Thriller

FRANK AND LOLA

Cert 18 Stars 1

This glossy and vacuous thriller is extraordinarily ponderous and preposterous.

Michael Shannon and Imogen Poots are the unfortunate souls required to face off in this self regarding tale of betrayal and revenge. He plays an intense high-end Las Vegas chef, and she’s an aspiring fashion designer.

When Lola reveals her complex personal history, it triggers Frank’s obsessive nature. But Lola loves playing games and who knows if she’s telling him the truth. More importantly, who cares?

Even a visit to sex club fails to raise the pulse, the pace, or our interest.

CITY OF TINY LIGHTS

Cert 15 110mins Stars 3

This thoughtful British thriller takes the gloom of 1940’s Hollywood film noir, and illuminates it with the neon dazzle of contemporary London.

The likeable Riz Ahmed brings a streetwise soft spoken charisma to a long awaited and deserved lead role, which carries dominates the film.

As a whisky drinking downbeat private detective called Tommy, he begins a missing persons investigation which escalates into murder.

The fabulous Cush Jumbo plays a prostitute concerned about her colleague. She seems to have more screen time than co-star Billie Piper, who is the more prominent in the advertising. The former star of TV’s Secret Diary of A Call Girl is a good match for the material, though we see less of her than we’d like.

There’s some snappy lines and the script doesn’t shy from the complexities or frictions of the modern metropolis. Regardless of the final scene being too bright, this is a nicely reflective piece of work.

 

 

 

Elle

Cert 18 130mins Stars 4

Back in the 1980’s, confrontational Dutchman, Paul Verhoeven, directed some great satirical sci-fi such as the original Robocop. Then in the 1990’s he created the memorable trashy flesh-fests, Basic Instinct, and Showgirls.

Now he’s back to seduce you, with this stylish and twisted psychological thriller.

Isabelle Huppert is mesmerising as Michele, raped in her home by a masked assailant. Among many awards for her performance as the defiantly sharp-tongued and sexy businesswoman, the French superstar actress deservedly won the Golden Globe and was Oscar nominated.

As Michele sets about finding the perpetrator, we witness the shocking and graphic attack several times. Each version reveals more about the attack, and of Michele’s perception of herself.

Through stalking, voyeurism, and violence, the script explores questions of consent and culpability. This being Paris, marital affairs are rife in Michele’s social circle. Her response to her violation stirs the muddy waters of morality with a devious elegance.

 

 

 

GLASS

Cert 15 Stars 3

Obsession and self-delusion threaten the world in this much anticipated sly superhero sequel from the supernatural horror devotee, M Night Shyamalan.

The writer and director of 1999 smash, The Sixth Sense, brings two of his previous thrillers together, with a trio of star names in a clever but plodding exploration of group psychosis.

2016’s low budget mega hit, Split, saw Scotsman, James McAvoy, as a monstrous predator with a multiple personality disorder, while 2000’s Unbreakable saw Bruce Willis star as a super strong vigilante alongside Samuel L. Jackson, as the criminal mastermind, Mr Glass.

Now the three are incarcerated in a psychiatric institution where the wonderfully watchable Sarah Poulson plays a psychiatrist who specialises in delusions of grandeur.

To underlined the point there’s discussion of magicians and circus acts, and a fairground ride appears in a key scene.

She has only three days to persuade the men they do not have superpowers before they are permanently locked up, but the guys are resistant her treatment and there is a plan to escape.

With an impressive range and physicality, McAvoy is superb as he flips between 19 different characters, and is by turns scary, funny and compelling, and his performance deserves a more entertaining film.

Critiquing society’s obsession with superheroes is a bold and daring exercise in the week the Aquaman movie becomes the latest billion dollar behemoth at the box office, and may possibly turn off casual movie-goers here who feel they were promised a more traditional superhero film, albeit with a twist.

Jackson gives a purposefully twitchy performance, and Willis at least seems more engaged than in any of his recent films.

Shyamalan’s indisputable craftmanship is undermined by his showmanship and alienates his audience by operating on an intellectual level not an emotional one, delivering a movie which is light on action, has major pacing  issues and has a very low quota of scares.

Snowden

Director: Oliver Stone (2016) BBFC cert: 15

Oliver Stone’s ham-fisted biopic of a CIA whistleblower is a sprawling and disjointed essay on espionage. The veteran director explores the conflict between individual liberty and state control by dramatising the life of Edward Snowden, portrayed as a patriot who becomes a dissident martyr to the cause of freedom.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt has never been more anodyne than as the CIA employee who became global news when he revealed thousands of classified security documents to the world.

The computer programmer is shocked when he discovers the US spy agency regularly ignores the law and spies on anyone they choose to. It’s difficult to muster sympathy for him. What did he imagine the CIA does all day?

