Tag: Christopher Walken

Dune: Part 2 (2024)

Villeneuve’s triumphant sequel continues to raise the bar for science fiction films

Director: Denis Villeneuve

Cast: Timothée Chalamet (Paul ‘Muad-Dib’ Atreides), Zendaya (Chani), Rebecca Ferguson (Lady Jessica), Javier Bardem (Stilgar), Josh Brolin (Gurney Halleck), Austin Butler (Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen), Florence Pugh (Princess Irulan), Dave Bautista (Rabban Harkonnen), Christopher Walken (Emperor Shaddam IV), Léa Seydoux (Lady Margot Fenring), Souheila Yacoub (Shishakli), Stellan Skarsgård (Baron Vladimir Harkonnen), Charlotte Rampling (Gaius Helen Mohaim)

Denis Villeneuve had already taken on the near-impossible in adapting the unfilmable Dune into a smash-hit admired by both book-fans and initiates. In doing so he set himself an even greater task: how do you follow that? Dune Part 2 (and this is very much Part 2, picking up minutes after the previous film ended) deepens some of the universe building, but also veers the story off into complex, challenging directions that fly in the face of those expecting the sort of “hero will rise” narrative the first Dune seemed to promise. Dune Part 2 becomes an unsettling exploration of faith, colonialism and cultural manipulation, all wrapped up in its epic design.

Paul (Timothée Chalamet) and his mother Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson) have escaped the clutches of their rivals House Harkonnen and it’s corrupt, sadistic leader Baron Vladimir (Stellan Skarsgård). Escaping into the deserts of Arrakis, they take shelter with the Fremen, vouched for by tribal leader Stilgar (Javier Bardem). It transpires Paul fits many of the conditions of the prophecy of the Mahdi or Lisan al Gaib, the promised messiah of the Fremen. Paul is uncomfortable with this – and the growing devotion of the likes of Stilgar – but also recognises the potential this has for marshalling the Fremen for his own revenge on the Harkonnen’s. Its further complicated by his knowledge the prophecy was embedded into their culture by the mysterious Bene Gesseri, the religious order that quietly controls much of the Empire, not to mention the hostility of Chani (Zendaya) the woman he loves, as she believes the Fremen should save themselves not rely on an outsider.

These complex ideas eventually shape a film that avoids simple good-vs-evil narratives and subtly undermines the very concept of the saviour narrative. Dune’s roots in a mix of Lord of the Rings and Lawrence of Arabia have rarely been clearer. Not least in the perfect casting of the slightly androgenous and fey Timothée Chalamet as Paul (with more than a hint of Peter O’Toole), barely knowing who he is, drawn towards and standing outside an indigenous community based on strong tribal loyalty, tradition and the grim reality of life in a hostile environment.

A large part of Dune 2 deconstructs Paul’s heroism and his (and Jessica’s) motives. When Jessica – who takes on a religious figurehead role with the Fremen – starts stage-managing events to exactly match the words of the prophecy, does that count as a fulfilment? Paul is deeply uncomfortable with positioning himself as messianic figure for an entire race, effectively weaponising their belief for his own cause. But he’s also nervous because he is also an exceptionally gifted person with powers of persuasion and prophetic insight that mark him out as special. As Paul allows himself to more-and-more accept the role he has been groomed for, how much does it corrupt him? After all, he gains absolute power over the Fremen – and we all know what that does to someone…

Paul’s messianic possibility is also spread on very fertile ground. Javier Bardem’s Stilgar represents a large portion of the Fremen population, who belief in this prophecy with a fanatical certainty. The dangers of this is subtly teased out by Villeneuve throughout the film. At first there is a Life of Brian comedy about Stilgar’s wide-eyed joy as every single event can be twisted and filtered through his naïve messiah check-list (“As is written!”) – even Paul’s denial he is the messiah is met with the response that only a messiah would be so humble! This comedy however fades as the film progresses and the militaristic demands Paul makes sees this same belief channelled into ferocious, fanatic fury that will leave a whole universe burning in its wake.

Much of Paul’s hesitancy is based on his visions of a blood-soaked jihad that will follow if he indeed “heads south” and accepts the leadership of the Fremen’s fanatical majority. The question is, of course, whether the desire for revenge – and, it becomes increasingly clear, a lust for power and control – will overcome such scruples. Part of the skill of Chalamet’s performance is that it is never easy to say precisely when your sympathy for him begins to tip into horror at how far he is willing to go (Villeneuve bookends the film with different victorious armies incinerating mountains of corpses of fallen foes), but in carefully calculated increments the Paul we end up at the end of the film is a world away from the one we encountered at the start.

