispatching fellow replicants with a quiet reluctance, but does his duty nevertheless. But he is a character yearning to be “more” – and what, in many ways, is more human than that? The film taps into this expertly with K’s belief that maybe he himself is replicant child. The film’s mantra is about choosing what we live and what we die for and, regardless of who or what we are, being able to do this is what makes us “more”.

In a film stuffed to the gills with replicants and other artificial characters, we are constantly asked to address and question how far each of them goes towards achieving “humanity”. Just as with Blade Runner, the only two definitely human characters (Niander Wallace and Lt Joshi) are strangely distant, hard to read or even cruel authoritarian figures, making a damn bad case for real humans.

Joi (brilliantly played by Ana de Armas), K’s girlfriend, is a warm, caring, loving woman – but she’s also a hologram, designed to be the perfect companion. K and she go to great lengths to protect and care for each other over the film – and her final fate is a deeply moving moment. But Joi is a computer programme – and a late sequence in the film where K interacts sadly with a looming holographic advert of another Joi that repeats many of her phrases in a disconnected style casts a sad light on all their previous interactions. Every time Joi said anything with love or affection to K, was this just a computer reflecting back what her owner wanted to hear?

It’s not a great surprise to say K does eventually learn to make his own choices and to decide his own fate. In many ways this is a fable of growing up – K accepting his limitations while forging his own destiny – but it makes a contrast with other replicants. While the older models form their own resistance, K’s counterpart Luv (an imposing Sylvia Huks) can’t or won’t break free of following Wallace’s commands. There are more than a few hints Luv is not always happy with the duties she is asked to perform (at one point she weeps quietly as a replicant is dispatched). But at others, she’s clearly striving as much as K to be “special” – she triumphantly repeats a mantra to herself about being the best, like a daughter trying to impress her father.

These new characters offer such diverse and exciting story-telling opportunities, you almost don’t notice that Deckard doesn’t appear in the film until nearly the third act. Harrison Ford may have been slightly uncomfortable in the original – but he fully understands the more assured, confident Deckard in this film, who has made his peace with leaving the world behind. Ford gives this new Deckard an almost Han Solo-ish shoot-first swagger, but mixes it with a world-weary sadness. I’d go so far as to say he’s actually better in this film than the first one.

Which is a further testament to the strength of this film. All the themes and ideas of the original are used as bouncing-off points for further exploration. This never feels like a retread, reboot or remake – it feels like a rich and rewarding piece of intelligent sci-fi by itself. I actually feel it could be watched independently of the first film, and still have plenty to offer. It’s not interesting in tying the first film up in a bow – instead it serves as a stimulus for future discussion. You could imagine a sequel to this film sustaining enough interest for 35 years.

Technically of course the film is an absolute marvel. Roger Deakins’ photography is gorgeous, capturing every element of this dystopian nightmare world in a series of brilliant images, in turns drained, bleached and sun kissed. Every frame is artfully composed for maximum impact. The production design is similarly magnificent, Dennis Gassner’s work melding the world of the original, with its steam-punk look, with a mix of technological developments. The score by Hans Zimmer and Benjamin Wallfisch is similarly perfect, giving the film a brooding intensity.

But most of this artistry comes back to the film-making mastery of Denis Villeneuve, a director so gifted I think he may be more interesting than Ridley Scott. His control of the pace of the film is brilliant – despite being very long, it never drags – and he shoots every scene with a careful, intellectually engaged brilliance. He is able – possibly even more than the original – to mix emotion and elliptical theorising, and to draw a raft of brilliant performances from an outstanding cast. More than anything else, he treats the audience with respect, giving them a measured and thoughtful film that trusts we have patience. Villeneuve tops Arrival here, and does so with confident aplomb.

Blade Runner 2049 is a film that demands to be seen more than once. It’s a patient and intensely thoughtful piece of science fiction, that asks profound questions about humanity and the characters in it. I don’t really feel from one viewing I’ve got a grip on it – in fact the more I think about it, the more its haunting, elegiac quality starts cramming into my head. You need to be patient and go with it – you need to be in the right mindset for this slowburn concept film. But, get in that mindset and this film is constantly rewarding. If you want to criticise something, I will acknowledge that many of the female characters are a little more clichéd (most are prostitutes or similar) – but this world where many women seem to be in subservient roles to men is in many ways an extension of the world created in the original film (and now an expression of the dystopian future).

However this is a great film. A really great piece of adult science-fiction. I’ll go out on a limb and suggest it is better than the original film.

Blade Runner (1982)


Harrison Ford hangs on for dear life in Blade Runner

Director: Ridley Scott

Cast: Harrison Ford (Rick Deckard), Rutger Hauer (Roy Batty), Sean Young (Rachael), Edward James Olmos (Gaff), M. Emmet Walsh (Harry Bryant), Daryl Hannah (Pris Stratton), William Sanderson (JF Sebastian), Brion James (Leon Kowalski), Joe Turkel (Dr Eldon Tyrell), Joanna Cassidy (Zhora Salome)

Everyone knows Blade Runner surely? And everyone has a viewpoint on its central mysteries. Why for a film largely ignored on release? Because as well as being tight and engaging, this is a rich thematic film, crammed with mystery and enigma. And there are few things more engaging than a film that succeeds in being as open to interpretation as possible.