Even so, he’s not totally outraged until his politically liberal girlfriend becomes a target for surveillance by his employer. Shailene Woodley is wasted as Lindsay, and seems chosen as much for her ability to pole dance as for her acting talent. She’s represented as a radicalising influence on Snowden, unfairly shifting the blame for his act of treason from him to her.

Tom Wilkinson, Rhys Ifans and Nicolas Cage offer flamboyant energy, trying to out do each other and making up for the lead’s lacklustre presence. Meanwhile the script is thinly stretched over 10 years and a lot of ground, taking in Japan, Hawaii, Hong Kong, Switzerland and Russia.

Although visually restrained by his own standards, Stone enthusiastically employs a confusion of camera angles, colour filters and a fractured narrative. None of these tricks succeed in making a series of hotel room conversations interesting. There is a lot of staring at computer screens.

Stone is full of righteous angry at the treatment Snowden receives, but he fails to justify the actions of a very flaky individual.

★★☆☆☆

@ChrisHunneysett

Allied

Director: Robert Zemeckis (2016) BBFC cert: 15

Brad Pitt is torn between love and duty in this muddled Second World War spy drama.

It can’t decide if it wants to be a noirish thriller, a 007 action or an epic wartime romance. As a result some performances struggle, especially a ponderous Brad Pitt.

The Hollywood heavyweight plays Max, an undercover RAF airman who receives a very warm welcome when he parachutes into Nazi occupied French Morocco. Max has extraordinary skill with a deck of cards and can strangle you in all of two languages.

While on a deadly mission to execute a high ranking Nazi, Max falls in love with a glamorous French spy, Marianne. Well, its more romantic than Tinder at any rate. When she is accused of treason, Max has seventy two hours to prove her innocence, or execute her himself.

Marion Cotillard is fabulous as the beautiful secret agent, giving the script a life it doesn’t deserve and doing all the dramatic heavy lifting.

The problems of the poor script are exacerbated by the woefully miscasting of Pitt in a much younger man’s role. The 52 year old is playing an RAF wing commander. Real life wingco Guy Gibson was 24 when he lead his famous Dam Busters raid.

Max is part James Bond and part Rick Blaine, but Pit is too old for the former and lacks the wearied hinterland of the latter. As Pitt is too old then arguably so is Cotillard, though at 41 at least we have a leading man paired with an almost age appropriate co-star.

Pitt sports some well cut suits and a pained expression. He appears to be aiming for enigmatic but it suggests indigestion instead. Pitt executes his brief action moves with the conviction of Roger Moore in his later Bond films.

Pitt’s contemporary Hugh Grant has responded to being freed by age from the tyranny of physical perfection with a career best performance in Florence Foster Jenkins (2016). But Pitt lacks energy and enthusiasm.

There’s an ambassadors party where chocolates are definitely off the menu. Plus there’s plenty of period cars and planes to keep vintage vehicle enthusiasts happy. Plus there’s an ample supply of camels. Which is nice.

Allied skips between London and Casablanca without taking much humour, action, suspense or interest with it. Key moments are ramped up by environment to the point of parody. Eventually the whole exercise slowly sinks beneath the soggy sands of sentiment and leaves barely any trace of itself on your  memory.

Following the 1942 classic film, it’s a schoolboy error to set a Second World War romance in Casablanca. Even the best modern film struggles to compete with the magic of Bogart and Bergman at their imperious peak, and this is far from being the best film.

Don’t play this again, Sam.

★★☆☆☆

@ChrisHunneysett

 

Dog Eat Dog

Director: Paul Schrader (2016) BBFC cert: 18

Nicolas Cage and Willem Dafoe play a pitiful pair of ex cons in this vicious crime thriller. A kidnapping job offers a big pay day but life for the dim crims goes south when the wrong guy gets shot.

An agitated colour scheme, fractured editing and spiralling camerawork create a paranoid bad trip of a mood. Cage’s droll delivery and riffs on Humphrey Bogart add black comic notes to the confidently trashy and nihilistic sleazefest.

Strippers, swearing, shoot outs, drugs and dead bodies feature heavily as the script skewers the myth of the heroic American outlaw.

Adapted by Matthew Wilder, it’s based on book by Edward Bunker, a real life jailbird turned novelist who played Mr Blue in Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs (1992).

Director Paul Schrader’s 1970s heyday saw him write the Martin Scorsese classics Taxi Driver and Raging Bull. He also directed the Richard Gere starring critique of Hollywood, American Gigolo (1980). This never hits those exalted heights but it suggest there’s life in the old dog yet.

★★★☆☆

@ChrisHunneysett

 

Nocturnal Animals

Director: Tom Ford (2016) BBFC cert: 15

Tom Ford’s career diversion from fashion designer to film director goes from strength to sumptuous strength in this superbly confident psychological thriller.

Ford has tailored a smart and stylish affair of seamless precision, one you must luxuriate in it to appreciate the finesse of the cut and the fit. It provides aesthetic, intellectual and emotional thrills you will struggle to shrug off.

