black comedy

War On Everyone

Director: John Michael McDonagh (2016) BBFC cert: 15

This sleazy, cynical and violent black comedy gets down and dirty in the war on good taste.

Drugs, double crosses, beheadings, strip joints and porn films feature in the story which goes isn’t afraid to visit very dark places. How much you enjoy it will depend hanging out with Michael Pena and Alexander Skarsgard as the pair of corrupt police detectives.

They star as sharp suited cops chasing a million dollars in cash which has gone missing from a crime scene. And they have no intention of turning the loot in when they get their hands on it.

These likely lads are called Bob and Terry, the former is a committed family man, the latter a hard drinker with a glad eye. This reference to the 1970s TV show is just one of many, very knowing pop culture in-jokes scattered through the script.

Another is having Brit actor Theo James sending up Hollywood typecasting as an English master criminal. An exasperated Paul Reiser plays their angry Lieutenant back at the station while Tessa Thompson and Stephanie Sigman add heart, charm and glamour.

Though the action takes place in Albuquerque, New Mexico, the cine-literate story should really be set in LA. It’s dizzyingly stitched together with references to musicals, sci-fi, westerns and cop thrillers, all mixed up and strung together to make a surprisingly satisfying whole.

Though it takes time for us to adjust to the films unique groove, and at times the tone veers about like the boys’ flash car in hot pursuit, the pace never flags.

Profane discussions about movies, art and philosophy litter the dialogue while jokes about police brutality and racism are no less funny for being topical. The opening gag involving a mime artist is inspired. As a bonus the brilliant songs of Glenn Campbell are used throughout.

John Michael McDonagh is the fiercely independent minded writer and director of Cavalry (2014) and The Guard (2011) and once again he takes no prisoners with the audiences sensibilities. War On Everyone is ambitious and sharp but its shock and awe approach may not to everyones taste.

★★★☆☆

@ChrisHunneysett

Chevalier

Director: Athina Rachel Tsangari (2016) BBFC cert

Described by the filmmakers as a buddy movie without the buddies, this black comedy satirises the competitive machismo of modern men.

It’s acutely observed and men everywhere will squirm uncomfortably at with recognition at the petty behaviour.

Six average middle aged blokes are enjoying a fishing trip on a luxury yacht when one suggests a game. The winner will be declared ‘best in general’ with the prize a chevalier signet ring.

They set each other a series of challenges with each man scoring everyone else in a note book. Recipes, ringtones and sexual relationships are all under scrutiny and inevitably there is some pointed measuring of body parts.

The captains’ voice over the tannoy suggests the spirit of reality TV, but also harks back to army camp announcer Radar from M.A.S.H. (1970). Robert Altman’s anti-war satire offered a far more scathing examination of humanity in a regimented environment.

As holiday activities of skinny dipping, jet skiing, wind surfing become areas of conflict, so collusion, cheating and the pleasure place becomes more a floating prison.

Amid the ridiculous and pointless competitiveness, the film offers sympathy for the men who are prisoners to their natures and submit to vice to cope with the pressures of scrutiny and ambition.

★★★☆☆

@ChrisHunneysett

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.

★★★★☆

A Bigger Splash

Director: Luca Guadagnino (2016)

Dive into the shallow end of the celebrity gene pool in this sun kissed erotic thriller.

Intelligently written and beautifully photographed, it features the normally ultra serious Ralph Fiennes on liberated form as a hyper active hedonist music producer called Harry.

He arrives unexpectedly at the Italian villa of his ex love Marianne, a recuperating rock star.

Tilda Swinton gives a rasping performance as the singer protecting her voice, a symbol of the film’s grand themes of the inability to communicate with honesty and freedom.

Matthias Schoenaerts is in typically morose mode as her new partner Paul, their shared idyll threatened by Harry and his lithe daughter Penelope, played by Fifty Shades star Dakota Johnson.

It’s almost an anthropological examination of human behaviour, a shame the subjects aren’t more deserving of our study.

At first entertaining, the preening narcissism of the characters is wearying during the slow build up to an act of violence. It couldn’t have happened to a more deserving person.

★★★☆☆

 

 

 

Convenience

Director: Keri Collins (2015)

Offering limited discount fun, this budget stretching British black comedy is long shift for all concerned.

The film trades heavily on the acerbic gum popping presence of shop assistant Vicky McClure who suffers a bad night in a 24 hour petrol station.

She’s held up by desperate dimwits Ray Panthaki and Adeel Akhtar. They’re in a hurry to steal the 8 grand they owe to Russian gangsters.