In 2019 a dystopian, polluted Los Angeles is a launch pad for the wealthy to head out into the new colonies in the stars. Off-world, the unpleasant tasks are carried out by artificial humans known as replicants. Replicants are banned from returning to Earth – but a group of five led by soldier Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer) have come to Earth looking to extend their pre-programmed limited lifespans (no more than five years). On Earth, Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford) is reinstated as a Blade Runner, an agent whose job is to ‘retire’ (i.e. kill) replicants on Earth. Deckard is reluctant, having an increasing distaste for his work, but begins to hunt and eliminate the replicants.

Blade Runner may be one of the most influential science fiction films ever made. Its look and style influenced virtually every other dystopian future you’ve seen in any other film since. Tall, run-down buildings. Overbearing corporate advertising. Flashing neon lights. Terrible weather. Everything dark all the time. Poverty and degeneracy on every corner. You’ve seen it in every dystopian future since. Visually, the film is a landmark, a testament to Ridley Scott’s graphic artistry.

But that wouldn’t be enough for Blade Runner to last the course. When released it was perhaps too elliptical and hard to categorise – equal parts dystopian thriller, noir detective story, sci-fi morality tale, dark romance – for audiences to really understand. Certainly the studio didn’t. After disastrous test screenings, it was re-cut. So began a fable of slice and dice that made Blade Runner perhaps second only to Brazil in the annals of re-versioned films.

The release included an overtly “happy ending” (bizarre images of our heroes driving into a blissful countryside, totally at odds with the rest of the film) and a disengaged voiceover from Harrison Ford that eradicated all the film’s subtlety. This was the only version for 10 years until a “Director’s cut” was released. This removed these elements, retooled scenes and introduced the famous “unicorn dream” sequence (of which more later). Fifteen years after that, Scott finally found the time to work on a “Final cut” which presented the film as Scott had intended it – with all its mysteries and questions intact. Has there been any other film with so many different “official” versions?

Anyway, was it worth the struggle? Certainly. While you could argue it is predominantly a triumph of style, Scott laces the film with a sense of mystery and profundity that makes it a rich and rewarding viewing experience. It’s a trim detective thriller that also questions the nature of humanity. It is a perfectly formed elliptical mystery, an archetypal cult film that engrosses the viewers to such an extent that 30 years later there is still a healthy debate about what the film means.

Humanity is =the key issue. The human characters are functional, cold, distant and unengaging. The hunt for the replicants (who are basically slaves) is brutally and unremorsefully executed. The replicants have been designed to learn and grow but cruelly had their lives capped to stop them taking advantage of this. Their world is polluted, tawdry, soulless and lost.

Meanwhile, the replicants exhibit far more (whisper it) humanity than the aloof human characters, ]despite the fact we are repeatedly reminded they cannot feel empathy. Clearly this is not completely true. And, the film argues, if an artificial human can display loyalty, fear, love, anger and pain, what actually is the difference between that and a “real” person. If a replicant can only be identified after dozens of questions in a test, can they really be that different from a human being?

Questions about this coalesce around Deckard. If the film has remained such a part of cultural discussions, it’s partly because of the fun of theorising about his true nature. Is he a replicant? Scott’s insertion of Deckard’s unicorn dream (implying the origami unicorn left by Gaff at the film’s end shows Gaff knows Deckard’s dream, meaning the dream is an implant in an artificial mind) very much suggests so. There is a case to be made either way, both of which work.

Deckard’s ruthless replicant hunt is deliberately juxtaposed with their own warm feelings. Deckard grows in humanity and reluctance as the film progresses – is this him becoming more human, or is it is humanity emerging? His coldness and reserved hostility contrast with the vibrancy of Batty, Pris and the replicants. In many ways, he fits in as the quintessential human in this world – a vague discomfort with what he is doing, but no real hesitation about continuing. Thematically, it makes more sense if Deckard is human – that he represents dehumanisation (and gradually realising it) while the replicants become more human.

However, clues are sprinkled throughout that Deckard is not what he appears. His distance from other characters. The treatment he receives from his co-workers. The photographs that fill his apartment (replicants enjoy photos as it gives them a sense of a past). His bond with Rachael. His relentlessness – and the fact that he is clearly considered expendable by the police. Then there is the rich irony: the best way of hunting down replicants is to create a hunter replicant. Either way, it’s a debate and conversation that sustains the film – and allows multiple interpretations of every scene.