Five times Oscar nominee Amy Adams gives another flawless performance as immaculate gallery owner, Susan. While her husband is away, Susan receives a soon-to-be-published manuscript titled Nocturnal Animals, from her ex, Edward. As Susan reads the book, she is reminded of long hidden terrible behaviour.

Edward is played by Jake Gyllenhaal and though I’m occasionally underwhelmed by his presence in a movie, there’s no questioning the strength of this performance. Gyllenhaal also plays the role of the lead character in his novel, Tony. We see his dark, sad and violent story as a film within the film.

Tony’s family are brutalised while on a road trip through West Texas. He teams up with a local sheriff to hunt down the good old boys responsible. As Detective Bobby Andes, Michael Shannon is hard smoking, slow talking and always amusing.

Colin Firth was Oscar nominated for his turn in Ford’s debut A Single Man (2009) and many of the performances could follow suit. Laura Linney is sublimely sharp as Anne Sutton, Susan’s mother, nearly stealing the film in her only scene. Brits Michael Sheen, Andrea Riseborough and Aaron Taylor-Johnson provide strength in depth.

The score by Abel Korzeniowski is swooningly bleak and there is an extraordinarily bold and considered use of colour. The cool blues and glossy enclosed spaces of the Los Angeles art world are contrasted with the scorching rocky ochre of the vast expanse of Texas. Oscar nominations should surely arrive for production design and cinematography, respectively Shane Valentino and Seamus McGarvey.

An opening images of naked dancers begin a dialogue within the film of the nature of the artistic process. This conversation is based on the themes of exposure, vulnerability, pain and truth. They are central to the plot and are reinforced by the frequent mirroring of images and actors play dual roles. There is a pointed comment regarding critics who possess the power to destroy creativity, at no risk to themselves.

Careless viewers may scratch their heads at the final scene, but this is because Ford respects his audience and demands you pay attention to his beautifully bespoke tale of revenge.

★★★★★

@ChrisHunneysett

Ouija: Origin Of Evil

Director: Mike Flanangan (2016) BBFC cert: 15

This belated and unwanted supernatural prequel to 2013’s Ouija is scary only in its lack of originality and ability to frighten up any fun.

When a widowed fortune teller introduces a Ouija board into her repertoire, her younger daughter makes contact with a spirit from the other side. At first providing gifts and helping with homework, when it exposes its malevolent nature there are dire consequences for the family.

Hard working Elizabeth Reaser, Annalise Basso and Lulu Wilson form the basis of an agreeable cast as mother and daughters. But as there’s no flesh on the scripts ghoulish bones for them to tear into, and we don’t care when very bad things start to happen.

There’s no attempt at twisting the setup into something interesting or topical such as drawing a parallel between the ouija board and internet grooming. Instead the script scratches at the walls of blank eyed possession, hidden rooms and half-hearted torture porn.

Among the absence of thrills are laughable nods to The Exorcist (1974) and Poltergeist (1982). The lighting and period detail gives the paranormal activity an undeserved gloss, while an underdeveloped sense of camp is bludgeoned into submission by cheap shocks.

The banging and shrieking on the soundtrack is loud enough to wake the dead. And possibly even the audience.

★☆☆☆☆

@ChrisHunneysett

 

 

Inferno

Director: Ron Howard (2016) BBFC cert: 12A

Hellfire and brimstone are as nothing to the purgatory of watching Tom Hanks stumble about Italy as the bible bothering super sleuth, Robert Langdon.

Returning for his third outing in the role, it’s an apocalyptic adventure every bit as preposterous as the previous ones, The Da Vinci Code (2006) and Angels And Demons (2009). Possibly even more so.

A mad scientist considers the human race to be a virus and so has plans to release a disease which will wipe out half the planet’s population.

Langdon begins the film in a state of amnesia like a geriatric Jason Bourne. After that the film plays out like a James Bond adventure from the late Roger Moore era.

Ineffectual henchmen wander sumptuous locations while a powerful covert organisation patrols the globe in a supertanker. Sadly missing the daft innuendo, knowing camp and reassuring winks to the audience, you’ll be praying for the halcyon days when Moore’s eyebrows would go off half cocked.

It’s a divinely ridiculous mashup of pedestrian shoot-outs and discussion of the renaissance poet Dante, whose death mask is missing from a museum. Langdon is the number one suspect and together with his doctor he must evade the authorities and save the world.

Dr. Sienna Brooks is played by young Felicity Jones and thankfully her character has a grand-daughterly relationship with Langdon. Fortunately our hero’s love interest is more age appropriate and is played with grace by glamourous Danish actress, Sidse Babett Knudsen.

There are visions of hell on earth, conspiracies abound, priceless art is destroyed and Langdon has time for a nice cup of coffee. Director Ron Howard gives the film as much energy as possible and astonishingly everyone involved keeps a straight face.

Don’t worry if you miss this apocalypse, no doubt Brown will be back with another one soon.

★★☆☆☆

@ChrisHunneysett