Tag: John Leguizamo

The Menu (2022)

Dark satire is mixed with intelligent character work and a challenge to our assumptions in this intriguing film

Director: Mark Mylod

Cast: Ralph Fiennes (Julian Slowik), Anya Taylor-Joy (Margot Mills), Nicholas Hoult (Tyler Ledford), Hong Chau (Elsa), Janet McTeer (Lilian Bloom), John Leguizamo (Famous Actor), Reed Birney (Richard Liebbrandt), Judith Light (Anne Leibbrandt), Paul Adelstein (Ted), Aimee Carrero (Felicity), Arturo Castro (Soren), Rob Yang (Bryce), Mark St Cyr (Dave)

A dash of Succession. A soupcon of Hannibal Lector. Lashings of The Most Dangerous Game. All these ingredients are mixed to delightfully dark comic effect in The Menu, a sharp and tangy assault on class and modern society which leaves an unusual but satisfying taste in the mouth.

First those touches of The Most Dangerous Game. Julian Slowick (Ralph Fiennes) is a restauranteur so exclusive, his restaurant is based on a private island. Each course, of each menu is part of an overall story that forms the meal. For the story of the meal he is currently preparing, Slowick has selected an exclusive guest list of the rich and famous: businessmen, the rich, movie stars, food critics – the elite, the snobbish, the 1%. And the story he is serving up is one of increasingly grim retribution for this table-load of takers not givers. The only unexpected figure there is Margot (Anya Taylor-Joy), last-minute guest of obsessive food purist Tyler (Nicholas Hoult). How will this unexpected fly in the soup affect Slowick’s plans for the evening?

The Menu in many ways is a revenge satire. Slowick does not hold back in his increasing fury and bitterness at the people he serves without appreciation or gratitude in return. His customers are interested only in food if it costs a lot and is exclusive. They have no interest in his actual skills, in the staff (whose names they do not remember), the food itself or anything beyond their own desires. Many of the customers – most hideously a trio of “bro” investors (played with slapable smugness by Castro, Yang and St Cyr) – flash their jobs and cash expecting these to ensure their every whim is met. To them the world is like dough to be shaped into whatever bread they want it to be.

The film – with glee – exposes the hideous selfishness of the rich customers. A rich couple (Birney and Light) who have attended Slowick’s restaurants several times yet remember nothing about the food or the staff. Janet McTeer’s elite food critic, who practically scratches marks into her pen to mark the restaurants she has closed (she’s accompanied by a fawningly obsequious editor, played by Adelstein). A famous actor (John Leguizamo) who has long-since sold-out and treats his fans with contempt, joined by his spoilt rich-girl assistant/girlfriend (Aimee Carrero). Each of them is deconstructed in turns by Slowick over a series of courses parodying the snobbish bizarreness of high-class dining.

And here is where those touches of Succession make themselves known in the flavour. That series – and Mylod is a veteran (and its finest director) – also presents the ghastly shallowness and greed of the super-rich to expert comic effect. But what that show also does – and what Mylod brilliantly manages here – is make what could be two dimensional monsters sympathetic. The Menu presents these dreadful people with honesty; but, as the punishments – cruelly personal reveals, psychological torture, a finger cut off here, a man hunt there – pile up, you start to wonder if the punishment is too much?

The “bro” investors may be dreadful selfish, arrogant, dick-swinging morons: but they are also immature idiots who have never really grown up. The rich couple might treat places like this elite restaurant as a God-given right, but does that really deserve death? The food critic is harsh and arrogant, but is writing cruel words a mortal sin? The actor loathes himself for selling out his talent to make money and his girlfriend has simply been born into money and never wanted for anything. Do these people really deserve the monstrous ends Slowick has planned for them?

It’s the smartness of The Menu which could easily have invited us to just enjoy the rich and powerful being exposed, humiliated and punished. Instead, this is a smarter, more intelligent dish. The lower-class restaurant staff should be the people we are rooting for. But Slowick runs the restaurant like a cult, the staff near-robotic automatons that follow Slowick’s orders without question, intone their “Yes, Chef!” answers like a religious chant and snap to attention as one. Slowick’s number two Elsa – superbly played by Hong Chau – sums them up: all of them are desperate to become her boss and will follow Slowick to hell and back without a murmour and their heartless, personality free cruelty makes them very hard to root for.