It’s a debate that feeds into the main theme of the film: humanity, free will and our God complex. Batty, the dying replicant searching for new life, confronts his maker – a distant, arrogant man with no interest in his creation. And kills him. But Batty feels more human than any other character. He shows more affection, frustration, anger and grief than anyone else. His last words (the famous “tears in rain” speech) had such cultural impact because it has such poetic joy and depth to it. They are lines enthused with a desire to live, a romantic vitality. It’s the most poetic moment in the film and it comes from someone who isn’t “real”. What more sign do we need that the replicants are human? If we can create poetry in a machine, does it stop being a machine?

Empathy is the quality the replicants are judged on – but as we see replicants dispatched with little sense of regret, and then witness Batty and Leon’s grief for their fallen comrades, or Pris’ ease with man-child Sebastian, the lack of empathy from humans is all the more clear. Deckard is a fascinating character as he falls between two stools – either a human who has buried empathy, or a replicant discovering empathy. Strange and disjointed as the relationship between Deckard and Rachel is (and there is an uncomfortable moment where Deckard gets too physically forceful) it fits into this – are these two artificial people discovering the ability to bond? Or is it an emotionally stunted human finding himself drawn towards someone who feels more real than the other humans?

What makes the film work is that it doesn’t hammer home, these issues. It allows us to make our own minds up. It frames the action within a noirish detective thriller, laced with mood and awesome visuals. It’s sharply and sparingly written, with real intelligence. For all its discussions about humanity, it does feel at times a cold film – but it’s so rich in suggestion and implication that it doesn’t really matter. Yes you could argue the implication and playful suggestion imply more depth than actually exists, – but the film gets away with it, because it works so well.

Rutger Hauer gives easily the finest performance as Batty (he allegedly wrote the famous speech on the day). Batty is the most vibrant and dominant force in the film, who goes on the most engaging emotional arc. For me the dark secret of the film is Harrison Ford is slightly miscast– he’s aiming for moody, Bogartish disillusionment, but he comes across more disengaged (he’s strikingly better in Blade Runner 2049). I think Ford struggled with the character – it’s a role better suited to a John Hurt or James Caan, rather than Ford’s more conventional (if world-weary) magnetism – he’s not a natural fit for a bitter cynic. Olmos, Cassidy, Walsh, Sanderson and James give strong support.

Blade Runner is a visual triumph and a rich experience. Its story is compelling, but the real richness is the thematic layers under its skin. Scott created a film open to interpretation, and that’s what really grabbed the imagination. It marries mystery with curiosity and avoids pretension, becoming intriguing and engrossing. Scott has rarely made a film with such intense ideas and poignant confusion before. You could argue the final cut leans too far one way in the central mystery, but there is more than enough eerie richness under that – helped by Vangelis’ unsettlingly grand score – to keep people viewing and talking about it for another 30 years.

Hell or High Water (2016)


Chris Pine and Ben Foster carry out a series of personally motivated bank robberies in Hell or High Water

Director: David Mackenzie

Cast: Jeff Bridges (Marcus Hamilton), Chris Pine (Toby Howard), Ben Foster (Tanner Howard), Gil Birmingham (Alberto Parker), Marin Ireland (Debbie Howard), Katy Mixon (Elsie), Kevin Rakin (Billy Rayburn)

In West Texas, two brothers – divorced father Toby Howard (Chris Pine) and his ex-con brother Tanner (Ben Foster) – carry out a series of early morning raids on branches of the Texas Midlands Bank. Their robberies are investigated by Texas Ranger Marcus Hamilton (Jeff Bridges) working his last case before retirement, and his partner Alberto Parker (Gil Birmingham). The brothers however are motivated by more than just a desire for money – and these motivations drive them to ever more desperate and dangerous actions.

Hell or High Water is a fine piece of skilled professional film-making. The story is tightly scripted, and Mackenzie’s direction marries up a modern outlook with the style of a classic John Ford western. But, for me, it reaches for a thematic richness that isn’t quite there. It’s in the same territory as No Country for Old Men but it never achieves that film’s complexity. It creates characters we care about, and the story keeps us gripped, but it lacks that certain extra dimension that profoundly moves us. It tries to tell itself (and us) that it’s a profound exploration of themes around life and death, but it never really reaches these feelings – its grasp is less than its reach.

But it’s still a hugely enjoyable and impressive movie. Mackenzie’s direction is superb, detailed and smooth, and he is able to bring to life both the drama and the action. The story has an old school heist quality, with our gangsters sort of proto-Robin Hoods, naïve enough for us to invest in their actions, but dangerous enough for us to understand why events spin outside their control. Sheridan’s script is full of punchy lines and genuine emotional weight. The plot line gets a bit bogged down in the ins and outs of the reasons why our ‘heroes’ are doing what they are doing, but there is an emotional truth to it that really works.

