John Wick (2014)


Keanu Reeves: Architect of violence in this witty pulp thriller

Director: Chad Stahleski, David Leitch

Cast: Keanu Reeves (John Wick), Michael Nyqvist (Viggo Tarasov), Alfie Allen (Iosef Tarasov), Adrianne Palicki (Ms. Perkins), Bridget Moynahan (Helen Wick), Dean Winters (Avi), Ian McShane (Winston), John Leguizamo (Aurielo), Willem Dafoe (Marcus), Lance Reddick (Charon)

When B-list movie-making works, it can be a treat. John Wick is such a film. Set in a very distinctive criminal underworld, the recently widowed super assassin John Wick (Keanu Reeves) has left the life of crime behind but is dragged back in when the son (Alfie Allen) of a Russian mafia kingpin (Michael Nyqvist) murders his dog, a final gift from his wife. Wanting revenge for the loss of his last link with his wife, Wick undertakes a roaring rampage of revenge.

John Wick is a film all about momentum. It’s sharp and brutal, with fights and events piling on top of each other. However, it’s also a film told with quite a bit of wit and imagination – it’s got a cool sense of humour, and presents a tongue-in-cheek view of its super assassin story. The film’s pace and immersive action is punctured regularly and very effectively with amusing moments that really hit home. The idea of the criminal underworld having its own secret code, rules, havens and even currency is several times expanded wittily to bring an everyday element into the extraordinary. As an exercise in briefly and simply “building a world” you could look at few better examples than the script for this film.

Keanu Reeves is actually a fine choice for the lead role. His limitations as an actor have always been based above all in his flat and unmodulated Dude voice, so it’s only at moments of vocal emotion (there is one such angry outburst that he struggles with in the film) where even the audience feels that awkwardness of watching an actor at the limits of their range. But his best quality has always been his inherent lovability. As an audience member, you can’t help but care about him. Combine that with his physical brilliance and you have the perfect combination required for this role: you can believe totally in him as a ruthless killer, while also feeling a great deal of affection for him.

With Reeves’ physical abilities, the fights are then very well framed to showcase the fact that the actor is doing the stunts himself. If Quantum of Solace is perhaps the most inept example of high-cut frenetic action, this is at the other end of the scale totally. Simple, clear camera set-ups allow us to follow what happens at all times. Establishing shots and tracking shots show us exactly what is going on and where. This means you can relax and settle into the crackingly efficient violence that fills the film. The fights are inventive, shot with wit, and highly enjoyable in their execution without being excessively bloody or violent. The calm angles and stable camera serve to really accentuate the speed of those in the fights, making the fights visually very original. Despite the enormous body count, it never revels in violence. The patient build up to the first burst of violence also serves to really bond us to Wick’s backstory and his grief at his loss.

However, it’s not perfect. Strangely, despite the fact that the film is quite short, it’s still too long. There is a natural culmination point in the film at the end of Act Two that feels like a very natural, thematic stop point. Act Three resets the table hurriedly to reposition another character as a principal villain and to bring us another confrontation: this time however, the motives are less clear, and the action  just a little too much more of the same. It feels less witty and original than some of the other sequences in the film and to be honest I felt my attention drifting it a bit; the motivation for the final clash just isn’t there in the way it is with the initial enemies.

But this is a very enjoyable piece of pulpy film making, its wit and imagination embraced by some very enjoyable performances from the actors. The fight scenes not only have a unique look to them, they get the balance exactly right between violence and enjoyment. It’s almost the definition of a guilty pleasure .

A Man For All Seasons (1966)


Paul Scofield ways up a difficult demand from a not-so merry monarch

Director: Fred Zinnemann

Cast: Paul Scofield (Sir Thomas More), Wendy Hiller (Alice More), Robert Shaw (Henry VIII), Orson Welles (Cardinal Wolsey), Leo McKern (Thomas Cromwell), Susannah York (Margaret More), Nigel Davenport (Duke of Norfolk), John Hurt (Richard Rich), Corin Redgrave (William Roper), Colin Blakely (Matthew)

Writing these film reviews is sometimes harder when it’s a film you know so well. I was probably in my very early teens when I first saw this and I’ve seen it dozens of times since. I know all the scenes, all the beats, and I love it. This is a brilliant film, and its depth, richness and intelligence are ingrained. It’s a wonderfully written, played and directed piece that transforms a historical event from a history lesson into an endlessly relevant and affecting parable.

Paul Scofield (simply becoming the man) is Sir Thomas More. With Queen Catherine unable to bear Henry VIII (Robert Shaw) a son, wheels are in motion to ditch the Queen and marry the king to Anne Boleyn (a split second cameo from an unpaid Vanessa Redgrave, making you believe in a moment Anne could split a kingdom). More, however, can’t agree to the divorce – his faith in the Catholic church is non-negotiable, and the church won’t recognise the marriage. So while the rest of the kingdom falls in line, More is arrested and takes refuge in his complete silence – having never spoken of his reasons, he can never be tried for them.

Re-watching this masterful film for the first time in a few years on a newly released, fully restored Blu-ray, I was immediately reminded what a thoughtful, interesting and enjoyable film it is. Having read the play again, I genuinely think (and I’m not alone) Bolt’s script is superior to the original. Several changes have been made, most notably the removal of the “Common Man”, a theatrical device whereby one actor played all the smaller working class roles, while delivering a commentary on the action. It’s a very theatrical device, which Bolt believed wouldn’t work on screen, but its removal also purifies the story, tightens the focus and allows us to focus on More. The commentary on More’s conflicted character is instead provided by Paul Scofield’s superlative performance in close-up. Bolt also removed much of the political background, making the film more of a parable of conscience rather than a “history play”.

The film is a beautiful celebration of old-fashioned Hollywood film making. Fred Zinnemann is sometimes forgotten today, extremely unfairly for a man with a hugely impressive back catalogue. A Man for All Seasons was perfect for a director whose best work saw one man stand alone against a system – be that at Pearl Harbour or the Wild West. Zinnemann was an “actor’s director”, and draws out a series of impressive performances. But his often simple set-ups never feel staged.

He and John Box (production designer) understand the power of claustrophobia, of life and death conversations in small rooms – from Wolsey’s imposing red office that seems an extension of his personality, to Cromwell’s poky office and More’s cell, the sense of being trapped builds throughout the film. By contrast, the final courtroom’s spaciousness only underlines the fact that it’s a fix. Throughout the film looks wonderful and its spare score is a beautiful Tudor-style series of compositions that carry a perfect pitched of awe and doom. It’s so beautiful (and often overlooked) I’ve put a link to the opening here.