As does Slowick himself. Here comes that sprinkling of Lector. Played with a superb, chilling intensity by Ralph Fiennes at his most coldly austere, Slowick could have been a character who swept us up in his intelligent superiority. But there is not a hint of joy in Slowick, only a vast, bubbling anger and resentment under a coldly precise exterior. Who on earth could look at this near-psychopath and think “I’d love to be him”? Slowick’s service is dryly, terrifyingly funny but you’d certainly not be left wanting to leave him a tip (unless it was your only way of getting out alive).

Instead, we gravitate towards the odd one-out. Anya Taylor-Joy is excellent as Margot, the unexpected guest who finds herself the only person unprepared for by Slowick, who is neither a member of the super-rich, but too free-spirited and independent minded to join the Slowick cult. Dragged along by Tyler – a hilarious performance of over-eagerness, snobbish elitism and stroppy self-entitlement by Nicholas Hoult – The Menu revolves more and more around the dance of death between her and Slowick. Like the audience, Margot is invited to pick a side to sympathise with.

It makes for a rich, lingering dish with an intriguing after taste, far more developed and better cooked than the sloppy revenge saga or re-heated leftovers it could have been. It left me wanting a second course.

Moulin Rouge! (2001)

Nicole Kidman and Ewan McGregor make a love story for the ages in Luhrmann’s electric Moulin Rouge!

Director: Baz Luhrmann

Cast: Nicole Kidman (Satine), Ewan McGregor (Christian), Jim Broadbent (Harold Zidler), Richard Roxburgh (Duke of Monroth), John Leguizamo (Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec), Jacek Koman (The Unconscious Argentinian), Caroline O’Connor (Nini), Kerry Walker (Marie), David Wenham (Audrey)

It’s 20 years old now and I still don’t think there has been anything quite like Moulin Rouge! Believe me it’s not for want of trying. Baz Luhrmann’s hugely inventive, uniquely stylistic musical is cinematic marmite: either loved or reviled (not sure I’ve ever met anyone who had a meh attitude to it). One of the pioneering inventors of the juke-box musical, Moulin Rouge! mixes pop songs with inspiration from opera to Greek myth and comes up with something Spectacular, Spectacular.

It’s the turn of the century, and Christian (Ewan McGregor) arrives in Paris looking for truth, inspiration and above all: love. Arriving at Montmartre, he and courtesan Satine (Nicole Kidman) fall in love. Satine is the star at Harold Zidler’s (Jim Broadbent) Moulin Rouge and also the star of Zidler’s planned stage show. She has been promised to his wealthy backer the Duke (Richard Roxburgh). With Christian commissioned to write the script, can he and Satine hide their love from the Duke and make sure the Show Goes On? Or will tragedy strike?

Fast paced and electric, Moulin Rouge! could inspire motion sickness, especially in its opening 15 minutes which throw us deep into its unconventional medley of styles, tones and inspirations. Did that first 15 minutes lose a lot of people? You can imagine it as the earliest scenes featuring Christian’s meeting with Toulouse-Lautrec and the other Bohemians are by far its weakest. If your irritation grows at these shrill scenes (crudely over-acted with an overbearing Keaton-ish energy), I can well imagine thousands of viewers checked out in Luhrmann’s music inspired Moulin Rouge can-can musical with its explosion of rap, Nirvana, Lady Marmalade and insanely quick cutting. It’s a statement opening – and throws you straight into its heightened reality. A tone that continues for much of the opening 40 minutes.

Luhrmann leaves nothing in the locker room here. Only a director of such exuberance, playfulness – but also deep skill and understanding of high and low culture – could have balanced it as well as he does. Go with it and you’ll love it. It’s pure operatic entertainment. Luhrmann’s master-stroke is to shoot a period musical in the style of the high-velocity music-video pop that excited people in 2001 – finally you get a sense of why the Moulin Rouge and can-can seemed so exciting and sexy back then. It’s a night-club of 1999, thrown into 1899.