Villeneuve further comments on this by the skilful re-imagining of Chadi, strongly played by Zendaya as an intelligent, determined freedom-fighter appalled at the Fremen exchanging one dogma for another. In the novel a more passive, devoted warrior-lover of Paul, in Dune Part 2 she becomes effectively his Fremen conscious, a living representation of the manipulation Paul is carrying out on these people. In her continued rejection of worship – even while she remains personally drawn to Paul – she provides a human counterpoint to Paul’s temptation to follow his father’s instructions and master “desert power” to control the worlds around them.

Deplorable and evil as the Harkonnen’s are, do Paul’s ends justify his means? And where does it stop? Dune Part 2 sees the Harkonnen’s subtly reduced in status. Dave Batista’s brooding Raban proves an incompetent manager of Arrakis. Stellan Skarsgård’s Baron is crippled by an assassination attempt and increasingly buffeted by events rather than controlling them. The film’s clearest antagonist becomes Austin Butler’s chillingly psychopathic junior Baron Feyd-Rautha, a muscle-packed bald albino, obsessed with honour and utterly ruthless towards his own subordinates. (Introduced in a stunningly shot, black-and-white gladiatorial combat scene that showcases his insane recklessness and twisted sense of honour.) But increasingly they feel like minor pawns in a game of international politics around them.

Villeneuve allows Dune’s world to expand, delving further into the cultural manipulations of the Bene Gesserit. This ancient order not only controls the Emperor – a broodingly impotent Christopher Walken – but also manipulates the bloodlines of great houses for their own twisted breeding programme, as well as inject cultures like the Fremen with perverted, controlling beliefs. While Villeneuve still carefully parses out the world-building of Dune – you could be forgiven for not understanding why the Spice on Arrakis is so damn important – it’s a film that skilfully outlines in broad strokes a whole universe of backstairs manipulation.

Among all this of course, Dune remains a design triumph. Grieg Fraser’s cinematography ensures the desert hasn’t looked this beautiful since Lawrence. The production and costume design are a triumph, as is Hans Zimmer’s imposing score. Above all, the film is brilliantly paced (wonderfully edited by Greg Walker) and superbly balanced into a mix of complex political theory and enough action and giant worm-riding to keep you more than entertained.

Dune Part 2 is a rich and worthy sequel, broadening and deepening the original, as well as challenging hero narratives. It turns Paul into an increasingly dark and manipulative figure, whose righteous anger is only a few degrees away from just anger (he’s no Luke Skywalker), who starts to see people as tools and moves swiftly from asserting Fremen rights to asserting his own rights (overloaded with different names, its striking when Paul chooses to use which names). In a film that provokes thoughts and thrills, Villeneuve’s Dune continues to do for fantasy-sci-fi what Lord of the Rings did for fantasy, creating a cinematic adaptation unlikely to be rivalled for decades.

The Anderson Tapes (1971)

Sean Connery plans the perfect crime under the noses of the government in The Anderson Tapes

Director: Sidney Lumet

Cast: Sean Connery (John “Duke” Anderson), Dyan Cannon (Ingrid Everleigh), Martin Balsam (Tommy Haskins), Ralph Meeker (Captain Delaney), Alan King (Pat Angelo), Christopher Walken (The Kid), Val Avery (“Socks” Parelli), Dick Anthony Williams (Edward Spencer), Garrett Morris (Everson), Stan Gottleib (“Pop”)

Everywhere we go now we kind of know that we are being watched. There are cameras everywhere. Satellite links build into our cars. Heck we all carry everywhere we go a portable tracking and recording device that can be listened into. So the idea of surveillance being ever present wouldn’t be a surprise to us. But in 1971, the idea that the government could be listening all the time, at any time was something that couldn’t cross anyone’s mind.

It certainly doesn’t occur to John “Duke” Anderson (Sean Connery) just out of chokey after a ten year stretch. He’s back into a world he hardly understands, but it doesn’t take longer than five minutes in the swanky apartment block of his girlfriend Ingrid (Dyan Cannon) for him to case the joint and plan to do it over – all the apartments at once. Putting a crew together, Duke plans to clean out all the whole block of all its valuable property in one go, with financial backing from the Mafia (who owe him for unspecified reasons). Problem is, Duke’s entire plan is being recorded and monitored by different government agencies from top to bottom who – even if they aren’t speaking to each other – are in position to wreck his plans the instant anyone puts the clues together…

The Anderson Tapes is part crime thriller, part black comedy caper. It generally plays it pretty light – with flashes of violence or danger – and throws in some satire on the surveillance age. The tapes in question are different levels of surveillance at every location Duke seems to stop at. His time in the apartment is recorded by a PI following his girlfriend. The feds bugging his mafia contacts. Most of his criminal gang are being watched by the cops. All this recording creates a load of trees which block the view of the forest. Not one of these agencies thinks about joining up their thinking, meaning the actual robbery comes as a complete surprise to all of them. It’s a neat satirical mark on the incompetence of administrative led organisations – when the robbery is finally being reported by a ham radio operator, the news almost doesn’t get through because of a refusal by the 911 operator to transfer a call without an agreement on who will pay the charges for the call.

