Lawless – Film Review

Lawless is the story of a gang of bootleggers in prohibition-era Virginia whose booming business in bootleg moonshine is threatened by the arrival of a new deputy in town. I honestly wish there were a little more to the plot than that but sadly this is what we have to work with. Any subplots are so underdeveloped I don’t want to raise your expectations around them.

“Based on a True Story” is normally a signal that a real life event has been taken and distorted beyond recognition in order to turn it into thrilling cinematic fare. It would seem that this step was skipped as Nick Cave wrote the screenplay for Lawless as while the film may well be accurate it turns a story of drink, corruption, gangs, romance, and violence into a painfully dull two-hour slog.

Shia LaBeouf takes the lead as Jack Bondurant, the young enterprising member of the bootlegging gang and our narrator. LaBeouf is at his least irritating in this role but still isn’t particularly convincing as anything but the affable fool. Tom Hardy is good as ever as his brother Forrest Bondurant and provides a few laughs with his performance as a big strong man who gets flustered around women. Sadly Hardy is given little to do beyond grunt and wander round in a large cardigan from H&M. Saying that compared to the way Jessica Chastain is treated Hardy should be grateful for the character development he gets.

As Maggie Beauford, employee to the Bondurants and love interest to Hardy Chastain arrives without explanation, is given a token nugget of back story, and then after getting her kit off is relegated to little more than set dressing. Gary Oldman is treated just as badly as charasmatic mob boss Floyd Banner we barely see and who is quickly dropped from the film once he has served his purpose. Mia Wasikowska suffers similarly, providing Shia with an uninteresting and inconsequential love interest but having no real story or personality of her own.

Guy Pearce is given a bit more of a role as the evil deputy Rakes but is for some reason playing him as a panto villain. I half expected him to arrive in every scene preceded by a crack and a puff of smoke hiding his face behind a cheap cloak as the audience boo and hiss. And the hair! Pearce has had his hair combed into such a severe and unattractive parting he can’t be anything but the bad guy.

Even with a pantomime villain I struggled to get behind the gang as while they were pitched as loveable rogues the gang were quite happy to remove a man’s testicles in the name of revenge when the time came. Everything about this film is on one level; there is no depth or meaning to be found. The brothers are bootleggers who experience some trouble and little else happens. All secondary characters are seen only when they directly affect the brothers which would be fine but for the fact that the brothers are unsympathetic and at worst boring. I would have been happy to sacrifice a few scenes of LaBeouf pratting about or Hardy’s non-relationship with Chastain in favour of getting to spend more time with Gary Oldman.

With an anticlimactic climax and a strangely wholesome epilogue Lawless lumbers off the screen with as little fanfare as it arrived. In the film as a whole there is no one to root for and a plot so basic it is impossible to become fully engrossed in. I found myself completed bored throughout and frustrated at the wasted acting talent on display. Too many interested threads are left unexplored and characters underdeveloped. Lawless is not a film we will be talking about in ten years time.

Lawless is in UK cinemas on 7th September 2012

Prometheus – Film Review

With Ridley Scott back in the Captain’s seat and Sigourney Weaver looking a lot like Noomi Rapace, fans can finally sink their rabid teeth into what may be the truest prequel/sequel/sidequel in the Alien franchise to date. Of course though, as my Uncle Ben once told me*: with great expectation comes great disappointment.

For those of you that never caught any of the eight hundred spoilerific trailers and posters, Prometheus sends a misfit group of scientists to a distant solar system on the dime of a God-complexed Guy Pearce to discover the origins of both the Alien franchise and the human race. Of course, this being a film in the Alien canon, events take an awry turn and things get pretty tense and icky for the naive explorers.

The disappointing thing about Prometheus was its marketing (as alluring as it was). Prometheus is by no means a perfect film to begin with but the trailers and posters gave away almost every major plot point and impressive reveal there was to be seen. Your experience of the film is then tarnished by nagging thoughts such as: “I’ve already seen all of this, why do I have to pay to watch the trailer last over two hours?!” and “Grrrrr.” If I’ve not explained that very well, imagine how you might have felt if Star Wars Episode V’s trailer revealed the pivotal Vader/Luke “No, I am your father” moment**. That is essentially what happened with Prometheus and its alluded to Alien mythos.

As dissatisfied as the words above come off as, once you get over the fact that the entire film had been spoiled by the film studio itself, Prometheus is an enjoyable – if at times oddly paced and occasionally confusing – film.

It doesn’t really answer or deliver on what it sets out to do in plot or idea as a prequel, but – as co-writer Damon Lindelof would often say to calm Lost fanatics – the journey itself is the exciting part. For every vague and unanswered question there are numerous phallic, gooey creatures that creep you out. For every unforgivable bit of prosthetic on Guy Pearce’s head there are countless enchanting landscapes and stunning set-pieces to gape at. For every moment you miss Ellen Ripley and Xenomorphs, Noomi Rapace’s Elizabeth Shaw is there to kick the arse of both of their memories with an extremely cool performance (even if she and the rest of the characters are, on the whole, a little two dimensional). And finally, I would be remiss to not mention just how subtly amazing Michael Fassbender’s token android David is.