The film also creates a wonderful sense of Texas as a land that seems to have only just moved on from the Wild West. Everyone in the film seems to be either packing heat or wearing a Stetson (or both). Genuine cowboys guide cattle across a road. The rangers have an old school gruffness about them, staking out banks from across the road in saloon bars that don’t seem to have moved on from the days of Wyatt Earp. At the slightest sign of danger, ordinary people reach for their guns and start shooting. Everything takes place in dusty countries, or rural feeling towns. I can barely remember seeing a computer or mobile phone. The whole film feels slightly out of step with the modern world.

It also draws some very fine performances from its actors. Chris Pine may never have been better than as reluctant bank robber Toby. Toby is a classic western outsider, a man who is working to protect his family and preserve their future – often by dangerous means – but accepts that this family life he is building has no place for him in it. Pine brings the part a finely judged sadness, a sense of a man without a place in the world. Ben Foster is equally good as his firecracker brother, a damaged anarchist at heart whose love of impulsive danger will have fatal consequences.

The heart of the movie though is Jeff Bridges’ ranger, a marvellous portrait of gruff-old school machismo. Bridges invests this role throughout with a humane decency, an anger at the distress and violence. His friendship with his partner Alberto (a touching Gil Birmingham) provides much of the affectionate heart of the movie, their good natured joshing and banter a continual source of humour. Bridges’ world-weary, out-of-time quality matches perfectly with the timeless mood of the movie. It’s a beautifully judged, simple, unshowy performance.

It’s a beautifully judged combination of crime and family thriller, while its ability to balance the old-school feeling and aesthetic of West Texas with a punchy modern-feeling tale of the greed of bankers, works extremely well. It’s got a dark Butch Cassidy feeling to it, and the film’s focus is tightly kept on the four leads, allowing the audiences understanding of them to grow and develop. By the conclusion of the film, your loyalties will be firmly divided between both the law and robbers, summed up best by a beautifully played elegiac final scene, laced with regret, sadness and tension.

But despite all this, it never quite breaks out of its pulpy roots to become something else in the way that No Country for Old Men manages to do. Wonderful character study as it is, it feels like a film that wants to make a broader, spiritual comment about the American way and modern masculinity. It doesn’t quite manage to do this. I don’t feel that this film really succeeds in suggesting it is about much more than what’s on the surface.

But that doesn’t matter so much, when the surface is so strong and as well directed, acted and written as this. If Hell or High Water is, at the end of the day, just a smart cops-and-robbers story, it’s certainly one that’s full of freshness and intelligence and grips your interest from start to finish. In a world where Hollywood churns out over-promoted average films, it stands out as something far more heartfelt, expertly crafted and hugely enjoyable.

Leon (1994)


Jean Reno teaches Natalie Portman the ways of death in classic romantic thriller Leon

Director: Luc Besson

Cast: Jean Reno (Leon), Natalie Portman (Mathilda), Gary Oldman (Norman Stansfield), Danny Aiello (Tony), Michael Badalucco (Mathilda’s Father), Ellen Green (Mathilda’s Stepmother)

Luc Besson is an interesting film-maker, part visionary, part pulpy stylist. He has undeniable talent and visual flair, but far too often wastes this on trashy and juvenile comic book films, with a teenager’s preoccupations rather than a focus on story and character. One of the few exceptions to this is Leon, a film that marries his vibrancy with a heartfelt story.

Leon (Jean Reno) is a professional hitman working in New York, a dedicated professional with the stunted emotional maturity of a young teenager. One day the family of his next door neighbour is ruthlessly slaughtered by demented, drug-dealing cop Norman Stansfield (Gary Oldman), leaving only precocious 12-year Mathilda (Natalie Portman) alive. Despite his concerns about involving himself in the world, Leon takes Mathilda in – and these two outcasts develop a deep emotional bond, part mentor-pupil, part father-daughter, part celibately romantic.

In many ways, Leon should be an uncomfortable viewing experience. It’s a film that explores the growing emotional and sexual awakening of two characters, one of whom is a 12 year old girl, the other a hitman in his 40s. In fact it’s hard to imagine it even being made today by a Hollywood studio (it was controversial enough at the time). However, it works because the characters are so skilfully established. The 12 year old is precociously mature emotionally and sexually for her age, the man is so emotionally stunted and childlike in his outlook on the world he effectively feels like a 14 year old. The sexual interest is all from the girl, and is constantly batted gently aside (with a confused lack of understanding) by an adult who doesn’t understand the adult world and its feelings. As such, the film manages to side-step the creep factor and turn itself into a sort of touching fable.

It further works because our two leads give such terrific performances. Jean Reno perfectly understands Leon’s childish appreciation of the world, his touching faith in other people (his father-figure Tony is clearly swindling him), his simple delight in things (his wide-eyed appreciation of Singin’ in the Rain is very endearing). He’s naïve and has a child’s lack of understanding of violence and its impact. He’s focused so tightly on his narrow world, he’s clearly never developed any real emotional understanding of the wider world. Reno creates a character who is a seasoned killer who feels like a under developed teenager – emotionally and sexually he’s pretty close to being a 12 year old himself. His interest in Mathilda is rooted more in an elder brother/sister relationship. You get the feeling sex has never even really entered his mental equation. It’s a masterful performance, effortlessly cool but also stirringly real, sweet, vulnerable.