 In fact, Zinnermann constructs the film throughout with wonderful beats and telling shots. The first appearance of Henry VIII, his head obstructing the sun, More blinking looking up, is one of the best visual impressions you’ll see of the Icarus nature of the Tudor court. A beautiful cut takes us from More (in a windswept garden, a lovely commentary on the turbulence of his life) wondering if he can find a way to sign the oath, to a shot of the view from behind his prison bars – pages and pages of story told to us in one simple cut. Later, from the same position, we’ll see a whole year pass by in a few moments – simple, unfussy, very effective. The film is packed with small, subtle moments like this that never intrude by themselves, but build to create the effect of the film wonderfully.

And this is a great film, there’s no doubt about that. The story is surprisingly simple, but Bolt and Zinnermann make it feel truly universal: the man against the state, the individual standing for what he believes is right despite all the pressure bought to bear against him. It’s a timeless parable and could be applied to virtually any time or place you could name. It’s also extremely well written: nearly every other line is memorable, the speeches are extraordinary. Every moment of reflection and observation sounds (and is) universal in its application. Its straightforwardness also helps make the story very moving, and it successfully carries out the trick of telling a movie about a saint while making him a living, breathing man we can relate to.

Of course, a large part of its success is due to Paul Scofield’s performance in the lead role. Honed after years of performing the role, it’s again almost hard to talk about individually as Scofield is so central to the film; talking about its success is in many ways to talk about Scofield’s success. Scofield’s performance is one where the actor disappears and the character remains: his More is totally real. You feel throughout not only his dignity and wisdom and his sharply defined sense of private and public morality – but also his warmness, his wit, his benevolent regard for people and those around him. He’s a caring master and friend – but not a push-over; and is adamantine in his decisions. Scofield is also able to show the contradictions of the man: a private man who cannot give up the lure of the limelight. Every beat of the performance is brilliantly observed, a list of highlights would fill a book. He carries the entire film from start to finish and never lets it slip for a second.

He’s helped by some wonderful support (and it’s a testimony to his generosity as an actor that he cedes the screen several times). Robert Shaw’s Henry VIII is a scene stealing tour-de-force. It’s up there with Robert Duvall’s Kilgore as cameos that wrench control of the movie. He’s on-screen for about 12 minutes, but he perfectly captures Henry’s charisma and his childish temper and fury. He’s intelligent (but not that intelligent – I love his sulky response when he is quickly bested by Margaret More in knowledge of Latin) and friendly but not that friendly – the sort of man who literally rips flowers from a tree to show someone how beautiful they are: destruction and excitement combined in one moment. You totally believe that this is a man who could shatter a country in a fit of pique.

Wendy Hillier also deserves notice for what might be the trickiest role in the film as Lady Alice, a woman who lives happily in the shadow of her husband. Ill-educated and lacking any understanding of her husband, it’s a part that could be almost yokel like. But Hillier brings it a world of dignity and fiery defiance, and she brings a completely convincing fury to Alice as she rails against  injustice. The final scene between her and More is a masterclass from both of simple, uncomplicated love that has held two people with very little in common together for a lifetime.

There is literally not a bad performance in this film. Every actor is perfectly cast and completely understands their roles. Nigel Davenport masterfully portrays the pride and dimness that lies under Norfolk’s bluff domineering persona. John Hurt nails Rich’s weakness, selfishness and greed and layers it with a convincing note of underlying self-loathing: a star marking performance. Orson Welles seems to have prepared his whole life for the bloated, corrupt Wolsey. Leo McKern (the only other cast member from the original production) invests Cromwell with a low viciousness and a deadly political savvy that is based exclusively on realpolitik and devoid of decency. Susannah York, Corin Redgrave and Colin Blakely all also excel.

Historically, the character of More has faced far more criticism and scepticism recently. Several historians have bought attention to More’s rigid Inquisition-like Catholicism and his willingness to execute heretics; Hilary Mantel’s equally brilliant Wolf Hall was partly written as a response to Bolt’s presentations of More and Cromwell, lauding the latter at the expense of the former.

But these controversies are not what this film is about – and it’s never trying to be a history lesson. It presents its version of the story on its own terms (very little is ever leaned about the “King’s Great Matter” or the reasons for it) – instead, like The Crucible, it turns a historical event into a deeply moving and profound parable. In doing this it transcends being a simple recounting of events, and instead becomes an independent work of art. Historical accuracy is of no relevance to the audience when viewing Henry IV Part 1: it is of no matter here either, and is something the film never claims. And it’s all the better for it. Still one of my all-time favourites.

The Revenant (2015)

Leonardo DiCaprio conquers the wilderness

Director: Alejandro González Iñárritu

Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio (Hugh Glass), Tom Hardy (John Fitzgerald), Domhnall Gleeson (Andrew Henry), Will Poulter (Jim Bridger), Forrest Goodluck (Hawk), Duane Howard (Elk Dog), Arthur Redcloud (Hikuc), Melaw Nakehk’o (Powaqa), Grace Dove (Glass’s wife), Lukas Haas (Jones), Paul Anderson (Anderson)

The Revenant may have been one of the hardest films ever made. Iñárritu’s bleak survivalist masterpiece may not be the easiest watch – and certainly not the most fun – but it is something really unique and interesting, an attempt to completely submerse the audience in one character’s experience, with little interest in narrative, context or characterisation.

In 1823, Hugh Glass (Leonardo DiCaprio) is mawled by a bear while leading a group of trappers away from an Indian ambush. Slowing the rest of the men down, he is left in the care of a small party led by Fitzgerald (Tom Hardy). Fitzgerald abandons Glass to save his own skin – murdering Glass’ young son, he leaves Glass for dead, alone in the frozen wilderness.

This is a true experience film, that’s probably easier to admire and respect than it is to love, or even enjoy. As a technical accomplishment it is outstanding: it looks absolutely fantastic. Apparently all lit by natural light, the film has a dusk/dawn beauty to it throughout its running time that perfectly captures the harshness of the setting. The camera also unstintingly follows the burdens of its central character, close and personal with the action, often using hand held and Steadicam to throw us into the action: the three major “action” sequences have an almost unbearable intensity to them.