In all this surveillance Duke is like a romantic hangover from a by-gone time. As played by Sean Connery he’s a romantic figure, like some sort of working-class Raffles, living by the principles of a gentleman thief. He abhors violence, gets on well with all races and creeds, respects his victims and protects them (so long as they don’t get in his way) and runs operations designed to be clean, quick and painless. He justifies his thievery with talk of how most of the property he nicks is just sitting pointlessly in safes, that the insurance will pay out and that in a way he’s giving a bit of excitement to bored middle-class people. Connery is rather good in this role, channelling this rogueishness and expertly maintaining Lumet’s light tone.

Lumet’s direction is competent, professional and assured. Lumet did not hold the film in high regard – it was one he did “for the money” – but he expertly constructs the film, keeps it tight and brings more than enough intriguing directorial flourishes to it. The action frequently pauses in the criminals conversation for a jump cut to the feds listening to the recordings, having paused the recordings themselves (the paused action even uses voiceover from the feds asking for confirmation of who they are listening to). Later, Lumet uses a similar device in the robbery interjecting flash forwards to the people in the apartment bloc being interviewed on site by the police, commenting on events we have often just seen while the aftermath plays out behind them, that throws in plenty of narrative curve balls and misdirects as the action pans out.

The film is dated in places. Quincy Jones’ score often uses a jarring series of electronic beeps that are meant to echo the surveillance of the piece, but actually sounds impossibly dated and jarring. An opening monologue of Connery on the thrill of safe cracking uncomfortably sounds like he is comparing it to non-consensual sex, Martin Balsam’s gang member is an impossibly limp-wristed antiques expert (although he is immediately believable as someone who wouldn’t be questioned surveying apartments for architectural improvements while he is actually casing the joint). There are other moments – but the film gets by because it never leans too hard on any of these attitudes. Indeed the apartment concierge, is depicted as inflatteringly racist and homophobic, in stark contrast to the multi-ethnic, un-prejudiced gang carrying out the robbery.

The Anderson Tapes is an enjoyable, is very 1970s, piece of work that has more than enough to entertain you. It has a clever structure and makes some sound points on surveillance which probably make it more relevant today than it even was then. Connery is very good in the lead role and there is some excellent support (Christopher Walken is strikingly charismatic in one of his first roles). It’s not in the first rank of its director’s films, but it’s still a very fine caper thriller.

The Deer Hunter (1978)

Robert De Niro goes into a journey into the dark heart of America’s Vietnam experience in The Deer Hunter

Director: Michel Cimino

Cast: Robert De Niro (Mike Vronsky), Christopher Walken (Nick Chevotarevich), John Savage (Steven Pushkov), John Cazale (Stan), Meryl Streep (Linda), George Dzundza (John Welsh), Pierre Sagui (Julian Grinda), Shirley Stoler (Steven’s mother), Chuck Aspregren (Peter Axelrod)

The Deer Hunter is a mighty 1970s milestone of American cinema. Michael Cimino’s Vietnam story is a big poetic epic – its plot is slim but it’s all about the atmosphere, and Cimino’s understanding of the impact that the trauma of war has on different types of men. For vast stretches of the film nothing much in particular happens, followed by short, sharp bursts of gut-wrenching tension – but these have such impact because we have taken the time to see these men’s ordinary lives.

Mike Vronsky (Robert De Niro), Nick Chevotarevich (Christopher Walken) and Steve Pushkov (John Savage) are three Polish-American friends working in a Pittsburgh steel yard, who have volunteered to serve in Vietnam. Before they ship out, they celebrate Steve’s wedding, in a traditional Polish ceremony, and go for one last deer hunt in the woods together – where Mike outlines his philosophy of “one clean shot” (or “This is This”) and the near sacred experience of man communing with nature and hunting. In Vietnam, the three friends are captured by the Viet Cong and forced to take part in a chilling competition of Russian roulette. The impact of these experiences changes their lives – and not for the better – as they struggle to adjust as the war comes to an end.

Michael Cimino was seen at the time as the next great director. This reputation lasted little more than two years, when the box office disaster of his next film Heaven’s Gate (with its tales of ludicrous excess and Cimino’s overly demanding perfectionism) led to the destruction of a studio and effectively ended his career. To be honest, the roots of all this are there in The Deer Hunter. Cimino fought tooth and nail to prevent anything in the film being cut – and he lucked out that he had a few supportive producers and a picture powered by great performances and capturing something of the spirit of the age. Because just this once, more was indeed more.