Equally brilliant is Natalie Portman’s enthralling performance as Mathilda. She creates a character who is sexually daring, seemingly far more adult and savvy than Leon in many ways, but is still recognisably a vulnerable child. She’s spiky and defiant, but this hides a deep rooted sensitivity and a desperation for love and affection. Her continued expression of sexual interest in Leon is as much rooted in a desire to feel part of a genuine caring family unit as it is some desire to initiate sexual contact. Her performance is perfectly nuanced and searingly real. Portman also feels both simultaneously adult and childish, so she never feels as out of place.

The film also works because it feels like a slightly unworldly drama. The rules of this world seem slightly fairy-tale like. It happens in a dreamy New York, with shady gangster chiefs, corrupt cops and hitmen moving serenely from location to location, with seemingly no intrusion of “real” people into this equation. The world seems oddly off-kilter, a self-contained fantasy where Leon is some sort of gentle ogre and Mathilda an Alice in Wonderland. While it’s set in a real place, Besson’s film feels like a sort of violent bedtime story. It becomes harder for sex in this context to seem threatening.

Instead, despite the killing and slaughter, this is a sweet and even slightly sentimental love story, about two souls who have an inherent understanding of each other. It’s a deep bond that transcends their ages and social conventions. Besson really understands this, and it’s what motivates and powers the film. They switch roles between child and adult smoothly: So one moment Leon is almost fatherly, teaching the basics of sniper work to Mathilda, the next she teaches him to read. There are undertones of sexuality, but the feeling is that neither of these characters really understands the complexities and realities of sex, because one is too young and the other is too emotionally immature.

Besson’s film making around this is sublime. The film is stylish beyond belief, the camera and editing fluid and dynamic. Action scenes hum with tension and excitement. The violent confrontations (of which there are many) are brilliantly done. Besson draws extraordinary, heartfelt performances from the two leads and creates a wonderfully moving fantasy-tinged world. His invention and pulp style brings a unique feel to what is a heartfelt, rather tender story. It’s a perfect marriage of style and content, where both complement each other. The story feels heartfelt, the execution gives it a swaggering extra dimension.

The tender reality of Reno’s and Portman’s performances – and the marvellous gentleness which Besson films this with – allows other parts of the film to go fully over-the-top. This is not least the case with Gary Oldman’s ramped-up-to-eleven Stansfield, a Grade A nutter. Oldman leaves nothing in the dressing room here, completely letting rip. In a way a performance of such utterly demented excessiveness should be absurd. But with the other performances feeling so genuine, and Besson’s fairy-tale styling, means Oldman feels a perfect part of this world, the dark monstrous heart of a corrupted land. In any other context it wouldn’t work, but here it really does.

Leon is a very tender, exciting and emotionally moving film – a great example of stylish film making married to a genuinely moving storyline between two people who feel like realistic, three dimensional characters. Both the style and the heart of the story complement each other perfectly. It’s a terrific piece of film making, with three performances at the heart each on their own way a stand-out. It must surely be Luc Besson’s finest ever film – and a height he’s very rarely ever reached again.

Lost Highway (1997)


Bill Pullman goes out of his mind in David Lynch’s deliberately weird Lost Highway

Director: David Lynch

Cast: Bill Pullman (Fred Madison), Patricia Arquette (Renee Madison/Alice Wakefield), Balthazar Getty (Pete Dayton), Robert Loggia (Mr Eddy/Dick Laurent), Robert Blake (The Mystery Man), Gary Busey (Bill Dayton), Lucy Butler (Candace Dayton), Michael Massee (Andy), Richard Pryor (Arnie)

It wouldn’t be a David Lynch film unless the plot was impossible to explain, but here goes. Fred Madison (Bill Pullman) and his wife Renee (Patricia Arquette) marriage is on the rocks. The couple start receiving packages containing camcorder videos of their home. These videos become increasingly more and more personal and intimate. The final video shows Fred murdering Renee. Imprisoned, Fred suffers from headaches and then overnight he transforms into another person, Pete Dayton (Balthazar Getty). Released back into the world, Dayton encounters the glamorous Alice Wakefield (Arquette again). Then things get even weirder. Yup that’s right: weirder.

Lost Highway is probably Lynch at his most obscure and baffling. Like a lot of Lynch films, it’s a question of taste. What do you want to get out of a film? If it’s a puzzling mystery then this might be the film for you. Lost Highway is like an impossible jigsaw, or a landscape with no frame of reference: trying to judge what the overall actual picture is, is nearly impossible. Traditional film making elements, such as story and character, are subservient here.

