action comedy

Rock The Kasbah

Director: Barry Levinson (2016)

A TV singing contestant tries to win hearts and minds in this confused and incompetent comedy.

It seems to have been began as a satire on American military abroad, retooled as a feel good celebration of the rise of Afghani feminism and sold as a wacky Bill Murray adventure.

Director Levinson has form with this sort of material. He directed Robin Williams’ energetic and mawkish turn as a wartime DJ in Good Morning Vietnam (1987). He’s also helmed the great satire Wag The Dog (1997).

Rock The Kasbah isn’t laugh out funny but amiable, well intentioned and has some enjoyable performances.

Murray stars as untrustworthy has-been rock manager Richie Lanz.

Offering flashes of his signature cynical charm,  the former Ghostbusters star is always watchable, even if a patchy script relies too heavily on his ad libbing.

Israeli actress Leem Lubany does as well as anyone could in the central if limited role of  Salima, a young singer risking dishonour and death by challenging the traditional role of women in a male dominated society.

Kate Hudson brings a sexy savvy to the thankless role of hooker turned business partner and lover of Richie.

And Danny McBride and Scott Caan are a likeable double act as black market munitions salesmen.

Playing a mercenary called Bombay  Brian, Bruce Willis seems to be there just to play with guns and seems to have wandered in from another movie.

Desperate to pay the bills, Richie takes his only client Ronnie – played by a Zooey Deschanel – on a tour of Afghanistan.

Suffering pre-gig nerves, Ronnie abandons Richie in Kabul, taking his passport and money with her.

While selling ammunition to friendly penniless tribesmen in a bid to raise the cash to get home, Richie  he discovers the beautiful Salima singing in a cave.

Richie signs her up and enters her into Afghanistan’s version of American Idol.

Rock The Kasbah is so clumsily constructed even its title is geographically inaccurate. And disappointingly the anthemic Clash song from which it presumably takes its name is never played.

★★☆☆☆

Kung Fu Panda 3

Director: Jennifer Yuh Nelson & Alessandro Carloni (2016)

It’s re-enter the dragon warrior as martial arts most portly practitioner returns in his third animated action adventure.

Drawn on a spectacular epic canvas it combines a light hearted tone with a serious message about responsibility, family and achieving one’s potential.

There’s plenty of silly slapstick but no major laughs, relying heavily on the exuberance of Jack Black as Po, the reluctant hero panda of the title.

At home in the Valley of Peace, Po is reunited with Li Shan, his long lost biological dad, played by Bryan Cranston.

J.K. Simmons voices Kai, a giant ox like supreme warlord who’s returned from the spirit world and intent on stealing the everyone’s life force.

With his friends incapacitated, Po the former pupil must become a master and train up some wannabe karate kids to help defeat Kai.

If you enjoyed the first two then this will definitely err, panda to your taste.

 

 

 

Hail, Caesar!

Director: Joel & Ethan Coen (2016)

The knives are out for golden age Hollywood in this sly satire from the mercurial talent of the Coen brothers.

In typical fashion they combine the writer/director/producer roles. After the run of more serious fare of Inside Llewyn Davis (2013) True Grit (2010) and A Serious Man (2009) they’re back in the enjoyably goofy form of their early career.

The off screen sensibilities of tinseltown are merrily mocked as singing cowboys, dancing sailors and whip happy Romans collide in a series of films within a film ranging from film noir and musicals to costume drama.

In his fourth film for the Coens, George Clooney plays kidnapped star Baird Whitlock.

Capitol Pictures sends a ‘fixer’ Eddie Mannix to find the dim actor so their prestige big budget biblical epic can be completed.

For Brolin it’s his third Coens’ feature after the two westerns No Country For Old Men (2007) and True Grit (2010).

Perfectly cast in the role of Mannix, Josh Brolin carries the film on his broad, pin striped suited shoulders, stomping about town and wrestling with his conscience over a career decision he’s being pressured to make.

Mannix has no specific job title but does possess a large office, an attentive PA and a direct line to Mr. Skank, the never seen mogul of Capitol Pictures. Directors and actors queue in Mannix’s office to petition for his services.

Mannix is that most pejorative Hollywood term, a suit.

They are the most maligned creatures in Hollywood, commonly regarded as mammon obsessed philistines and monstrous butchers of creative endeavour.

It’s an extraordinarily daring in joke to present Mannix as a squared jawed and gimlet eyed hero in the style of Raymond Chandler’s fictional private detective Phillip Marlowe, and it’s played always with a straight face.

For the devout and humble family man Mannix, film making is a religious vocation, a secret cigarette is his only vice.

Brolin has played a spin on the character before in the overblown and undercooked Gangster Squad (2013). The Coens have riffed on Marlowe before in the joyous The Big Lebowski (1998).