But what makes the film work after that initial explosion of energy – and I’ll agree that the first 15 minutes tries too hard to grab your attention – is that Luhrmann mixes the styles up so effectively. There is everything here, from Busby Berkeley numbers to heartfelt love ballads to dreamy duets to a sexual tango to a classic theatrical set-piece, tinged with a spot of tragedy. Every musical number seems inspired by a different genre and style of musical theatre. And the use of modern pop music is fun, entertaining and mines the emotional connection we all feel for the best pop songs.

It’s an MTV pop musical, mixed with Gene Kelly, lashes of camp, cheeky humour and finally tragedy and suffering. It’s got a million cuts in it, but Luhrmann successfully makes the film darker, slower and more intimate as the film progresses. From the electric dynamism of the opening, this becomes an increasingly personal tragedy revolving around five key characters. It never loses that sense of showmanship – Zidler’s planned production is an overblown Bollywood inspired extravaganza that delights in recreating the joy and brashness of that genre – but the final hour is a more adult, foreboding movie with plenty of heart.

Moulin Rouge! is all about Luhrmann’s gadfly brilliance to discover inspiration from a host of sources, pulling it together into something brilliantly original, from the plot – which is inspired by La Boheme by way of Orpheus and Eurydice – to brilliant montage songs like the Elephant Love Song Medley, which takes snippets from nearly every popular love song you’ve ever heard. Very few films can switch so effortlessly from cheeky, end-of-the-pier humour to gut-wrenching tragedy. It’s energy effectively and brilliantly applied, and that comes from the director (who was, of course, inexplicably not among the films eight Oscar nominations).

Luhrmann also gets the actors to perform with the sort of energetic, fully-committed exuberance the film needs. The principals go at every single scene with no hesitations at all – bless them, none have any concern with appearing silly at all. McGregor reveals a sweetness and earnestness (as well as very strong singing voice) he hadn’t shown before. Kidman was an absolute revelation as a woman hiding doubt, insecurity and fear under an exterior of pure confidence. Broadbent’s comedic brilliance is matched with his dramatic flair. Roxburgh is hilarious, and also vile, as the selfish Duke. Luhrmann recognises their strength – after the first 10 minutes every scene features at least two of these performers.

Things have clearly been cut here and there. Motivations and even characterisations of some of the other members of the Moulin Rouge troupe change from scene-to-scene. Sometimes it tries too hard to be inventive. But it works so often that it hardly matters. And the remixes of the songs for performance are outstanding. The “Like a Virgin” Busby Berkely number is hilarious, the “Roxanne Tango” breath-takingly influential. “The Show Must Go On” is powerfully doom-laden and “Your Song” beautifully romantic. “Come What May” – the only original number – is an iconic ballad.

There’s not been anything quite like Moulin Rouge! – and Luhrmann has never managed to match it again since. Electric, dynamic, exciting, heartfelt, moving and above all extremely joyful, it has some brilliantly judged performances from its lead actors. There hasn’t been anything like it since – and I’m pretty sure we won’t see it’s like again.

Carlito's Way (1993)

Sean Penn and Al Pacino struggle with the impact of a life of crime in Carlito’s Way

Director: Brian de Palma

Cast: Al Pacino (Carlito Brigante), Sean Penn (David Kleinfeld), Penelope Ann Miller (Gail), John Leguizamo (Benny Blanco), Luiz Guzmán (Pachanga), Jorge Porcel (Saso), James Rebhorn (Bill Norwalk), Joseph Siravo (Vincent Taglialucci), Frank Minucci (“Tony T” Taglialucci), Adrian Pasdar (Frank Taglialucci), Viggo Mortensen (Lalin)

Every so often from the 1990s onwards, Al Pacino actually bothered to act rather than rage in an orgy of self-parody. It’s the films where he does really embrace the challenge, like Carlito’s Way, that reminds you what a damn fine actor he is. Carlito’s Way may also be a reminder of what an overtly flashy director Brian de Palma is, but it’s a fine American gangster thriller.