Iñárritu’s direction is masterful – this is a splendidly directed piece of cinema, a bravura display of accomplishment, which has the confidence to largely not draw attention to itself. In fact, that’s a major strength of the film – its technical brilliance, its striking editing and wonderful photography all serve the purpose of bringing us closer to the experience of Glass, throwing us into the world. The opening attack of the Indians on the trapper probably deserves a host of Oscars by itself, a frighteningly vivid, desperate conflict that the film throws the viewer right into the middle of. Similarly the fateful bear attack has a brutal efficiency about it that makes the viewer feel every bite and blow on DiCaprio’s battered body.

It’s well known that Leonardo DiCaprio won the Oscar for his role in the film. Possibly this was as much (if not more) a testament to his fierce commitment to this role than the actual performance. There is certainly no debate about that. Never mind the freezing cold conditions, DiCaprio spends a third of the film bound to a filthy stretcher before being swept down rapids, eating a raw fish from a lake, and climbing naked inside the guts of a dead (hopefully prop) horse… Throughout all this, a combination of his isolation and wounds means he says very little, but only growls and groans. It’s not an acting performance in the sense of a character creation – you learn very little about Glass, and other than his strength of will and hunger for revenge, little of what motivates him – but it is a complete physical performance. And DiCaprio probably deserves some sort of reward for leaving nothing in the dressing room in playing it.

The “character” acting is left far more to Tom Hardy as the weak, arrogant, blindly wilful Fitzgerald. Hardy’s performance was a little overlooked here, but it’s as fiercely committed as DiCaprio’s and, in many ways, is a more complex and intriguing character – a man with the force of will to lead but without the courage and integrity that makes a true leader of men. Yes he mumbles the dialogue – at times I did find it a little unclear what he was saying – but it is a very accomplished exercise in character creation from slight material. The rest of the cast are all equally strong – Will Poulter is terrific as a naïve Bridger, as is Domhnall Gleeson as the rigid Captain.

But the film is possibly so triumphant in its mise en scene that it overpowers the themes and narrative of the film. It is surprisingly easy to forget that Glass is a man powered by revenge, so completely is the focus on his survival. His past grief over his deceased wife is murky and unclear on first watching, not enough focus or context given to it by Iñárritu’s storytelling. Many of the “narrative” encounters that Glass has over the film are not particularly new or unique. Iñárritu’s film here is not really about the story, but the telling of it. And in focusing on the detail of delivering the story, it loses the heart and investment that a real story needs. Glass’s journey is terrible, his suffering huge, his perseverance and will striking – but I can’t say that I felt particularly emotionally involved with his struggle or got a sense of his emotional pain.

As such, this increasingly becomes a film that is easier to respect and admire than it is to love. Despite DiCaprio’s commitment and bravery as an actor, Glass is largely an enigma and the film itself is an immersion in an environment rather than a piece of drama. As a viewing experience it grips during its duration, but I’d be fascinated to see when I watch it again, will this be enough to make it last? Will a familiarity with the story allow the themes it attempts to deal with – revenge, grief etc. etc. – come out more strongly? Either way, any film that requires a second viewing is one that deserves recommendation.

Match Point (2005)


Love and lust collide in Woody Allen’s bizarrely classless Britain

Director: Woody Allen

Cast: Jonathan Rhys Meyers (Chris Wilton), Scarlett Johansson (Nola Rice), Emily Mortimer (Chloe Hewett Wilton), Matthew Goode (Tom Hewett), Brian Cox (Alec Hewett), Penelope Wilton (Eleanor Hewett), Ewen Bremner (Inspector Dowd), James Nesbitt (Detective Mike Banner), Rupert Penry-Jones (Henry), Margaret Tyzack (Mrs Eastby), Alexander Armstrong (Mr Townsend)

Match Point was originally intended to be filmed in New York, but Woody Allen could only raise the cash in Britain – so the location was shifted to London. The effect is a little bit like Julian Fellowes switching Downton Abbey to become a kitchen-sink drama in Liverpool: research has been done, the facts are all ticked off, but the understanding of the people and their situation just isn’t there. Maybe Allen should have hired Fellowes as a consultant. At least Fellowes could have told him an upper-class Covent Garden opera buff probably isn’t going to be in raptures about Andrew Lloyd-Webber’s The Woman in White.

Chris Winter (Jonathan Rhys-Meyers) is a tennis pro, now making a living as a coach in an upmarket London club. He coaches Tom Hewitt (Matthew Goode), and they discover a shared love of opera. Soon Chris is a regular visitor to the Hewitt family, a suitor and later husband to Tom’s sister Chloe (Emily Mortimer) and an employee at his father’s big city firm. He has everything he wants – except for Nola Rice (Scarlett Johnasson), Tom’s American actress fiancée…

The film was critically acclaimed in America but received a much more muted response here in Blighty. I can see why. Allen’s main problem is that he is tone deaf to the class hierarchy in this country. As such, he creates a Britain here that is close to something we would recognise, but subtly off. Chris is clearly from a lower social class than the family he marries into, he’s employed as a coach in a tennis club and he’s clearly less well travelled than the others. The family he marries into has a massive country house with servants, goes shooting at the weekend, runs a huge London business – it’s a modern day Downton Abbey.

If the same story was created by a British writer and director, Chris would clearly be presented as an ambitious, even ruthless, social climber looking to move up the ladder by doing everything he can to marry into a rich family and inveigling himself into their lives. Allen, however, doesn’t present the relationship like this – in fact, watching the film, I think it’s clear that he doesn’t really realise that Chris and his in-laws are in a totally different social class. He treats them all as if they are basically social equals, with money the only difference between them. For the British this just doesn’t fit in at all with our experience of the class system in this country – we know the Hewetts and Chris would always be aware of the social background difference between them, and that someone would comment upon it during the course of the film. No-one ever does. Class remains unmentioned. For a British person this just isn’t right.

So the “tragedy” if you like (or character flaw) of Chris should be that he is drawn sexually towards Nola Rice, despite it flying against his ambitions for moving upwards in his class. Instead, Allen’s script treats it solely as an affair of passion: the fact that the two “outsiders” in the social class (the working-class Irish boy and the American actress) are drawn to each other isn’t commented upon at all. The Hewetts are more suspicious of Rice because she’s an American and an actress, but the fact she (like Chris) doesn’t have a penny isn’t an issue. There is a lot of fertile ground here that any British director or writer would just know – but Allen fundamentally just doesn’t get it: he thinks the Hewetts are middle class not the loaded 1%+.

