movie review

Ricki and the Flash

Director: Jonathan Demme (2015)

Strip out Meryl Streep’s charisma and we’re left with slim pickings in this redemptive rock ‘n’ roll drama.

She plays plucky Ricki, a divorced middle-aged check-out operator who rocks out with her own band in the local spit and sawdust joint at night.

News of her daughter’s divorce and depression sends Ricki flying to her bedside, only to discover her presence is barely tolerated never mind welcomed.

There’s squabbles aplenty as retail therapy replaces psychotherapy, but not much else happens.

There’s talk of attempted suicide and bankruptcy but the most eventful scene involves spilt ice cream and teenage-like strops.

Full of life’s regrets and the guilt of poor parenting, Ricki faces the hardest gig of her life as she struggles to gain the love and respect of her estranged family.

Streep’s acting is as relentless as her singing as she dominates every scene with scant regard to her fellow performers. She delights in being lewd and revels in her pot smoking, hard drinking rock persona.

Mamie Gummer as Ricki’s daughter Julie isn’t over-awed by sharing the screen with her real life-life mother.

Kevin Kline is far form the master of his own house as ex husband Pete and Rick Springfield is whiny as lead guitarist Greg of her racially representative backing band, The Flash.

Fans of the triple Oscar winner and weak cover U2 versions will probably find more to enjoy here than I did.

★★☆☆☆

Me And Earl And The Dying Girl

Director: Alfonso Gomez-Rejon (2015)

This tiresome coming-of-age cancer flick should have been titled Me, Myself and I.

Thomas Mann plays gangly geek Greg Gaines. He spends his high school life avoiding everyone but his friend Earl.

As they remake their favourite movies, a large volume of film references are dropped heavily on the viewers’ head.

Greg’s mother packs him off on a mercy visit to Rachel, a fellow student who’s dying of cancer.

Olivia Cooke is a picture of perky good health until suddenly sporting an array of fetching hats and wigs.

The script has no interest in her or the disease. She’s made to suffer only so Greg can develop as a character.

Played by Ronald Cyler II, all we learn of Earl is he hails from the wrong side of the tracks and has a hankering for titties. His word, not mine.

Poor Katherine C. Hughes is cast as the high school hot girl whose breasts the camera invites us to admire.

There’s inappropriate adult behaviour, accidental drug taking and fisticuffs in the cafeteria.

Quirky camera angles and cute animations are as provocatively passive aggressive in their behaviour as Greg is.

Ideas such as receiving advice from movie stars via their image on bedroom posters are never developed.

The young cast have charm and there are fleeting funny moments but the tone is teeth grindingly twee.

Kiwi screenwriter of Brit comedies Richard Curtis would be impressed by the random quirks masquerading as characters who populate Greg’s world.

I empathised mostly with a coma victim.

★★☆☆☆

Straight Outta Compton

Director: F. Gary Gray (2015)

Busting out of Los Angeles with exhausting attitude, this self-serving musical biopic is an occasionally exhilarating ride of ego and excess.

Straight Outta Compton takes it’s name from the 1988 controversial breakout album of N.W.A., the groundbreaking five strong rap group. It charts their rise and demise.

Central trio of lyricist Ice Cube, producer Dr Dre and rapper Eazy E are played by O’Shea Jackson, Jr., Corey Hawkins and Jason Mitchell. The script isn’t too interested in the other two members, MC Ren and DJ Yella.

With endless macho posturing and ferocious music, they established their reality brand of gangsta rap as a cultural force.

Paul Giamatti plays their shifty, silver-haired manager Jerry Heller whose close relationship with Eazy E threatens the band’s harmony.

Suffering brutal discrimination at hands of the militarised police, their anger and frustration finds a voice in music and reaches a peak with their incendiary and provocative track ‘F** tha Police’.

Sold out concerts bring a heavy police presence and strongly worded letters from the FBI.

There’s barely a female character to speak of though several acres of nubile flesh. And it’s a surprisingly drug light experience.

An indulgence of guns and groupies keep the band occupied, with the former far more highly valued than the latter. One particularly unpleasant post-gig party is disturbingly played for larks.

A parade of unlikeable characters pass through the story which rhymes with a general perception of the music industry. At times even the band are hard to root for.

This is surprising given they produced the movie themselves and Ice Cube is played by his real-life son.

Like many vinyl records, the first side is strong but the second side is weak. Bubbles of soap opera froth up as the story dissolves into contract disputes and ill health.

Even when their millions of dollars have bought huge mansions and flash cars, they’re still breaking the law and getting arrested.

This is where the film loses it’s audience. It wants to suggest regardless of extreme financial and cultural success the band can’t escape the racist behaviour of the state.

And though this may be true, it’s also true for anyone that driving one’s car at extremely high speed through downtown LA will attract the attention of the police, regardless of the officers’ prejudices.

Up until this moment I was mostly on board. But any film which fails to hold the audience sympathies close to it’s own point of view is failing on at least one level.

We’re left with the feeling it’s possible to take the boys outta Compton but not Compton outta the boy.

They wouldn’t seem to want it any other way.

 ★★★☆☆

We Are Your Friends

Director: Max Joseph (2015)

Angst and ambition are mashed up in this uplifting ode to the transcendental powers of dance music.

Zac Efron gives it large, well largeish, as Cole, a real estate developer who dreams of being an international DJ.

When not clubbing Cole spends his time staring into the empty swimming pool of life.

Wes Bentley plays his mentor, a famous forty something club DJ full of alcohol and self-loathing.

He has a beautiful assistant Sophie, brought to doe-eyed life by Emily Ratajkowski.