There’s an attache case of cash, mistaken identities, romance, religious discussion and foul mouthed bathing beauties. The fishy tale even features a fabulous water sequence in the style of Esther Williams featuring Scarlett Johansson as a mermaid.

With a gang of disaffected revolutionary screenwriters powering the plot, it’s a mashed up antidote to the po faced sanctimony of Trumbo (2016).

Clooney is entertaining when aping the heavy acting style of classic Hollywood hero such as Charlton Heston, but lacks the light comic touch of his co-stars.

Michael Gambon raises a droll smile as the narrator, Jonah Hill makes a fleeting appearance and Channing Tatum performs a tremendous song and dance routine.

However everyone is outdone by Ralph Fiennes who in a late screwball career move is fast becoming the funniest man in film.

The many films within a film are rendered through brilliant technical skill, captured in customary consummate grace by perennial Oscar bridesmaid, Brit Roger Deakins.

Shot with loving panache, Deakins’ 12th collaboration with the Coens is suitably visually pristine and rich. His lens steps smoothly from genre to genre with immaculate grace and accuracy.

In this arch and sometimes affectionate comedy, the sharp stabs of humour are all the more effective for  being delivered at close range from under a cloak of friendship.

Et tu Brute indeed.

★★★★☆

Grimsby

Director: Louis Leterrier (2016)

Super spy James Bond meets TV’s Shameless in this offensively funny action comedy.

Borat star Sacha Baron Cohen stars as super chav turned secret agent Nobby Grimsby.

As producer, writer and lead actor he takes comic pot shots which rake across satire, slapstick, sex and stupidity. The successful ones strike their target with explosive effect.

A cast iron structure has the weaker first half ticking along with underclass chaos and well choreographed action scenes, stealthily setting the audience up for the outrageously gross second half.

Though the script seems to want to mock and defend chav culture, it isn’t wildly successful doing either.

With his Liam Gallagher attitude, Frank Gallagher dress sense, Britpop tunes and wandering northern accent, Nobby seems based on the wrong side of the Pennines.

The town of Grimsby is never the target, the film could have been called Oldham, Bolton or Rochdale for all it matters to the plot.

Football fan and prodigious procreator, Nobby is reunited with his long lost brother Sebastian, a smooth British spy.

He’s played by  a commendably game for a laugh Mark Strong, the pair making themselves the butt of all the best jokes.

After a thwarted assassination during a symposium held by Penelope Cruz’s charity boss, the footie mad brothers Grimsby are hunted around the globe.

They must clear their name, prevent a genocide and try to attend the World Cup Final in Chile.

As Nobby’s wife Dawn, Australian actress Rebel Wilson is a slatternly housewife, Isla Fisher is in Miss Moneypenny mode and Ian McShane is a generally disbelieving M type.

Among the beer bellied drinkers at the local pub, Ricky Tomlinson, Johnny Vegas and Jon Thomson there’s professional northern support.

Swilling about in it’s own magnificent bad taste, Grimsby is the first great comedy of 2016.

★★★★☆

 

 

Zoolander No. 2

Director: Ben Stiller (2016)

Fifteen years is an eternity in fashion and the threadbare joke has worn desperately thin in this comedy sequel.

From self imposed exile, Ben Stiller’s idiotic catwalk model Derek Zoolander is called to Rome to investigate the murder of pop stars such as Justin Bieber.

Penelope Cruz parades in her skimpies as the fashion police and Will Ferrell offers manic energy as an incarcerated super villain.

Aping the glossy action thriller style of Mission Impossible, the plot develops into a Da Vinci Code type hunt for the fabled fountain of youth.

With a long line of cameos by models and designers, it’s as incestuous and self adoring as the industry it pretends to be mocking.

★★☆☆☆

 

 

 

 

Deadpool

This unpleasant spandex spin-off is a desperate lunge to sex-up superheroes.

It energetically thrusts a minor member of the X-Men franchise centre stage, but can only muster some limp entertainment.

A weak and formulaic origin movie, the non-linear narrative and meta-commentary on the genre can’t disguise myriad failings, not least the unappealing lead.

Ryan Reynolds is perfectly cast as Wade Wilson, a proudly irritating special forces agent turned mercenary.

The script has to fall back on inflicting terminal cancer to create sympathy for him.

A sadistic scientist called Ajax deliberately disfigured Wade while attempting to turn him into a super-powered slave.

Last seen replacing Jason Statham in dull reboot The Transporter Refuelled (2015) reboot, rapper turned actor Ed Skrein over acts as the dull villain.

Believed to be dead, Wade adopts the identity of the gun toting masked man called Deadpool.

Despite two members of the X-men team attempting to recruit him, Deadpool insists he is not a hero.

His signature move is to pirouette into action, a deliberately camp affectation in keeping with the supposedly transgressive character.

Convinced of it’s own outrageous hilarity, Deadpool replaces the intense boredom of the recent Superman film with a juvenile tone, flippant sexism and some light bondage.