Of course, some of the problems are connected to Jonathan Rhys Meyers in the lead part. Watching him in this film, I can’t help but feel this is a solid 7/10 performance by an actor who normally bats a 5-6: he’s doing some of his best work on film, but his inadequacies as an actor can’t be overcome. It’s the eyes and voice for me: there just never seems much going on behind the eyes, and his unmodulated voice doesn’t bring any shading to his line deliveries. Chris should have the air of a slightly ruthless, ambitious but charming social climber – think Dennis Price in Kind Hearts and Coronets – but this is out of his range. Instead Chris is just a sort of blank that you can impose their own ideas on: it sort of works for the film, but it misses dozens of possibilities. He does well with the second half of the film and his guilt about the murder is well played, but it’s simply less subtle acting than is called for in the first half. He’s an average actor giving a performance above himself here.

Scarlett Johansson fares much better as a character who changes and develops dramatically over the course of the film, from mysterious, confident, sexy girlfriend to needy, frustrated, betrayed mistress. It’s a dramatic development throughout the film that is so skilfully done, it never feels jarring. Much of the cast is also strong: Matthew Goode is a real stand-out as Chris’ subtly spoilt brother-in-law, as is Emily Mortimer as a happy wife who never wants to think about the lie her life is. Rupert Penry-Jones and Margaret Tyzack have great cameos among the all star British cast.

The film takes place in a picture-postcard London (all the great sights are ticked off), and Allen directs with his traditional unfussy camera work. There is a certain pleasure to seeing big name British comic actors in tiny roles throughout (Paul Kaye, Mark Gatiss, Steve Pemberton and Alexander Armstrong among others pop up in small roles).

Allen doesn’t understand Britain like he does Manhattan, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t a decent film. The story’s theme of luck or chance vs fate doesn’t quite coalesce for me, but the feeling of events closing in on Chris late in the film does work very well, and I certainly felt the tension of whether Chris would get away with his eventual crime (even if I never really quite cared for Chris himself). Allen rates this as his favourite of his own films – which I guess goes to show you are never the best judge of your own work.

Rififi (1955)


Master thieves at work!

Director: Jules Dassin

Cast: Jean Servais (Tony “le Stéphanois”), Carl Möhner (Jo “le Suédois”), Robert Manuel (Mario Ferrati), Jules Dassin (César “le Milanais”), Magali Noël (Viviane), Claude Sylvain (Ida), Marcel Lupovici (Pierre Grutter), Robert Hossein (Rémy Grutter), Pierre Grasset (Louis Grutter), Marie Sabouret (Mado), Janine Darcey (Louise)

After you’ve spent some time watching some pretty duff films, finally sitting down and watching a masterpiece of any genre is a complete relief. That’s pretty much what this film is. Which is particularly interesting when you learn the film is based on a book that Dassin (it’s director) described as one of the worst books that he had ever read. He took the job only because (with his blacklisting in Hollywood) he was worried he would never work again, and only on condition that he could completely restructure the original script.

Newly released from prison, Tony (Jean Servais) is approached to take part in a smash-and-grab raid on a jewellery store by his old criminal contacts. He rejects the idea, but after discovering his former lover has left him for a gangster rival in his absence he changes his mind, on condition that the smash-and-grab plan is replaced by a complex operation that will clear out the shop’s safe containing over 250 million Francs’ worth of jewels. But in the criminal underworld, they discover there are always bigger fish circling to take their cut by any means they can.

I watched this film three days ago, and its effect was so lasting I feel almost as if I have watched it several times in my mind’s eye since then. Jules Dassin, an under-rated director, has a mastery of visual language and tense narrative that burns nearly every single scene into your retina. Rififi is a technically assured, dazzling piece of cinema that gives heft and weight to a simple story, and also has something interesting to say about human nature and the codes that dictate the lives of thieves.

Any discussion of the film probably needs to start with its highlight: a 28 minute sequence detailing the robbery itself, told in near silence and shot with forensic detail. In fact, so intelligently thought-through was this scene that in many countries it earned the film a ban, as it was feared it was too much of a “how-to” guide for thieves. The scene is a unique creation of Dassin’s – the comparative scene in the book is no more than 2-3 pages. Here it’s a quarter of the movie.

The scene is blisteringly tense, and the decision to keep the action silent means every single noise (a piano key, the whirr of a drill, the bang of a hammer) carries huge tension. There is, as many reviewers have noted, no particular reason for the thieves to keep to strict silence – but it’s dynamite cinema. Dassin combines this tension with a delighted observance of the ingenuity of these criminals. Everyday items are brilliantly repurposed to perform specific tasks (I particularly enjoyed the use of an umbrella as a vital tool). Dassin celebrates the effectiveness and skill of these burglars, and their technique and skill is infectiously entertaining.

Dassin probably invented the genre of the heist movie here – and he encourages us to feel a delight in the accomplishment and ambition of the heist. But he also reminds us that these are criminals: weapons are banned as they will guarantee a long prison stretch; the couple whose house they invade are ruthlessly chloroformed and tied up; a policeman is bludgeoned as part of the get-away. In the third act of the film we see that Tony in particular is no shrinking violet when it comes to violence.

The build-up to the heist establishes each of the characters clearly, along with the flaws that will revisit them later: Tony makes enemies too easily, Jo’s loyalty affects his judgement, Mario is too happy-go-lucky, César has a weakness for women. A number of sequences show us the gang’s preparations – from hours of surveillance, to an amusing sequence where they experiment with methods to beat the store’s top-of-the-line alarm before a moment of inspiration hits them.

The third act of the film however takes us into a dark exploration of the loyalties and codes of honour that govern the criminal underworld. Tony’s enemies try to muscle in on the proceeds, leading to a series of increasingly violent episodes, as move and counter move is made to secure control of the funds. Here Dassin again pulls no punches – we have swearing, we have murder, we have a strung-out junkie kidnapping a child in return for a free hit – and it’s brilliantly put together.