So whether you like Lost Highway will probably come down to how much you are willing to accept everything you see is constantly being dismantled and repositioned by the film. It strikes a less successful balance between this “Lynchian” material and more traditional storytelling than Blue Velvet or Mulholland Drive (both, I would argue, superior films). However, for those willing to run with a mystery, Lost Highway is a baffling but intriguing watch – unsettling, unnerving, but fascinating.

So what is it about? Now I confess I needed to read up a little bit, but the best way to understand the film is as some sort of elliptical, dreamlike fantasy created by its lead character. It seems pretty clear that the majority of the film is, at best, subjective recollection or out-and-out fantasy. A little too much attention is paid in the film to a line from Fred Madison that he dislikes video cameras as he prefers to “remember things my own way rather than how they happened”. A fairly on-the-nose statement, but a clear mission statement for a film if I ever I saw one.

In fact, Fred Madison is so keen to remember the world only as he sees it that, he literally becomes someone else to build some sort of internal fantasy world where he can win the girl. But Fred/Pete is such a screwed up, confused person he can’t even get his own fantasy world right –impressions from the real world keep draining in. At least, that’s a fair interpretation. The film of course deliberately keeps things open: is this some fantasy Fred has while trapped in his cell? Or is there some sort of metaphysical transformation that fades into the real world? Is there an element of this story being circular and self-perpetuating? Is there any reality to it at all? How much you engage with these questions is a pretty good indication of what you’ll make of this film.

Whatever your response to it, as a piece of film-making it’s a very impressive piece of work. All the usual Lynchian touches are here: the strident and discordant lighting at key moments, the intelligent and daring use of music, the intermingling of design from the modern world and Americana of the 1950s, not to mention the moments of extreme violence and graphic sex. Lynch uses unsettling camera angles and sudden tilts of angle and sound to constantly keep the audience on their toes and questioning what they are seeing. Disturbing and haunting imagery, a testament to Lynch’s painter’s eye, is perfectly judged. Confusing as this film is, it offers a parade of intriguing images.

It’s an important landmark in Lynch’s filmography: a flowering of ideas he had been dabbling with since Twin Peaks, of mysticism, perversion and human darkness, and a jumping off point for haunting, almost illogical films to come like Mulholland Drive. The Mystery Man (unsettlingly played by Robert Blake – not least as this is the last film Blake made before his conviction for murdering his own wife) is a haunting, perfect Lynchian character – unsettling in appearance and confusing in intention. Is he a real person, or a mystical force? Is he some sort of external expression of evil driving Fred on, or is he part of Fred’s fractured mind?

Patricia Arquette plays two very different femme fatales, but to what extent are they reimaginings or reversionings of each other? It’s a very good performance from Arquette, playing someone who is not quite a real person, nor quite a fantasy, who feels like a character from a film moving into a real world, which itself is probably a fantasy. Just writing this sentence shows what a crazy film this is.

For the rest of the performances, there is a good mix of the genuine and the artificial. Bill Pullman, at his most understated, is perfect to ground the film, while Balthazar Getty gives a fine, detailed performance as a character who is similar and slightly different to Fred. Robert Loggia mixes ferocity and a bizarre tenderness as a character who may or not be a foul-mouthed gangster. These performances add a level of heart to the film, allowing a bit for freedom for the strangeness.

Lynch’s Lost Highway isn’t a masterpiece – it’s perhaps too self-consciously oddball and unusual, too reliant on mood and atmosphere to make up for its lack of story and characterisation. It is however intriguing, a brilliant puzzle, even though it doesn’t really allow you to invest emotionally in it at all. You can admire it as a mystery, but you can never really open your heart to it. It’s a film that is daring and dangerous, but it’s also one that, for all its erotic sex and tortured psyches, never really feels like it’s about real people with real feelings. It’s a mixture that, as I’ve said, works better in Mulholland Drive. But this is a very good staging post to that film.

Double Indemnity (1944)

Barbara Stanwyck is the dark force beyond Fred MacMurray in Wilder’s classic Double Indemnity

Director: Billy Wilder

Cast: Fred MacMurray (Walter Neff), Barbara Stanwyck (Phyllis Dietrichson), Edward G. Robinson (Barton Keyes), Porter Hall (Mr Jackson), Jean Heather (Lola Dietrichson), Tom Powers (Mr Dietrichson), Bryon Barr (Nina Zachett), Richard Gaines (Edward Norton)

In the wake of the Second World War, morally complex and dark (in every sense of the word) stories spoke to a nation coming to terms with what it had been through. Out of this was born a new genre: film noir. Double Indemnity might just be the best example and one of Billy Wilder’s best films.

Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray) is a bored insurance salesman, smitten with the sexually alluring Phyllis Dietrichson (Barbara Stanwyck), wife of a potential client. When she suggests that, with his help, they could get rid of her husband and collect a massive insurance payout on his death, Neff is quickly won over. But murder is a hard thing to get away with – particularly when Neff’s colleague and close friend Barton Keyes (Edward G Robinson), the best investigator in the business, smells something amiss in the ‘accident’.