Then it adds child abuse jokes and frequent threats of rape.

Slow motion action scenes are mostly powered by mediocre CGI, blood splatting violence and explosions.

Deadpool is hunting Ajax for revenge, and to discover the secret to having his leading man looks restored.

Without them he feels unworthy of his fiancee, the beautiful hooker Vanessa, played by Morena Baccarin.

This presupposes Wade recognises he possesses no other feature such as charm, wit or intelligence to which Vanessa might be attracted. Perhaps the character is written with more self awareness than Reynolds allows him.

Baccarin and Reynolds make an attractive pair and the few moments of quality are in their initial sparky banter.

Described as the first pansexual superhero, Deadpool is actually monogamously heterosexual.

Sadly all that’s required of the talented Baccarin in the role is to look fabulous in fishnets, talk dirty and be kidnapped.

This is in keeping with the pervasive sexism. All female characters are either ugly and therefore suitable subjects for mockery, or they’re gorgeous strippers and prostitutes.

Deadpool rooms with a blind old black woman whose sexual unattractiveness is a butt of much humour, none of which is funny.

Grossly pandering to the worst impulses of it’s target audience demographic of twelve year boys, the BBFC should be congratulated for putting Deadpool out of their reach.

Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015) which off a £56 million budget globally grossed £282 million. The lesson learned is there is a lot of money to be made in arse jokes.

Among the slight attempts at deconstructing the gene, there is a weak joke regarding The Matrix (1999) and at one point Reynolds’ riffs on Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986).

Marvel comics supremo Stan Lee cameos as a DJ in a strip club.

Most of the film consists of two fights, one on a freeway flyover and the other on a crashed Helicarrier from an Avengers movie.

There are some laughs along the way to the lacklustre climax, a word guaranteed to have Deadpool sniggering.

★★☆☆☆

Goosebumps

Director: Rob Letterman (2016)

Magical mayhem materialises when book bound monsters come to life in this entertaining horror comedy.

It runs away at a decent pace, has fine performances from an attractive cast, isn’t short of laughs and tries hard to make you jump out of your seat.

The spooky fun is based on the massively popular Goosebumps books by R.L. Stine.

And as Stine says, it’s full of twists, turns, insights and some personal growth for the hero.

He appears as a character in the film and is played by Jack Black in one of his stronger performances.

Black abandons his frequently smug demeanour for a more acerbic and angry persona, and he’s all the more entertaining for it.

In a quiet suburb the reclusive Stine home-schools his teenage daughter Hannah, claiming it’s for her own protection.

A tentative romance begins when handsome high school student Zach Cooper moves in next door. Dylan Minnette and Odeya Rush share a sweet chemistry as they sneak out at night to an abandoned fair ground.

But Zach inadvertently unlocks one of Stine’s books, releasing an evil ventriloquist’s dummy, called Slappy, also voiced by Black.

The marvellously malevolent Slappy frees a multitude of fantastical fiends from Stine’s shelf of manuscripts and burns the volumes, preventing the creatures from being caged again.

The leaves the town at the mercy of aliens, zombies, killer clowns and in a spirited homage to the sci-fi monster movies of the 1950’s, a giant praying mantis.

Steven McQueen’s drive-in classic The Blob (1958) is also a key reference.

The film’s best scene is the emergence of the garden gnomes. It combines the comic violence of the job interview from The Full Monty (1997) and the creeping horror of the doll attack from Barbarella (1968).

Amanda Lund briefly steals the film as an overly enthusiastic police trainee and I wish we’d seen more of her.

The suitably scary score by Danny Elfman works hard to gloss over the less than groundbreaking special effects, which themselves are used to pad out at least a couple of scenes.

It’s probably too scary for very young kids. But everyone else, even big kids like me, are guaranteed the goosebumps of a good time.

★★★☆☆

Bill

Director: Richard Bracewell (2015)

This celebratory and silly send-up of Shakespeare is a witty and affectionate tribute to the great Bard’s work.

It’s a thoroughly British entertainment,  created by the same people as the CBBC Horrible Histories TV series, which was based on the brilliant books by Terry Deary.

Performed with energy and respect, it’s full of knockabout humour and knowing jokes.

They even manage to slip in some Shakespearean verse from time to time.

Set in the wretched squalor of 1593, it focuses on the lost years of William ‘Bill’ Shakespeare prior to him becoming the world’s greatest playwright.

Played with an optimistic and gentle naivety by Mathew Baynton, Bill’s a failed musician who leaves behind his family and goes to London to become a writer.

He arrives in a filthy, villainous, murderous and plague-ridden Croydon.

As a former resident of the much maligned outer London borough, I promise you it’s no longer not quite as bad as all that.

Once there Bill takes writing tips from hard-up dramatist Christopher Marlowe, a marvellously morose and mendacious Jim Howick.