But the time locked safe won’t open until 6am and having taken hostages, are forced to front the shop until dawn.

Comedy swearing grannies and light-fingered taxi-drivers wander the aisles. Anthony Head is very depressed as Verne Troyer pops by in a cowboy outfit.

There are a couple of nicely played moments of self discovery but far too few comic moments succeed.

It’s a relief when a shotgun stand-off eventually arrives and smartly allows for a character arc to come to fruition.

It’s great to have a film where the gender and race of the three lead characters is accepted without comment and is of no importance to the plot.

It would be nice for this not to be a remarkable occurrence in cinema.

The director is unable to restrain his camera and an ill advised gag reel is included in the end credits.

★★☆☆☆

The Voices

Director: Marjane Satrapi (2015)

It’s claws versus paws in this macabre black comedy as the eternal conflict between good and evil is fought between cat and dog.

But as well as committing the cardinal sin of not being funny, there are clunking changes of tone, weak direction and too many scenes lack energy.

All of which is a shame as there are two great actresses, a decent idea and a laudable attempt to bring something different to the cinematic marketplace.

Pizza-loving Jerry (Ryan Reynolds) lives quietly with Bosco and Mr. Whiskers, his pet dog and cat. He works in a toilet factory, is in therapy and taking medication.

Based in the town of Milton, he is obsessed with angels and devils and happily points out Lucifer was both.

At home the foul-mouthed Mr Whiskers urges him to be bad, Bosco tells him to be good. Reynolds provides the animal voices, including a poorly advised Scottish accent for Mr Whiskers.

Discussions with his pets as to whether Jerry is a good person occupy far too much screen-time and deliver no laughs.

Jerry hangs out with the girls from accounts. He has a crush on Fiona (Gemma Arterton) and ignores the attentions of the clearly interested Lisa (Anna Kendrick). On a night out he kills a co-worker which leads to a spree.

The always engaging Arterton and Kendrick give proceedings an undeserving vitality, bringing glamour, charm and fine singing voices.

But Reynolds is such an unprepossessing leading man he barely registers. He plays sweet when dry would have been more effective. Anything would have been more effective. Maybe Adam Sandler and Paul Rudd were too expensive. Or busy.

The script can’t decide whether Gerry’s bad, mad or a victim. It absolves him of guilt by showing us his traumatic childhood.

There’s some nice production design by Udo Kramer, but the director loses control of her camera and the imagery becomes repetitive. The charitably minded will assume the choreographer was aiming for comic effect.

The film isn’t sufficiently trippy to be interesting, nor is it clever, fast or sharp enough to be funny. It’s a sad day when a Chinese Elvis impersonator can’t make me smile – but he’s just another glaring example of how The Voices mistakes wacky for funny.

★☆☆☆☆

Birdman

Director: Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

This extraordinarily ambitious black comedy about a desperate actor having a nervous breakdown is funny, sexy, brave and bold.

Michael Keaton, former star in blockbusting Hollywood superhero franchise Batman plays Riggan Thomas, former star in the blockbusting Hollywood superhero franchise Birdman.

That was twenty years ago and now Riggan, aware of his age and lack of artistic legacy, wants to reboot his career as a serious artist by starring and directing in a Broadway adaptation of an important literary work.

However he’s beset by professional and personal problems – not least being haunted by his gravel voiced masked-man alter ego of yesteryear who preys on his many insecurities.

As an accomplished actor Riggan is an untrustworthy guide to his own existence and it may be best not believe anything he says, sees or shows us.

He has re-mortgaged his house to pay for the production but influential critic Tabitha Dickinson (Lindsay Duncan) threatens to bury the show and a former employee wants to sue him.

His daughter Sam (Emma Stone) is out of rehab and last minute replacement actor Mike (Edward Norton) is re-writing his lines and stealing the limelight.

Meanwhile co-star girlfriend Laura (Andrea Riseborough) is pregnant and manager Jake (Zach Galifianakis) is constantly lying to him.

Dressing rooms are trashed amid scenes of fights, affairs, drunks, drugs, and attempted suicide.

It all leads to an astonishing scene in Times Square where Riggan clutches at his rapidly shrinking dignity.

As shamelessly superb camerawork (Emmanuel Lubezki) and editing (Douglas Crise, Stephen Mirrione) create the astonishing illusion of a single continuous shot that lasts the entire film.

Dynamic and fearless performances embrace the vanity of the flawed characters and offer moments of insight creating an exhausting, energetic and constantly surprising experience.

Birdman is a soaring success.

★★★★★