It also tells us something. Tony has a code – and whether we agree with it or not, he’s faithful to it. Dassin himself plays the man whose fondness for a vain singer will leak out the plot details (it’s a lovely performance – and the man who was blacklisted must have had some delight here in playing a grass) and the confrontation scene with Tony is great: “I really liked you” Tony states sadly and regretfully: that doesn’t change his mind. Tony’s rival Grutter lacks even Tony’s sense of fairplay and his ruthlessness puts the other gangsters into perspective and questions Tony’s ideas of a code of honour among thieves: Grutter is a success precisely because he doesn’t give a toss about that sort of thing.

If the film has a flaw, it’s in its treatment of the female characters. Although Dassin arguably suggests that in this mileu many of them are just powerless passengers swept along by the actions of their men, they still seem less than fully formed characters, defined by simple character traits (Louise is a mother, Viviane is shallow, Ida is a flirt). The one dull section of the film follows Viviane singing in a nightclub – a scene introduced solely to drop the title and explain its meaning.

The film is also, at best, neutral in what it expects us to make of Tony brief whipping (off-screen) his ex-girlfriend Mado with a belt, after she betrays him with the gangster Grutter. Particularly as Mado seems to believe herself at fault rather than Tony. The scene is more about Tony – it’s his feeling of powerlessness that the camera focuses on – and Mado seems to shrug off the three blows she receives as just the price of living. Ah well, that’s the fifties for you I guess. And it’s not as if Tony – a moody man perfectly capable of cold blooded killing later – is a saint in any case. We also have the balance of Jo and Mario’s loving regard for their wives – and César’s misguided affection for Viviane.

And of course Tony our “hero” is certainly an anti-hero. In his first scene he’s stroppily demanding “in” on a poker game he doesn’t have the funds for. He’s demanding and surly with everyone except his godson. He is ruthless when he needs to be. Jean Servais’ crumpled, baggy face and dead-eyed stare genuinely make him look like a man who has spent five years inside. His adherence to his moral code is so rigid no level of regret will stop him punishing those whom he deems have deserved death. Dassin also undercuts his potential tragic greatness, as trivial events – a missed phone call principally – lead him to destruction. 

The film’s final sequence is inspired, and again wordless. A dying man races a car through the city to return a child to his mother. Is it devotion to the child? Does he want to get the money back to the only family he has? Has he accepted death? Is he racing for a chance of living? Around him the camera whirls, the editing is frantic and the child cavorts in the car oblivious of the danger. It’s a sequence that is both moving and strangely profound. It’s the final masterstroke in a film full of them.

Rules of Engagement (2000)


Our heroes “Can’t Handle The Truth!” That’s okay though they don’t need to deal with it

Director: William Friedkin

Cast: Tommy Lee Jones (Col Hays Lawrence “Hodge” Hodges II), Samuel L. Jackson (Col Terry L. Childers), Guy Pearce (Maj Mark Biggs), Ben Kingsley (Ambassador Mourain), Bruce Greenwood (National Security Advisor Bill Sokal), Anne Archer (Mrs. Mourain), Blair Underwood (Capt Lee)

Jones and Jackson together! At least that was the cry at the time for this morally repugnant military courtroom drama. On a mission to rescue an ambassador from an embassy under siege, after a few marines are wounded (three are announced later as KIA), Jackson’s Colonel fires on a crowd of protesting civilians (a scheduled protest that has gone out of hand) killing 83 and wounding dozens more. Horrified, the suits at home decide to put him on trial for murder. Jones is his alcoholic (for plot reasons) lawyer, who tries to uncover the truth around a missing surveillance video which may (or may not) prove the crowd was armed.

This was a film that I think I’ve hated more and more since I watched it. In its defence: Friedkin directs the opening embassy siege well. The siege itself (denounced as racist at the time) comes across as enormously prescient considering the Arab Spring etc that we’ve seen since. Jones is pretty good, I guess, despite looking far too old for the part (he’s only two years younger than his supposed mother!). Jackson does the fireworks that are asked of him. It’s pretty well filmed in general.

Everything else in this film leaves a taste like three-week-old field rations. The courtroom dynamics are boring. The film doesn’t want Jackson to be a villain so repositions Greenwood and Kingsley’s characters as villains. Despite their best efforts, any sane person watching this film could not defend Jackson’s character’s actions here. The logic of the courtroom is ridiculous: a non-existent video tape overrules all other evidence, including a complete lack of bullet holes from guns from the street direction? I suppose you could argue the film wants us to make our own judgement on subjective recollections: but its stirring music and heroic worship of Jackson tell us firmly who we should be believing here. Basically the message seems to be: Embassies are American soil, raise a gun at them and you deserve everything you got coming.

The film tries to stack the decks overwhelmingly in support of its central character, but it just leaves an unpleasant taste in the mouth. For a start, our hero is cleared on a technicality – “There must be a surveillance tape and that tape might have cleared the Colonel so you should let him off” – that we are meant to cheer, but is in fact exactly the sort of closed ranks, protect-our-own cover-up that the supposedly villainous National Security Adviser denounces in the first place. It’s not even a good argument: all the actual available evidence clearly shows he’s guilty and Jackson even admits it on the witness stand! Ever heard of the Amritsar massacre? It’s a comparable event to this and one of our most shameful colonial actions. On the logic of this film it should be our finest hour.

On top of that, the film asks us to believe that a proportional response to being under fire from gunmen in a crowd full of civilians (including women and children) is to fire automatic weapons directly into the crowd. But that’s fine because Jackson’s character has a dream where he sees the Yemeni civilians all shooting up at him (didn’t see that the first time you showed it Friedkin!) including the photogenic one-legged girl the film has gone back to several times. So you go Samuel! Shoot up that crowd!

I could go on with the wonky morals of this horrible little film. The first thing we see Jackson’s character do on screen was to execute an unarmed prisoner (our hero, ladies and gentlemen!). Naturally the film has to exonerate him for this, so we have the Vietnamese officer who witnessed this turn up at the courtroom and say he would have done the same, then have the two of them tearfully salute each other outside the courtroom. So that’s fine then. It’s just another part of the film’s unpleasant attitude that you can’t even begin to question right or wrong in combat because, man, you weren’t there. Well I’m sorry but that doesn’t wash.

What is the moral of this unpleasant story? Well it seems to be that you can do almost anything you like so long as you can argue you have in someway saved lives (especially if they are American lives). Oh and that by extension, 1 American Marine’s life is worth just about 28 Yemeni lives. Go figure.

Primal Fear (1996)


Richard Gere prepares an impossible defence for unbalanced Edward Norton. Twist ahoy!