In some ways The Deer Hunter is an over-indulgent mess. It’s very long, its plot is very slight, it’s very pleased with itself, the camera dawdles for ages through first the friends preparing for a wedding, the wedding itself and then a long hunting trip. This takes up a solid opening hour and 15 minutes of this long film – and progresses the plot forward very little other than establishing the characters and their relationships. But somehow, despite this, the film is magnetic during this. I’m almost not quite sure why, because nothing really happens at great length, but there is a sort of poetic majesty about these sequences that just makes them work.

It’s also a perfect entrée into our characters. After basically sitting and watching them for over an hour do little more than live their everyday lives, we really feel like we understand them. We know Mike is distant, controlled, slightly repressed but prone to moments of exhibitionist wildness that suggest primal, raging emotions beneath the surface. We also understand, with his famous “this is this” speech (“what the fuck does that mean?” his frustrated friend-cum-adversary Stan blurts out), that he is reaching for some sort of symbolic, expressionist understanding of man’s place in the world. He wants to be a poet but doesn’t have the abilities of expression to achieve that.

Similarly, we see Nick as a more carefree, open spirit, someone more in touch with expressing himself and more ready to seize life by the horns. He’s also got a gentle, conciliatory quality to him – out of all the characters, he fits most naturally into the role of confidante. Steven is a child, just trying to do his best in the world, but too naïve for the grown-up world. Most crucially we also see how they interact with each other, and how they relate to women.

Most women in the film are clearly of very little importance to the characters. Wives and girlfriends are very much on the outskirts of the macho world of the steelyard. And they are of similarly little concern to the men when they come home. Meryl Streep – excellent in an almost nothing part, really it’s amazing how slimly this role is written – plays a woman torn between feelings for Mike and Nick, but the men’s feelings for her waver between uncertainty, indifference and confused affection. Barely any other woman gets a look in, certainly not Steve’s wife who is treated with open suspicion as some sort of floozy.

All this thematic manly matiness then explodes in the later acts of the film, as the after-impact of war – and PTSD, although the word is never used – hits our characters square in the face. And there are few things that will hit you as square on as a bullet. Cimino of course faced waves of criticism about his inclusion of the grisly gambit (no evidence that it was used by the Viet Cong) – but as a metaphor for going to war, and the trauma it will do to your mind, there are few things better than a “sport” which involves placing a gun to your head and pulling the trigger.

These scenes are already tension-inducing to watch (you can’t help but put yourself in the shoes of the men putting that gun to their heads and wondering if they’ll hear a click or nothing ever again) but Cimino ramps up the pressure here, helped by truly powerhouse performances by De Niro, Walken and Savage. The unbelievable intensity of these scenes, and the total gear shift from everything you’ve seen up to this point in the movie, is a justification of Cimino’s slow pace earlier. After a luxurious opening sequence where we’ve watched the guys fool around, dance, sing and play pool, to suddenly be thrown into this grim, despairing, terrifying situation works brilliantly.

No wonder the rest of the film feels as much in shock as the characters do. Walken is exceptional (and Oscar-winning) as the sensitive soul whose spirit and will to live are destroyed by the incident, who no longer sees any point going home and barely even (by the end) seems to remember who or what he was. Cimino even makes the film feel colder, drabber and chillier in the third act back in Pittsburgh, following Mike’s return home – and his utter inability to deal with his experiences or communicate the horrors of what he has gone through to his friends.

This is also where the film gains immeasurably from a truly sublime performance from De Niro as Mike. In any other actor’s career, this performance would be the stand-out, so it says a lot for De Niro that it’s so often overlooked. But he underplays to devastating effect, as an inarticulate, slightly shy man who has a sheen of confidence, who will do what it needs to survive, who has a poetry and power of love in him that he can’t really express or understand. De Niro is truly brilliant in this film, a still centre that bears almost the total weight of Cimino’s thematic intentions. Essentially De Niro kinda plays an everyman Vietnam vet, and the burden of a whole country after the war without ever having the release of fireworks. He’s excellent.

But then the whole film is a little bit excellent. The Deer Hunter is a masterpiece of a sort, a compelling, dark, tragic and unsettling piece of poetic movie-making. Saying that, there’s something uncomfortable in its depiction of its non-American characters – to a man they are all violence loving degenerates – but then in a film that focuses on the unsettling experience of these Hicksville Americans in a land they don’t understand and can’t deal with, this is at least justifiable in a sense. The Deer Hunter’s main problem at points is that it is a rather pompous, pleased with itself film, but it’s not so much the story that is so strong here but the telling – and Cimino’s telling is first class.