The pair unwittingly become involved in a plot to kill Queen Elizabeth.

Armed with bare chested vanity and a false moustache, Ben Willbond brings brio to the dastardly King Philip II of Spain.

Real-life husband and wife Damian Lewis and Helen McCrory play Sir Richard Hawkins and the Queen.

The former riffs on his role as captured soldier in TV’s Homeland, the latter is all yellow teeth and peeling face paint.

What follows is a series of comic misunderstandings, astonishing coincidences, unconvincing disguises, quarrelling lovers, ghosts, murders, betrayal and passionate intrigues.Basically everything you’d expect from a Shakespeare comedy.

Actors appear in several different roles, men can’t help but dress as women and there is a play to be performed before the Queen.

All’s well that end’s well and I imagine Shakespeare would love this caper, possibly nearly as much as I did.

★★★★☆

Barely Lethal

Director: Kyle Newman (2015)

High school tribulations are compared to water-boarding in this spy comedy. Well it’s flimsy but not quite that bad.

Orphaned teen assassin Agent 83 has been raised in Samuel L. Jackson’s quasi-governmental institution since a baby.

When a mission goes wrong, she’s stranded in Chechnya.

83 adopts the name of Megan and enrols on a student exchange programme to experience real-life in an American high school.

But she’s armed only with teen films such as Clueless (1995) and Mean Girls (2004) to guide her through the social minefield.

Hailee Steinfeld is nicely goofy in the lead and there’s sparky playing from Jessica Alba and Sophie Turner as fellow spies.

From the dubious taste of the title to the unconvincing slang and the weak riffs on superior teen flicks, none of the jokes carry a punch.

There are homecomings and house parties, killer heels and boy issues.

It all feels like the pilot for a TV show which will never see the light of day.

★☆☆☆☆

American Ultra

Director: Nima Nourizadeh (2015)

Slackers, spies and sleeper agents get their brains fried in this darkly comic stoner thriller.

Though it takes a while to find a groove, once the story sparks up and the thrills kick in, the entertainment escalates and acheives a riotous velocity.

Sweet-natured slackers Mike and Phoebe share a drug dependancy and matching tattoos. Unfortunately Mike has a tendency to keep making a hash of their romance.

Jesse Eisenberg and Kristen Stewart give the couple a sweetly combustible chemistry.

Unknown to himself, Mike’s a lethal sleeper agent, a guinea pig in the CIA’s Ultra programme designed to turn criminals into expert killing machines.

However the scheme is judged a failure and Topher Grace’s spy boss decides to shut down the programme by terminating the assets.

What the chief lacks in menace he makes up with obnoxious energy.

Connie Britton plays a rival spook who tries to give her one-time charge a fighting chance. She uses a safe word to unlock the training buried deep in Mike’s psyche.

She’s played by Victoria Lasseter on far better form than in the poor Me and Earl and the Dying Girl (2015).

When two agents arrive to kill his buzz and end his life, Mike freaks himself out with the lethal ferocity of his response.

Together with a surprisingly resourceful Phoebe, they face a desperate mission to survive, leaving burnt out buildings and dead bodies in their wake.

The sneaky soundtrack lulls with soft Hawaiian sounds before launching an ear-shattering assault to complement the bloody and bone crunching violence.

A truckful of assassins, drone strikes and a big box of fireworks all fan the flames of the smouldering fun.

Mike’s a stoned version of Jason Bourne and Eisenberg’s performance squeezes the concept for some decent laughs.

Matt Damon was 32 when he first played Robert Ludlum’s all action anti-hero, Eisenberg is 31.

Stewart is full of fierce defiance and equally good, despite being lumbered with the role of  girlfriend in peril. She slyly sports Franka Potente’s red hair from The Bourne Identity (2002).

As fun as Eisenberg is, it’s a shame he and Stewart didn’t swap roles. A hell bent Phoebe would have added to this year’s joyously bumper crop of kick ass cinematic heroines.

With an hawaiian-shirted hero on the run with a girl in a world of drugs, guns and comic books, American Ultra is clearly influenced by True Romance (1993).

Though it similarly includes a cloud of falling feathers it lacks Tony Scott’s visual lyricism and Quentin Tarantino’s dynamite dialogue.

Made on a reasonable budget of $30M, American Ultra is armed with a keen sense of the ridiculous, offers plenty of juiced up action, some laughs and a couple of recognisable faces.

So it’s surprising it hasn’t found more of an audience in the US where it’s only scored for $11M after ten days on release.

If the US poster ads are as terribly unrepresentative of the movie as the UK ones are, then I’d be tempted to place the blame of lack of interest at the publicists.

While it’s not an outstanding movie it is a worthwhile entertainment, hopefully one which will gain traction on other platforms and find the audience it deserves.

★★★☆☆