Director: Gregory Hoblit

Cast: Richard Gere (Martin Vail), Laura Linney (Janet Venable), John Mahoney (John Shaughnessy), Alfre Woodard (Judge Shoat), Frances McDormand (Dr Molly Arrington), Edward Norton (Aaron Stampler), Terry O’Quinn (Bud Yancy), Andre Braugher (Tommy Goodman)

Courtroom dramas are the bread and butter of film drama. You get to deal with good vs evil, right vs wrong – and you even have two advocates on each side there duelling it out on camera for you. Primal Fear came at a time when John Grisham and his like were ruling the bestseller charts, and it’s a fine demonstration of that very late 80s to mid 90s genre: the all-star court case film.

After the murder of a beloved archbishop in Chicago, bloodied altar-boy Aaron Stampler (Edward Norton) is found near the scene. There seems no doubt that he’s guilty. Top city lawyer Martin Vail (Richard Gere) takes his case for the publicity of a big trial, but finds himself believing the boy to be innocent. As the trial begins though, Vail’s psychiatric investigation reveals Stampler has a split personality – his gentle main persona and a violent defensive personality, “Roy”, who admits to the crime.

This is an advanced, well-written trial thriller which, through a combination of some neat lines and some very good performers, manages to bring a lot of life and originality to what could have been a collection of stock characters. Instead, each character in the film feels real and their actions seem part of a coherent personality. The mechanics of the plot also move very smoothly, with a well-handled twist. And as a bonus it has something to say about human nature, about our need to believe in something and how easy it is to tell lies about ourselves and believe them from others.

The film is shot with a good eye for grimy real-life locations and muddy shade-of-grey morality. Hoblit’s direction is crisp and straightforward and he avoids getting any pyrotechnics in the way of the actors – here the performances are the special effects. It’s also a brilliant twist movie that doesn’t telegraph the fact it contains a twist until it suddenly pulls the rug out from under your feet. Hoblit doesn’t give us any advantages over the characters and has the restraint not to show his hand too early – instead he sucker punches us with a sudden downer ending. It’s a masterpiece of genre craft film-making.

Richard Gere at first glance is playing well within his range – a smirking hotshot focused on the win, willing to defend anyone and anything. However, what Gere does really well here is play his persona as an actual persona of the character. The “real” Martin Vail, it becomes clear, is actually almost naïve in his underlying faith in the justice system. He has a touching faith in people and the twist of the film works because we believe how much Vail unwittingly allows himself too be manipulated and conned. He’s the sort of true believer who can playfully mock his faith because his belief in it is absolute. It’s even more crushing, then, when that faith is so cruelly used and abused. The final shot of him alone on the street all but screams “My God, what have I done?”.

But though this film has some of Gere’s best work, this is Ed Norton’s movie. Incredibly, this was Norton’s first ever film, and he seizes the film absolutely by the scruff of the neck. Re-watching the film now, it’s less of a surprise when Aaron’s “Roy” personality bursts out – Norton is so well known now you are almost waiting for him to really let rip – but he nails the contrasts between the stammering, gentle Aaron and the ferocious Roy. You always know which one he is at any time – and even better than that, Norton drops subtle hints throughout to set up the film’s twist (which I won’t give away). His performance is largely a triumph of masterful control of acting tricks and a brilliant demonstration of range, as well as a swaggering display of confidence, rather than a subtle piece of character work, but it’s still an absolute knock out for all that – and totally believable.

Strong performances also come from Laura Linney, making an awful lot of the role of Gere’s courtroom nemesis and part-time lover. Andre Braugher is particularly good as an investigating officer. Alfre Woodward is stern and authoritative but fair minded and just as the judge. Frances McDormand makes what could have been a wet liberal doctor feel like a genuinely caring and dedicated intelligent professional. There isn’t a weak link in the cast, and every character beat feels well observed and natural. How many genre films have failed to manage that?

It all works extremely well and offers all the courtroom fireworks you could want with maximum efficiency. All the actors are working at the top of their game, and the direction keeps the action taut and intriguing. Here’s the thing: the plot makes little sense if you think about it, and Norton’s plan depends on so many variables he could never have known that it would success. But the film is made with such confidence and assurance that it never really matters. The twist still has a lot of impact today – and the film bravely offers no happy endings, only hammers home the system’s corruptness. A very good example (perhaps one of the best) of the courtroom genre.

The Parallax View (1975)


The assassination game is grimly played out in Pakula’s groundbreaking conspiracy thriller.

Director: Alan J Pakula

Cast: Warren Beatty (Joseph Frady), Paula Prentiss (Lee Carter), Hume Cronyn (Bill Rintels), William Daniels (Austin Tucker), Walter McGinn (Jack Younger), Kelly Thorsden (Sheriff L.D. Wicker), Earl Hindman (Deputy Red), William Joyce (Senator Charles Carroll), Bill McKinney (Parallax Assassin), Jim Davis (Senator George Hammond), Kenneth Mars (Will Turner)

The 1970s. The decade that made the conspiracy theory popularly accepted. We all love them now – but the 1970s, with its growing disillusionment, was when it first became fashionable to openly question the reality placed before us. The Parallax View is perhaps the greatest conspiracy film ever made, an “experience” movie that captures the mood of the time so well because nothing in it is real, but everything about it feels like it could be real.

The film opens with the assassination of a reforming senator at the Space Needle in Seattle. A senatorial enquiry reports the act was the work of a lone gunman. Three years later, reporter Joe Frady is tipped off that many of the witnesses have been killed in “accidents”. Looking for a big scoop, Frady launches a one-man investigation. This suggests the assassin was someone else entirely, recruited by Parallax, a corporation in the business of identifying and training possible assassins. Or is it? Too late, Frady realises what he has got himself into.

The Parallax Viewis an unsettling, haunting piece of film-making with an impossibly glum view of the world as one where the goodies don’t have a hope in hell. It works despite (because of?) its lack of conventionality: it’s an investigative film where the investigator finds almost nothing out. It’s a tense thriller with no real plot. It tricks us throughout into thinking Frady is completely in control, when he is just a rat in a maze. It’s a film about plot rather than character, but it actually has very little plot as such in it. It’s more like an experience, an immersion in the shady underbelly of America. 