Annie Hall (1977)

Diane Keaton and Woody Allen on the quest for love and romance. How much of this is autobiographical eh?

Director: Woody Allen

Cast: Woody Allen (Alvy Singer), Diane Keaton (Annie Hall), Tony Roberts (Rob), Carol Kane (Allison Portchnik), Paul Simon (Tony Lacey), Janet Margolin (Robin), Shelley Duvall (Pam), Christopher Walken (Duane Hall), Colleen Dewhurst (Mrs. Hall), Donald Symington (Mr. Hall)

Why is love so damned difficult? And, as it is, why do we keep setting ourselves up for a fall with it? Why are we all such relationship addicts? These are questions that Woody Allen tackles in Annie Hall, the film that elevated him from comedian to Oscar-winning cinematic super scribe (he won three Oscars for the film – Picture, Director and Writer). Does it deserve its reputation? You betcha.

Alvy Singer (Woody Allen) is a neurotic New York comedian (is it any wonder he was seen as synonymous with Allen himself?), twice divorced and incapable of maintaining a relationship. He meets Annie Hall (Diane Keaton, Allen’s ex-girlfriend playing Allen’s character’s eventual ex-girlfriend, using Keaton’s real name as a character name – confused?) over a game of mixed doubles tennis, and their immediate chemistry and shared sense of humour leads to a romantic relationship. Their only problem? Their innate neurotic self-analysis that stands forever in the way of maintaining a relationship.

Annie Hall is a deliriously funny film – I actually think it might be one of the funniest I have ever seen – with an astounding gag-per-minute hit rate. Allen uses multiple techniques to deliver gags: commentary, voiceover, celebrity cameos, an animated interlude, “what they are really saying” subtitles, flashback, direct to camera address – and the blistering parade of delivery styles never seems jarring, but ties together perfectly. Large chunks of the film are inspired high-wire dances where a punch-line is a few beats away, and the film never settles into a style or becomes predictable. So many of the jokes have become so familiar due to their excellence that it’s almost a shock to see them minted freshly here – and the fact they all land so effectively is a tribute to the performers.

In many ways, Annie Hall is a series of sketches loosely tied together with an overarching plot line. In fact Alvy’s constant commentary on events (a brilliant playing with conventional cinematic storytelling form), add to the feeling this is in some ways an illustrated stand-up routine by a gifted self-deprecating comedian. The material seems so synonymous with Allen’s personae (and the characters of Alvy and Annie so close to what we know about the actors who play them) it’s very easy to see the whole film as auto-biographical. Not that there’s anything wrong with that – particularly as the hit rate of the gags here is so phenomenally high.

But what makes this film such a classic is that it is more than a collection of excellent jokes. Allen is also telling a story about romance – or rather or need for romantic connection, and how easily we can sabotage or undermine this through our own mistakes, errors and (above all) neuroses. Alvy Singer is almost chronically incapable of embracing happiness and contentment, with every good thing merely an interlude between crises. Annie is the most promising opportunity he has had for long-term contentment – and still his neurotic self analysis gets in the way. As such the film is about the quest for love – and the title Annie Hall(not the character) is a metaphor for this – to Alvy Annie Hall represents the perfect relationship, something he (and indeed she as well) will never accomplish.

The film perfectly captures the dance of first meeting – the shy, stumbling early conversations of people who are attracted to each other but are both trying too hard (the subtitles here are a brilliantly funny choice – we’ve all thought to ourselves “what am I saying?” in that situation!). There is a wonderfully playful scene where Alvy panics over the cooking of lobsters – clearly playing up for Annie’s delighted engagement in it, as she photographs his distress. These photos appear in the background, framed on their wall, as their relationship breaks up relatively amicably later. At another point, Alvy attempts to recreate the same moment (same location, lobsters again) with a new girlfriend – only to be met with unamused, annoyed confusion. It’s a perfect little vignette that captures the magic of chemistry – and the difficulty of finding it or holding onto it.

Because what is striking is that Allen allows the relationship to break apart surprisingly early. Roger Ebert has written about Annie almost “creeping into” the film – and this is true. She is only briefly seen in the first 25 minutes (the first third of the film almost!) as the focus is on Alvy’s discussion of his background and childhood, and his past romantic failings and sense of disconnection from people. Then very swiftly after its establishment, the relationship is past its prime, with both parties finding it hard to keep the interest going. The second half of the film follows them amicably drifting apart – meaning this is probably the most romantic film about a long break-up ever made.