I am itching to detail more of the film’s particularly great moments (of which there are some corkers), but to even allude to them may spoil the little left that is unknown.

The amount of flack that Prometheus is taking is understandable. It is hardly the most stunning or exciting film of 2012 but as far as Ridley Scott films go – and I write this as someone who doesn’t place much stock in Blade Runner – this is one of his best, and it easily equals Alien in style, character and idea development. It isn’t the easiest film to love but please, just hold back on angrily throwing face huggers at Scott et al until you’ve had a good and lengthy cryostasis sleep to think about the film properly. You might find that actually, you kind of liked it too.

*This might not have been what he really said … or even been my Uncle.

**If I’ve just ruined that then I really have no words for you except for how old are you?!

Felicity Jones and the Wise Move

Earlier this year Felicity Jones made a very rash decision for a young actress on the rise; she left a big budget film in which she was the lead to honour her commitment to a play in an off-West End theatre. In July of 2011 Felicity Jones starred in the Donmar Warehouse production of Luise Miller and abandoned the role of Snow White in Mirror, Mirror. Surely this was a huge mistake?

Before we decide, why not take a peak at the new trailer for Mirror, Mirror:

So while Jones gained acclaim for her role in Luise Miller and buzz built over her role in Like Crazy, Lily Collins has taken over the role of Snow White in a film with a much derided trailer which pales in comparison to its rival Snow White and the Huntsman. In all honesty I can’t even bring myself to watch the entire trailer for Mirror, Mirror, but I doubt the final 30 seconds showcase any better footage than the rest.

Since making the best career choice of her acting life Jones has filmed a second film with Like Crazy director Drake Doremus opposite Guy Pearce and signed on to Warren Beatty’s Howard Hughes biopic. I will never question her decisions again.

If you fancy seeing what Felicity Jones would look like in the Snow White role, hover your mouse over the image at the top of this post (please do, it took me hours to do).

Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark – Review

In Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark young Sally (Bailee Madison) moves in with her father (Guy Pearce) and his new girlfriend (Katie Holmes) into the old mansion they are renovating. Excited by the presence of a child the things that go bump in the basement start to stir.

Here we have a horror film not relying on excessive gore, violence or loud noises for its scares, though these elements can still be found. Don’t be Afraid of the Dark instead played on my worst fear, that there’s something lurking in the dark that I can’t see. As a result there were moments of genuinely terror, proven by the fact that I spent most of the film with my coat up to my neck for protection. Worth noting though that I am a wimp when it comes to horror films, which is precisely why I enjoy them so much.

Being “presented” by Guillermo del Toro does not result in the visual feast of originality we’ve come to expect through films like Pan’s Labyrinth or even The Orphanage. Instead Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark falls into the familiar formula as Sally is repeatedly ignored by her parents despite increasing evidence that she may be telling the truth. The fact that Guy Pearce continues to deny any spooky goings on after a worker comes out of the basement with more than five objects sticking out of his neck, claiming to have had an accident, is plain stupid.

Bailee Madison is fantastic as the young girl at the centre of the trouble but sadly Guy Pearce and Katie Holmes gave much more wooden performances. Pearce has done so many better roles recently you can tell he’s not really trying and Holmes is probably just out of practise.

Good for an occasional scare but it won’t change the way you think about horror. I’ll admit to feeling a bit jumpy after the screening, but then you should see me watch [Rec], that’s a whole different league of terror.

 

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Animal Kingdom – DVD Review

Film
It’s always hard to review a film with so much critical acclaim already. I can’t even take the easy road and completely disagree with the consensus as Animal Kingdom is an undeniably good film. A portrait of an Australian crime family told through the eyes of a formerly estranged teenage relative, Animal Kingdom is far from ground-breaking but always a film of high quality.

David Michôd is clearly a talented writer and as a director he focusses more on bringing out superb performances from his cast than flashy camera moves. Major kudos go to newcomer James Frecheville as the teenager in question, Guy Pearce as the police officer who tries to set him straight and of course Jacki Weaver as the family’s matriarch. Having highlighted those three it is important to note that there isn’t a bad performance in the film, everyone is on top form.

The King’s Speech – Review

It’s the new biggest surprise of the festival. The King’s Speech is at first sight another stuffy period piece looking at a period of English history while in reality it is a touching and, most importantly, fun film with some soon to be award winning performances.

When did Colin Firth become so good? Firth, Helena Bonham Carter and Geoffrey Rush are all great in their roles, bringing a bit of humanity to historical figures. Timothy Spall, Guy Pearce and Michael Gambon aren’t too shabby either, and Ramona Marquez from Outnumbered pops up as a young Princess Margaret.

At the press conference following the screening director Tom Hooper described the historical story of abdication and war as the “A plot” and the relationship between Firth and Rush as the Duke/King underwent speech therapy as the “B plot” but I disagree. What sold the film was their sessions together and the fun the two actors had with it. I’ve never heard people laugh so hard at a period piece before.

That’s it really, the film is very good and more fun than you’d expect.

Here are some photos from the press conference which you can watch here:

The King’s Speech is on general release on 7th January 2010.