Pakula’s direction is masterfully controlled. Every shot is carefully organised. Every scene builds the complete picture. There is no fat on the film at all: everything we see is relevant. Sequences crackle with tension – most famously, a sequence where Frady finds himself on a plane he knows is carrying a bomb: wordlessly he scrambles desperately for a method to communicate this to the staff. The final sequence at a rehearsal for a senatorial rally is also nearly wordless, but is shot and edited with a relentless inevitability in it, Frady a powerless onlooker.

Warren Beatty gives an intriguing performance as Frady. He isn’t afraid to make Frady slightly unsympathetic: an arrogant loner, nowhere near as clever as he thinks he is. His investigation is, when you look at, hilariously ill-prepared and blindly headstrong. He goes up against the system with little more than a complete faith in his pluck and resourcefulness. It’s not enough. Beatty has a cocky hipsterish quality, which only occasionally cracks when he realises he is in over his head. His attitude is summed up perfectly when he is confronted by a drunk cop in a bar: the cop tells him he’s got a hair like a girl; yup, replies Frady with casual defiance and contempt, that’s right I’m a girl. This is more infuriating than any angry retort would be – cue a barfight. It’s a nice, unflashy performance, full of subtle observances, that allows the plot to be the central character.

Gordon Willis was one of the leading photographers of the 1970s and created the visual language of the era’s best films (he also shot The Godfather and All the President’s Men). His photography became synonymous with an impression of the era as one of muddy colours and oppressive architecture, with well chosen streaks of colour throwing these into perspective. His framing throughout the film is exquisite. Events are framed to throw the principal characters into the corners of the frames. Unusual angles show buildings and architecture as oppressive monoliths. Long shots are combined with deep focus to give striking images – my favourite is a long shot from the roof of an air hanger, as a dead man’s golf buggy continues its unguided path, crashing quietly and slowly through tables and chairs. An interesting breakdown of the visual language of the film can be found here.

Sound is also brilliantly used. The score is practically the dictionary definition of spare. Silence is wonderfully used. Background noise dominates several scenes. Life and death events happen silently, lost among the sound of the world around them – whether that be waterfalls, parades or political speeches played over loudspeakers. The effect throughout unnerves and disorientates. It’s all part of the film’s device: the plot is actually extremely simple and the film is a punchy hour and a half. The key thing is the unsettling experience of watching the film, not revelations about our world like in, say, JFK. There is no mystery as such to unravel. Instead we are thrown into this world with no helping hand to guide us through it.

I have to mention the extraordinary assassin recruitment film Frady is brought in to watch by Parallax. It’s a fascinating triumph of editing, a deeply disturbing arrangement of images that slowly switch from positive to negative, subliminally building a message of the need for the individual to take decisive action. I won’t go into all this now – a well-written breakdown of its meaning is here.

And Frady is being tested. His arrogance, his go-it-alone independence, his lack of real relationships or friendships make him (unknowingly) a perfect Parallax subject. Unnervingly we are given no idea of Parallax’s aims. We never learn anything about them and why they do what they do. Are they in it for the personal gain? Are they hired guns? Is their whole programme not about recruiting assassins but recruiting plausible patsies to cover for the real hitmen (that certainly seems to be the impression from the film’s bleak ending)? It’s all left up to the viewer to decide from the scant evidence supplied.

What is clear is that The Parallax View is a deeply troubling film, which presents a haunting and disturbing image of a country where justice is dead and power talks. The film is bookended by a senate commission in session (seemingly floating towards the camera in a brilliant camera effect), giving almost identical reports on assassinations. It’s a chilling film, where even the heroes are not particularly sympathetic or heroic and where hope and change are distant dreams. It’s perhaps the perfect 1970s film.

Left Behind (2014)


Nicolas Cage snores through this disaster of a movie

Director: Vic Armstrong

Cast: Nicolas Cage (Rayford Steele), Chad Michael Murray (Cameron “Buck” Williams), Cassi Thomson (Chloe Steele), Nicky Whelan (Hattie Durham), Jordin Sparks (Shasta Carvell), Lea Thompson (Irene Steele)

Christian film making. Bible dramatisations can have a certain strength and weight to them. But when it tries to reach into the realm of the blockbuster (inevitably involving the Antichrist somewhere along the line – he would have popped up in the never-made sequel to this piece of excrement) – it never gets it right, po-faced amateurishness taking over as it tries to tell a story that “will appeal to the kids”.

I can hardly bear to remember it, but Left Behind is about the Rapture. In a flash of light, the good people and all the kids in the world disappear leaving only their clothes behind (heaven is a naked place apparently). The bad and the unbelievers (shame on them!) are LEFT BEHIND!!!! The film focuses on some people on a plane. The plane flies around a bit while they panic. Then it lands. Then the film finally ends. There is no plot as such. Every character has been plucked from a stock catalogue: the lothario pilot, the slutty stewardess, the wisecracking New Yorker, the savvy journalist, the plucky daughter… Drinking is essential for viewing the film.

This is an incomprehensible, pointless film devoid of plot or suspense that drifts clumsily from event to event, never building towards any point or resolution. It was clearly intended as the first film in a series, and therefore feels no need to attempt to function as a stand-alone film. In fact the entire film feels like an extended first act – and with tighter story telling it could have been that. What actually happens in this movie? A bunch of people disappear. Cage lands a plane. That’s it. Nothing else really happens. Even the concept of the Rapture having even taken place is basically only a guess by some of the characters: they haven’t got a clue.

In fact, that’s another reason why this film is both terrible and dull. Because bugger all else happens in the story, it’s promoted as the “Rapture movie”. So we at home know straightaway what has happened, but the film drags out its protagonists working it out and then suddenly has them reaching a conclusion based on the watch inscription of a vanished co-pilot and a “BIBLE STUDY” note in the diary of a vanished stewardess. The wait for them to work it out is dull – and then the reasons for their conclusions so swiftly raced through they make no sense.

For a Christian film, as well, the story alternates between heavy handed dwelling on crosses and other paraphernalia, and a bizarre presentation of the overtly religious, who all seem to be either cranks, sanctimonious or both. The film is so ineptly made that it’s clearly not their intention to present the religious like this – it just comes out that way.

Nicolas Cage stars in this film. I can only assume that this was in the midst of his financial problems and that the offer for a huge slice of the budget was too good. Never mind autopilot, he’s barely awake, plodding through the film with a dead-eyed stare, mouthing the direlogue and clearly wishing he could be raptured out of the movie. Even on the poster he looks bemused and confused about why he’s there. The rest of the actors are so non-descript that this turd is basically their career highlight.