Double Indemnity is one of those films that it’s easy to forget was as influential as it was, precisely because it’s narrative and filmic techniques have been so comprehensively imitated in a host of films since. But imagine: this was one of the very first real film noirs. It was one of the first films that used shadows and darkness as effectively as this to reflect mood and atmosphere. It was the one of the first films to use a femme fatale as prominently (and unapologetically) as this. It’s also one of the first films where sex permeates almost everything you see in the picture.

Phyllis is a woman who understands the power of sensuality, who is well aware of how she can use her body and aloof mystery to get what she wants out of men. But even more than that, Stanwyck’s wonderfully cold performance suggests she hardly seems to care about anything at all: in fact the impression is almost that she is locked into moving forward, passing through husbands and lovers, leaving men dead on the wayside. That’s the magic of Stanwyck in this film: can you remember a character as unremittingly, unapologetically sinful, manipulative and conscience-free as this?

Of course Fred MacMurray’s Walter Neff is the perfect rube for this fiercely intelligent and determined woman. MacMurray’s slight B-movie blandness – his lack of star quality, his everyday, folky unimaginativeness – is perfect for the overconfident, slightly smarmy, laziness of Neff. It’s never said outright, but you suspect that the attraction of the danger Phyllis offers is escape from his own dull life. Does he love Phyllis? I would say almost certainly not – but is he horny for her? You better believe it. It’s a man on the cusp of a mid-life crisis getting a chance to throw himself into a sex-driven affair.

What do these two think of each other? Both of them seem barely capable of trusting each other, using sex and flirting almost as a filler between bouts of mutual suspicion. Does she care for him even a little behind her use of him? And does he feel anything like a bond with her inbetween the bouts of sex? They stumble so quickly into the plan that it almost feels like they are going through the motions – she is so used to manipulation and murder, it’s all she knows; he is so bored with his life that the excitement of violence and murder with his sex seems impossible to resist.

And Wilder lets sex run through this whole film. From Phyllis’ long descent down her flight of stairs at her first entrance to the irresistible anklet, everything about Stanwyck in this film is about the power of her sex. The dialogue exchanges between Neff and Phyllis crackle with magnetism. Later, Wilder skilfully shoots a sex scene without showing a thing: we cut from the two of them kissing on a sofa, to their positions shifted, Phyllis fixing her dress and Neff reclining smoking.

It helps that the dialogue is scintillating. Each exchange is packed with crackling and quotable lines. You get a perfect marriage here between Wilder’s acerbic cynicism and dry wit, and Raymond Chandler’s arch, spiky, carefully constructed dialogue, with its gritty poetry. I mean just watch the exchange here – perfection.

And they write some knock-out speeches too – but then you would if you had an actor as brilliant as Edward G. Robinson to deliver them.

Neff’s voiceover uses the technique where it should be used – not to tell us information any well informed viewer can already work out for themselves, but to allow us insight into Neff himself and his situation, that complements and develops our appreciation of the picture (it’s also beautifully well delivered by MacMurray). I’d also add it’s the same conceit as Sunset Boulevard – its lead character narrates the film mortally wounded – and it works just as well here, stressing the disaster that hangs over every action by our anti-heroes.

Added to this, the film looks beautiful. The shadows have an all-consuming inky depth. Cinematographer John Seitz is not afraid of turning the lights down and down, and the darkness absorbs and consumes the whole picture. It allows striking lighting effects – the blinds that seem to be in every room allow slits of light through them that draw lines across the faces and bodies of the actors (as many viewers have commented, it also has the effect of making half the characters appear like they are behind bars). The darkness looms in from the corners of the frame, trapping the leads into the action – and into their own disastrous decisions.

Wilder’s skilful camera placement is what makes this film really work. He presents action constantly in challenging and different ways, never doing the expected. During the actual murder (committed while Phyllis drives), the camera never looks at Neff committing the crime, but closely follows the look of almost sensual satisfaction on Phyllis’ face: she never once looks at what is happening in the seat next to her, but her face makes us experience the killing in an even more disturbingly intimate way than watching it would be.

But what makes this film truly brilliant and unique is that its main relationship isn’t even the one you expect. Neff and Phyllis may have an electric physical relationship, but the real romance in the film is between Neff and his colleague Keyes. These two share a deeply close and personal bond. Theirs is a friendship that skirts around a platonic romance – made sharper of course as Keyes is the only man who stands a chance of working out what exactly is going on. There is a fine visual motif throughout of Neff lighting matches (with his thumb!) for Keyes – a gesture that feels both manly and intimate.