In 1975, Carlito Brigante (Al Pacino) is released from prison after five years on a legal technicality, exposed by his friend and lawyer Dave Kleinfeld (Sean Penn). Carlito makes a speech at his hearing, claiming he is a reformed man who wants leave his criminal past behind him – and to the shock of Kleinfeld and his colleagues in the underworld, he’s telling the truth. Carlito attempts to go straight, and to rebuild a relationship with Gail (Penelope Ann Miller), the young woman he left behind. Unfortunately, Kleinfeld is not only becoming increasingly unpredictable due to his cocaine addiction, but he is starting to blur the lines between criminal lawyer and plain criminal. His actions continually threaten to drag Carlito back into the crime industry.

Carlito’s Way is a fine semi-morality tale, a modern tragedy of a man who, every time he thinks he’s out, “they pull me back in”. And of course we know that he’s on a hiding to nothing, as the film opens with Pacino gunned down by an unknown assailant and recounting most of the film’s plot (presumably) from beyond the grave. His attempts are doomed largely because, in order to go straight quick and easy, he has to raise money the only way he knows how – working in the very same flashy nightclubs and among the career criminals that he should absolutely be avoiding.

Carlito narrates the film with a weary reluctance, carefully recounting the mistakes he made and why. It’s a device that largely manages to avoid telling us the obvious, and actually gets us closer to, and like, Carlito. It also helps that Pacino’s voice itself has a gruff poetry to it, and he adds a Shakespearean grandeur to this familiar old-school tale of the crook who wants out.

Pacino’s intensity works fantastically for the part. He largely keeps the Pacino fireworks for the moments where they carry the most impact. He and de Palma carefully sketch out a portrait of Carlito as a world-weary man, who (try as he might) can’t leave behind the code and rules that have governed his life as a criminal. He can’t escape the confines of thinking like a criminal. Most terribly, his old-school sense of honour (few actors convey dishevelled personal morality better than Pacino) is what will doom him – he can’t break the code of the streets. It’s a terrific, empathetic performance from Pacino.

Pacino also develops a sweet, loving relationship between him and Penelope Ann Miller’s Gail. In the way of these films, Gail is a stripper – she alternates between sweetly loving and overtly sexually flirtatious as the plot demands – but Miller makes her feel like a real person. She and Pacino have great chemistry (which, rumour has it, also carried over into real life) and de Palma shoots their scenes with an old-school romanticism and a steady camera, which contrasts with the disjointed sweep and Dutch angles he uses elsewhere.

Sometimes these flashy angles get on my nerves. de Palma often feels like he’s trying too hard, rather than stretching his muscles. Saying that, he’s a master of the set-piece. The film has two action set-pieces and both simmer with tension and inventiveness. One involves a bungled drugs deal in a dingy bar. The other a thrilling chase sequence in Grand Central Station, a deliciously shot mixture of great editing and daring extended single shots. Sequences like this bring memories, inevitably, of Scarface and it’s tempting to see Carlito’s Way as a spiritual sequel – as if Tony Montana had been arrested and changed his ways.

Perhaps a testament to how good Carlito’s Way is (or rather how much I enjoy it) is that I even think Sean Penn is terrific in it. Penn is one of those actors I find tryingly self-important (both professionally and personally). But his weaselly lawyer, a hair-trigger addict, nowhere near as smart and adept as he thinks he is, is marvellous. Penn’s performance is a whipper-cracker mix of slimy self-confidence and arrogant blindness, with moments of curiously underplayed vulnerability that makes it make sense why Carlito remains so loyal to him. It’s one of Penn’s best, most controlled performances, a virtuoso performance of whining weakness.

Carlito’s Way is part pulp gangster thriller, part character study humanely outlining the impossible difficulty of changing our stars. Carlito may be ready to jack in the criminal world – but he continues to live the life of the criminal while persuading himself he isn’t. The whole film has a tragic inevitability about it – and would do even without the framing device. Carlito wants out – but he wants to rush to get the investment he needs, and walking the shadow line is the only thing he knows how to do. It’s a great modern tragedy.

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 .