Leaving aside the acting, it’s a hideously made, cheap-as-chips movie with D-list actors stumbling around wobbly sets. It has no sense of humour, no sparkle but is directed with a hamfisted seriousness. The “action” and “thrills” are laughably flat and have less pazzaazz than an episode of Thunderbirds. But taking pot shots at this crap is like shooting dead fish floating in a barrel. It is horribly, horribly, horribly bad, bordering on inept. Even the most blindly devout Christian couldn’t find a message in this. With friends like these God doesn’t need enemies.

Ace in the Hole (1951)


Kirk Douglas surveys the horrors he has willingly unleashed in Billy Wilder’s bitter beyond belief media satire

Director: Billy Wilder

Cast: Kirk Douglas (Chuck Tatum), Jan Sterling (Lorraine Minosa), Robert Arthur (Herbie Cook), Porter Hall (Jacob Q. Booth), Frank Cady (Mr Federber), Richard Benedict (Leo Minosa), Ray Teal (Sheriff Kretzer), Robert Arthur (Herbie Cook)

Ace in the Hole was Wilder’s first big flop as a director. It’s not surprising that the media savaged it and claimed it was ridiculous. This is a film way, way, way ahead of its time, a stinging indictment of the ruthless obsession of the media with selling stories rather than reporting them, of spinning out crises to sell newspapers. It’s Fake News decades ahead of its time, a gutter journalism film released at a time when the media was totally trusted. Is it any wonder contemporary critics claimed they couldn’t recognise their trade here? Now it’s practically the way every journalist on film is portrayed.

Charles Tatum (Kirk Douglas) is a big-city reporter fired by a host of newspapers for offences ranging from alcoholism to libel to sleeping with the boss’s wife. Arriving in Albuquerque, New Mexico, he wangles a job on the local paper aimed to eventually encounter a story he can spin into a national media sensation, a crisis with a “human interest story”. A year later, he stumbles upon a cave-in that has trapped a man, Leo Minosa (Richard Benedict), below the surface. Believing this is the story that he can get him back his seat at the high table, Tatum seizes control of the rescue operation, insisting a quick and easy plan is dropped in favour of a week long public drilling operation. Tatum’s reporting of the event becomes a media sensation and in days the abandoned town is full of reporters and rubberneckers.

What’s astonishing here is that this is one of the few films I can think of that is totally devoid of sentiment or hope. It’s ruthlessly cynical where virtually every character is irredeemable, and no suggestion of redemption exists. The only major character who seems normal is Leo himself, although that is largely because his bland non-descriptness (well portrayed by Richard Benedict) and childlike, homespun dependency on those around him make him a near blank anyone can project feelings onto. Wilder’s hard-bitten cycnicsm, bordering on anger with the media and their audience, pulls no punches without descending into polemic – ironically it keeps the human interest, while never compromising the dark satire.

It’s a savage attack not just on journalism and the mass media, but human nature itself. The media stirs up a storm of excitement and drama around one man’s fate solely to make money – and Tatum himself is the worst form of manipulative gutter press, with no interest in truth, investigation or even journalism, only a shark-like love of the main event. But Wilder shows that the people just lap up this exploitative press storm – the growing crush of on-lookers, the bated breath as each update comes in, the literal carnival set up on the site, specially chartered trains – everyone wants to feel part of this story, to vicariously feel the emotions of those the event is actually happening to. It’s virtually a prediction of Twitter.

At the heart of this is Tatum, played with maximum forcefulness and dark charisma by Kirk Douglas in surely one of his finest performances. What Douglas does here that is so skilful is to never make Tatum an out-and-out villain. He plays it with a subtle suggestion of self-loathing: the quietly suggested need for alcohol, the revulsion he feels for those around him whom he sees as reflections of his own moral emptiness. At the same time, if Tatum has morals he long since stopped listening to them. Every time it looks like Tatum has realised what he has done, he reverts back to keeping the story going. Douglas’s dynamism also brings Tatum’s relentless drive and determination to life with real power. Tatum is easily able to cow, bully and bribe those around him into making him the funnel of the story. Never once do you question why all around Tatum bow to his will – his force of personality is so great you have no choice. Despite the hints of self-loathing, Douglas isn’t afraid to play Tatum as a reprehensible man – not bad or evil, just totally self-serving and selfish.

Jan Sterling I was less sure of at first, but actually this is another incredibly brave performance of uncompromising hardness. Lorraine is trapped in a marriage with a man she does not love, in the middle of nowhere, having believed she was marrying into something very different. But even with those provisos, her lack of interest in her husband’s safety and her focus on getting as much cash out of the tourists as possible (to finance her departure to the city) is astonishingly ruthless. Out of all the characters, she is the one who is immediately aware of what game Tatum is playing, and (with his advice) she is the most capable of exploiting the public excitement for her own gain. While she has elements of a femme fatale, Sterling’s performance seems more bitterly cynical than manipulatively feminine.

Wilder’s cynical and hard-nosed film is a brilliantly written deconstruction of the American dream, packed with wonderful lines and sharply drawn characters. It scrapes away at the surface of its characters to reveal the rot underneath – even Tatum’s photographer Herbie degrades from idealist to acolyte – and then blames us all for the mess. It shows us the disgusting ease with which our feelings can be manipulated to sell anything, then shows how gleefully we want to be feel part of an event: shots are filled with details like spectators carrying candy-floss while praying for Leo’s safety.

And then there is a complete lack of redemption – or even suggestion of it. Decent characters are peripheral, and far outnumbered by Tatum and his like. The resolution of the crisis does not go according to Tatum’s plan. It’s almost astonishing in its bleakness and in Tatum’s confused reaction to it and his lack of clear-cut guilt. Again, it’s Douglas’ skill and Wilder’s uncompromising direction: I actually had to watch it twice to catch the shading Douglas and Wilder give Tatum’s reactions to events finally going out of his control – and I still don’t know to what extent self-loathing trumps frustration and disappointment.

This is a masterful media satire and a wonderful, thought-provoking film, surely one of Wilder’s finest. It should be a lot better known than it actually is. I haven’t stopped thinking about it in days and I’m already looking forward to seeing it again. And, if anything, it is getting more relevant every single day.