Keyes is played by a career-best Edward G. Robinson. Robinson blazes through the big speeches – but with a confident skill that never makes them feel like showboating moments. He gives Keyes an eccentric brilliance, mixed with a delicate humanism. To be that good at sniffing out wrongdoing and deceit from his fellow men, you can’t help feeling that he must have a pretty good idea about what human fallibility feels like. It’s this warm human understanding that Robinson does so brilliantly. It’s also what helps to make this relationship so moving. It’s hard not to share the obvious awkward discomfort MacMurray gives to Neff when he feels as if he is letting down his friend, and betraying the trust between them.

It’s this that makes Double Indemnity stand out. It’s a film that’s actually about the relationship between two men – part friendship, part father-and-son, part romantic – their love for each other, which happens to have an irresistible femme fatale thrown into the middle. It feels like a very unique and different approach – a touch of Wilder magic if you will – that makes the film stand out. It’s also what lies behind the link it has with audiences, the human interest that makes you come back again and again to this film about two ruthless killers.

This is a film in which everyone was at their best. MacMurray never did anything again to match it, Stanwyck seized the part with such commitment that she spawned countless imitators, Robinson is just magnificent. Wilder’s direction is perfect, the film looks ravishing, the script is to die for. Double Indemnity may not only be the most influential film noir ever. It might also be the best.

Fallen (1998)


Denzel Washington and Embeth Davidtz on the run from a nasty Demon in Fallen

Director: Gregory Hoblit

Cast: Denzel Washington (Detective John Hobbes), John Goodman (Detective Jonesy), Donald Sutherland (Lt. Stanton), Embeth Davidtz (Gretta Milano), James Gandolfini (Lou), Elias Koteas (Edgar Reese), Gabriel Casseus (Art Hobbes)

Every so often, a film comes round that you know, while you watch it, is a fairly average, unspectacular piece of film-making. But for some reason something about the film just clicks with you and you end up enjoying something basically nothing special. For me, Fallen is one of those films.

What’s particularly nice about having this film as a bit of a guilty pleasure is, I’m pretty sure, most people have never heard of it. Detective John Hobbes (Denzel Washington) has recently been present at the execution of a notorious serial killer. Moments before his death, the killer grabs his hand and mutters a message in a strange language. As a copycat killer continues the crimes – and begins to frame Hobbes – the detective slowly realises his nemesis is no man, but a demon, able to possess humans by touch. He failed to possess Hobbes – and now wants to destroy his life.

There is nothing really new here: Hobbes is straight out of film noir, while the plotline of his mentally handicapped brother raising a son is pure TV-movie of the week. The demon possession idea is not exactly new (although it’s snazzily shot) and the demon quickly heads the way of most creatures in these films: foul-mouthed and delighting in sex and violence. There is a secret underground movement of those aware of the demons on Earth (fortunately we only see one of them) combatting their evil. Nothing really new.

But Fallen makes these elements seem somewhat fresh. The idea of the demon moving from person-to-person via touch is very interestingly presented. At one point Hobbes has a conversation with the demon, as it switches from host to host. Later Gretta (Embeth Davidtz) is pursued down the street by the demon, moving swiftly from person to person in a chain of touching hands. The various actors do a good job of conveying a single consistent character for the demon (fortunately he favours possessing recognisable character actors from US TV drama). Hoblit’s direction has plenty of these interesting new ways of presenting things. He’s also able to keep a good air of menace throughout the film.

It’s not perfect of course. The investigation of the demon’s background hits all the familiar beats from Dante to the Bible. Hobbes must be the only person in the world who (having decoded a message) has to ask A NUN whether the word “Apocalypse” means anything to her. A detective who has never heard of the word apocalypse? Times have changed: it’s the sub-title to a bad X-Men film now. At least one character is so obviously set-up as a candidate for long-term possession, you immediately suspect he’s innocent.

But the film has a fine closing scene, and a decent twist which plays with your initial expectations. It also gives you plenty of clues throughout (from the first shot of the film) about how the action might play out, more than enough for you to work it out for yourself. The idea of the “final confrontation in the wilderness” is again a familiar one, but the supernatural element makes this feel different. It’s actually a twist I didn’t see coming first time around (I was young at the time, not sure if I would be caught again today) – but it’s well presented and doesn’t cheat the audience.

Probably the main reason the film works so well though is Denzel Washington. Here is an actor giving a performance probably beyond the material, encouraging others to lift their game. He perfectly captures both Hobbes’ dedication and his purity of soul, with plenty of little touches that never feel heavy handed. He makes the plotline with his brother hugely sweet. He gets the balance just right between scepticism and dawning horror. It’s a real professional performance that plays off his charisma very well – imagine how awful it would have been with Keanu Reeves in the lead.

But I love that twist ending, and I’m a sucker for these demonic possession films (like disaster films or period epics) so I’ve seen this 3-4 times and really enjoyed it each time. As well as Washington, John Goodman and Embeth Davidtz give very good performances, and there is always enough mystery that you never feel you are racing  far ahead of the film (of course we know from day one it’s about demonic possession, but the characters never feel dense catching up with us). Fallen is a high quality piece of B-movie thrills. If you haven’t heard of it, do check it out.