The film has a beautiful little wistful coda of Alvy and Annie meeting outside a cinema, each with new partners. In long shot we see them engage in an animated and engaged conversation while their new partners look on, nervously smiling. The magic link between them hasn’t faded away, and their importance to each other, and natural chemistry, hasn’t changed – but, the film seems to be saying, their natures work against them. It’s one of several touching moments in the film that demonstrate the heart that underpins the jokes. After their first break up, Annie calls Alvy round to get rid of a spider in the bath. He does so with comic incompetence, then in a still medium shot he comes to Annie in the corner of the frame sitting on the bed. They reconcile and then embrace tenderly – it’s a beautiful, moving, gag-free moment, all the more effective as its reality is contrasted with the humour throughout the rest of the film.

The film is a full of tender and real moments like these in between the jokes: it’s a nearly perfect balance between them. The parts are perfectly written for the actors: Allen is so brilliantly good here as Alvy that the character has essentially become the public persona of Allen (and allegedly his desire to never make a sequel was linked to his unease with the association between Alvy and himself). Diane Keaton (her real surname being Hall and her nickname Annie) also had this part perceived as a loose self portrait (her past relationship with Allen not helping). Truth told, it’s a very simple part and Keaton actually has to do very little in the picture beyond react (the focus is so strongly on Alvy) and deliver the role with charm – but she captures the sense of an era shift, a woman stuck between transitioning from the hedonistic 60s to the ambitious 80s, an ambitious free-spirit. The Oscar for the role was generous, but not undeserved.

For all the film’s emotional understanding and complexity, it’s the jokes though that you will remember, and they are glorious: Alvy’s schoolfriends telling us what they are doing now as adults; Alvy’s description of masturbation; the accident at the cocaine party; Christopher Walken’s monologue on driving; the puncturing of the pretention of a loud-mouth know-it-all in a cinema queue – it’s a blistering array of comic genius and it will have you coming back for more and more. It’s Allen’s most garlanded movie and it’s certainly the best balance he ever made between “the early funny ones” and his “later serious ones”. It’s simply shot, but told with heart, feeling and emotional intelligence and with dynamic, comic wit – it’s one of Allen’s greatest movies.

Catch Me if You Can (2002)

Leonardo DiCaprio lives out his fantasies in Catch Me if You Can

Director: Steven Spielberg

Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio (Frank Abagnale Jnr), Tom Hanks (Agent Carl Hanratty), Christopher Walken (Frank Abagnale), Nathalie Baye (Paula Abagnale), Amy Adams (Brenda Strong), Martin Sheen (Roger Strong), James Brolin (Jack Barnes), Nancy Lenehan (Carol Strong)

Conmen. You wouldn’t want to meet one but they don’t half make for great stories: largely because tell a great one. Watching cons has the same tension as watching a high-wire artist: will they slip? We all like to think we could fool people if we wanted to – and the movies give us a chance to watch someone else live those fantasies for us.

Frank Abagnale Jnr (Leonardo DiCaprio) was a teenager who was a natural at the arts of the short and long con, as well as an accomplished forger. The film tells the story of his late teens and early twenties when, as well as impersonating a senior paediatrician and a junior district attorney, Abagnale stole almost $3 million from Pan Am by impersonating a pilot and forging checks between 1963 and 1969. Hanks plays Carl Hanratty, the dedicated FBI investigator on the case.

What’s great about this film is that, by and large, it isn’t trying to be a lot more than an entertainment. In fact, Spielberg deliberately shoots the film in a low key, unflashy style that puts the focus on the story and acting. And there is something hugely entertaining about the chutzpah of conmen, particularly those who are only fleecing huge businesses, which this film really understands and taps into. It’s probably Spielberg’s funniest “comedy”.

It’s witty throughout with a sly sense of humour. In his roles as both doctor and lawyer, Abagnale is shown carrying out research by watching TV shows and reading pulp novels – and then repeating their clichés, to the bemusement of those around him (but he delivers it with such confidence it still works). I also enjoyed the fact that his chosen careers (air pilot, doctor, lawyer) are all approached with the same naive understanding a kid would have for what the job involves (and DiCaprio’s look of childish terror slipping past his adult facade watching a plane take off from the cockpit and when asked for his opinion on the treatment of an injured child at a hospital are endearingly genuine). The film is told with a great deal of bounce and lightness, taking on the structure of a Wil-E Coyote/Roadrunner chase cartoon, with Hanratty defeated several times by Abagnale’s confident sleight of hand.

The script does have depth to it, rooting Abagnale’s actions in his trauma from a broken family and witnessing his father’s humiliating fall into poverty after charges of tax evasion. The film suggests this to be the main motive for Abagnale’s actions – a misguided attempt to redeem his father and take back what was taken from him. This theme of a son trying to win his father’s respect gives the film a heft that balances the fluff – especially as it’s clear the son has taken many of the wrong lessons from his father’s life on the edges of legality. It’s helped in this respect by a wonderful performance of twinkly charm and fatherly pride by Christopher Walken, combined with a sly sense of roguishness.

Leonardo DiCaprio is the motor that really makes this film work. His boyish good looks are perfect for this and he has both the confidence to convince as a trickster and the vulnerability to be the young boy underneath. As such he has the lightness of touch that the story needs and the acting chops to convey the inner pain Abagnale is working so hard to soothe. He’s also effortlessly charming and endearing here, surely the perfect traits of a con man.

For the rest of the cast, Tom Hanks very generously plays second banana as the investigator and gives the role a strong sense of the surrogate father. Amy Adams in one of her first roles is wonderfully sweet as Abagnale’s fiancée, totally unaware that he is a 17 year old kid. Martin Sheen and Natalie Baye also give good performances.

The film is a light and frothy confection that shades in just the right amount of nuance and depth to make us care for its lead character. With John Williams’ zippy score and its luscious recreation of the late 1960s, it’s also a film in love with the vibrancy of the era. A terrific unpretentious entertainment, it’s not one of its director’s great works, but it might be one of his most joyful.

Eddie the Eagle (2016)

Some more comic escapades in the not-really-true-at-all film of Eddie the Eagle’s life

Director: Dexter Fletcher

Cast: Taron Egerton (‘Eddie’ Edwards), Hugh Jackman (Bronson Peary), Iris Berben (Petra), Keith Allen (Terry Edwards), Jo Hartley (Janette Edwards), Tim McInnerny (Dustin Target), Mark Benton (Richmond), Jim Broadbent (BBC Commentator), Christopher Walken (Warren Sharp), Rune Temte (Bjørn), Edvin Endre (Matti Nykänen)

Watching Eddie the Eagle, it’s interesting to think that Edwards was ahead of his time. An unqualified ski jumper with a certain natural talent and a lot of dedication, his unspun, naïve enthusiasm effectively made him a perfect YouTube sensation, 15 years before that term existed. His joyous reactions and “just pleased to be here” manner while coming last in two ski-jumping competitions at the Olympics meant the public couldn’t get enough of him (then or now it seems) and he’s probably about the only thing anyone can really remember about the 1988 Winter Olympics.

I found my heart completely unwarmed by this lamely predictable film, a virtual remake of Cool Runnings and Rocky, which can barely move from scene to scene without tripping over clichés. In other sports films, the snobbery against the underdog feels unjust because we know they deserve to be there. Edwards doesn’t deserve to be there, and doesn’t prove himself anything other than a brave novelty act. Perverse as it sounds, the one area where the film deviates from its predictable formula is the part that makes everything else not really work.

It’s not a particularly funny film. That may be partly because every single comic beat in it is taken from somewhere else, but joke after joke falls flat. Scenes meander towards limp conclusions that can be seen coming a mile off. Every single character is either a cliché, mildly annoying or both. Jackman strolls through the film barely trying. Taron Egerton plays Eddie as virtually a man child, a naïve mummy’s boy, an innocent in the world of men, curiously sexless, but a cheery enthusiast with a never-say-never attitude. However, I often found him less endearing and more mildly irritating.

Virtually nothing in the film is actually true. This doesn’t necessarily matter, but I felt it made the film slightly dishonest. It leaves us with the impression Edwards was set to go on to success in his career – he wasn’t. It doesn’t mention the Olympic committee changed the rules to prevent amateurs taking part in this highly dangerous sport at this level. It doesn’t even begin to mention that almost the entire cast are invented supporting characters, or that many of the real characters (such as Edwards’ father) have had their personalities totally reimagined.

It also reshuffles the truth to make Edwards seem far more incompetent and unlikely than he actually was. In reality an accomplished amateur athlete and skier who just missed the Olympic team, he’s here reinvented as a barely proficient, uncoordinated klutz, a buffoon on skis. Egerton’s otherworldly naivety (at times his childish outlook on the world borders on the mentally deficient) is to be honest rather grating. By hammering up his ineptitude, it’s hard to really think that he should be clinging to these dreams that he’s not suited to perform.

Channel 4 run a TV reality ski-jump show called The Jump. Several celebrities who have taken part in it have suffered serious injuries. With that in mind, is it really wrong to wonder if a sport isn’t right in saying “the unqualified and the amateur shouldn’t be attempting this”? Yes the Olympics is partly about competing in the right manner – but shouldn’t that mean also protecting people from themselves?

The one slightly brave move the film makes is to briefly toy with the idea that Edwards is fundamentally misguided. Before the Olympics begins, his trainer pleads with him to continue his training, wait four years and qualify as a proper athlete rather than a novelty, to have a future of several Olympics rather than cheating into one. Edwards (and the film) ignores him, but I found I was thinking “you know what, he’s right”. The film never manages to remove from Edwards the whiff of the joke act.

I’ve been incredibly hard on this film – it’s not like it’s trying to do anything serious or meaningful. It just wants to tell a nice story about a nice guy. It prides itself on being a bland formulaic piece of film making. But I didn’t find it moving or heartwarming and I didn’t warm to Edwards. I admire his determination, but he’s like those deluded singers chasing their dream on X Factor. The characterisation of Edwards makes him hard to relate to and his final “success” doesn’t mean anything as the film never escapes the feeling that he is being laughed at rather than with. Add the fundamental dishonesty of the film and I found it really unsatisfying.

Give it a miss. Watch Cool Runnings instead. That’s full of invention too of course, but the invention is truer to the facts and the spirit of the truth, and the film itself is far funnier and more satisfying than this one.

Sleepy Hollow (1999)

Rumours that Johnny Depp is tapping into his eccentric style are of course unfounded

Director: Tim Burton

Cast: Johnny Depp (Ichabod Crane), Christina Ricci (Katrina Van Tassel), Michael Gambon (Baltus Van Tassel), Miranda Richardson (Lady Van Tassel), Casper Van Dien (Brom Van Brunt), Jeffrey Jones (Reverend Steenwyck), Richard Griffiths (Magistrate Philipse), Ian McDiarmid (Dr. Thomas Lancaster), Michael Gough (Notary Hardenbrook), Christopher Lee (Burgomaster), Christopher Walken (The Headless Horseman), Claire Skinner (Beth Killian)

Tim Burton’s films often take on a larger-than-life quality, an overblown fanciful journey into a world that is a few degrees off from our own. So a bizarre ghost story about a headless horseman lopping off bonces left, right and centre, in an isolated town that feels more like a construct from a series of other films than any sort of real place, probably suits him perfectly.

After a series of murders via decapitation in the small town of Sleepy Hollow, Iachobad Crane (Johnny Depp) is called from New York to investigate. An eccentric (what else, it’s Depp) moderniser, Crane believes in logic and forensic investigation and is having none of the fears of the townspeople that the murders are being committed by a headless ghost. However he soon changes his views…

This adaptation bears little or no resemblance whatsoever to the original source material, bar a few homages, one or two brief scenes and a few character names. Burton, indeed, seems to have no interest in it at all: what he is interested in doing is paying homage to high-blown Hammer horror films from the 60s and 70s. Whether you enjoy this largely depends on whether you were a fan of either Burton or this style of film-making going into it.

I found the film rather too arch throughout – from the stylised performances of the actors, through to the slight tongue-in-cheek tone. It’s not particularly scary at any point, despite the blood and gore – largely because nothing ever feels real, there’s no sense of dread or peril. Heads are lopped off with an almost comic athleticism, bouncing around floors or rotating on necks. Only one sequence – the murder of a family – carries any real sense of unease about it. The rest of the film is one not-particularly-witty black comedy, in which a lot of time and talent seems to be invested in something not particularly interesting.

Depp is of course perfectly suited to this, his “look at me” acting style springing to the fore as Crane. As usual he overloads the character with quirks and mannerisms, the sort of tricksy emptiness it’s easy to mistake for great acting. The rest of the cast go about their business with a trained professionalism. However, despite the array of British acting talent on display, in truth none of them make much of an impression, with the exception of a nice cameo from Alun Armstrong as a senior New York policeman, and Miranda Richardson who has fun with her role as a sinister housewife with hidden depths.

The awards attention for the film focused on its finest aspects – its look and design. The production design of the film is impressively constructed and the artificial look of the exterior sets actually fits in very nicely within the world of the film. Emmanuel Lubezki’s photography also looks fantastic, shooting the film with a slightly off colour, 70s style that adds a vibrant red to the large amount of blood on screen. Costumes and other technical aspects are also impressive. The film looks fantastically striking, like a brilliantly designed coffee table book – and has about as much plot as one. It’s my problem with Tim Burton – this whole “unique vision” of his, often seems to be an excuse for littering his films with in jokes, arch design and stylisation and leaving out the things we actually care about, like characters, emotion and drama.

In the end, it’s really not a lot more than a joke, a pastiche of a certain genre of film that seems much more like one for the fans than a joke that we can all take part in. I’m aware not liking it throws me open to accusations of not “getting it” or expecting more from it, but I basically didn’t really find the joke funny enough. Its arch style make it hard to relate to, and despite the clear enjoyment of all involved, not a lot of the wit behind the scenes is clear in the final product. With nothing to really invest in, a rather sudden ending and a mood throughout that is trying to be creepy rather than genuinely so. Don’t expect a retelling of its plot around a camp fire to awaken too many goosebumps.