The model rocketed to fame by appearing naked in Robin Thicke’s Blurred Lines video.

Her dancing here is no worse and she mostly keeps her clothes on.

When Cole begins to fall for Sophie, it threatens his chance at a career-making summer gig.

It’s an unthreatening portrayal of contemporary twentysomething life.

Fans of Simon Pegg’s TV show Spaced may snigger at the manner Cole discovers his dance muse.

There’s a loose Los Angeles vibe and some trippy SFX showing the effects of drugs and music on the body.

The music is played on laptops and the script seems written by a robot.

★★★☆☆

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.

★★★☆☆

Vacation

Director: Jonathan Goldstein & John Francis Daley (2015)

This flat retread of Chevy Chase’s 1983 road trip comedy trundles from coast to coast in desperate search of of a decent joke.

Stupid and cheap, Vacation lifts characters, plot, jokes and theme song from the original and does nothing interesting with them.

At the height of his mystifying ’80’s popularity, National Lampoon’s Vacation (1983) starred Chase as Clark, the well-intentioned patriarch of the Griswold family.

A cameo here proves his laboured comic touch hasn’t deserted him. Beverly D’Angelo reprises her role as his wife Ellen.

This time out their grown up son Rusty takes centre stage and is played by Ed Helms, formerly of The Hangover franchise.

Rusty is following in his father’s footsteps and dragging his own squabbling family on a bonding trip across the US, heading once again for the Walley World amusement park.

En route the Griswold’s suffer white water rafting troubles, quad bikes accidents, quarrelling cops and dogging experiences.

Helms does an uncannily accurate impression of the young Chase, regardless of whether the world needs or asked for one.

Christina Applegate gives her all as his wife Debbie. Her talent was honed as the teenage daughter on TV’s Married With Children and she deserves far sharper material. As do we.

As an accomplished comic actress Applegate gives Jennifer Aniston a run for her money. They went head to head as screen sisters in Friends and it would be great to see them paired up in some future project.

Skyler Gisondo is their sensitive, singing teenage son James. He is bullied by his younger brother Kevin, a gleefully foul-mouthed Steele Stebbins.

Thor star Chris Hemsworth flexes his pecs as cow-wrangling brother-in-law with a suspiciously large gun in his pocket.

With craft in the writing all four family members have an identifiable arc which dovetails into the overall dynamic. Situations are set up and have a pay off.

But there’s a distinct lack of ambition as the script sets the comedy bar dispiritingly low and persistently fails to clear it. But at no point do any of the jokes raise a smile, just a rictus of disbelief.

The tone is set at the very beginning with a series of supposedly real holiday snaps which find hilarity in snot, urine, vomit, violence and inappropriate erections.

Vacation also riffs on Duel (1971), National Lampoon’s Animal House (1978) and Airplane! (1980) to barely discernible comic effect.

There is a meta moment where Rusty addresses the film’s nature as a sequel but it’s executed without the wit of Phil Lord and Chris Miller‘s Jump Street 22.

And of course there’s a special circle of hell reserved for films which features TV cook Gordon Ramsey in any capacity.

Technically it’s a fifth sequel to National Lampoon’s Vacation (1983). That was penned by John Hughes, directed by Harold Ramis.

Hughes was responsible for writing and directing the great teen movies of the period including Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986) The Breakfast Club (1985). Ramis went on to co-write Ghostbusters (1984) and Groundhog Day (1993) as well as directing the latter.

Despite this talent on board, it wasn’t very good.

Vacation 2015 was scripted by the directors Goldstein and Daley who were responsible for writing Horrible Bosses (2011) and The Incredible Burt Wonderstone (2013). It’s an altogether lesser pedigree, and it shows.

At one point a tour guide gives a primal scream of anguished rage, exactly mirroring my own feelings.

You’re better off at work than experiencing this vacation from hell.

Post script.

Chase and D’Angelo starred in National Lampoon’s Vacation (1983), National Lampoon’s European Vacation (1985), National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (1989) and Vegas Vacation (1997) plus the short Hotel Hell Vacation (2010) released online.

There was also National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation 2 (2003) focused on the recurring character of cousin Eddie played by Randy Quaid.

★☆☆☆☆

The Wolfpack

Director: Crystal Moselle (2015)

This toothless grin of a documentary begins as a disturbing exploration of abuse and ends as a sunny coming of age tale.

The Wolfpack is the nickname of six movie-mad brothers who grew up in a high housing project on the Lower East Side of New York.

Their dad Oscar kept the only key to their threadbare apartment, only allowing his children out for essential appointments. One year they claim never to have been allowed out at all.

A committed conspiracy theorist, the Peruvian-born Oscar refuses to work. The only source of income is a government stipend their American mother Susanne receives for homeschooling the children.

With no access to the internet, the bright, articulate and creative boys entertainingly re-enact scenes from favourite films such as Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction.

When one boy makes an illicit journey outside, it leads to their assuming increasing levels of independence.

There’s a lot of love, camaraderie and communal cooking. Their talent for mimicry asserts itself whenever they experience anxiety, seeking safety in the voices of favourite film characters.

When Oscar finally speaks on camera, he reveals himself as a pitiful person possessed of a paranoid philosophy, not the bogey-man we’ve been lead to imagine.

The Wolfpack seem to bear their parents little ill will. They’re remarkably well-adjusted for people prevented from mixing socially with anyone outside their immediate family.

Too little effort is made to tell the boys apart and there’s a failure to establish two of them are twins.

Plus we wonder how much influence the presence of the unseen documentarian is having on the behaviour of the family.

As they spread their wings and visit the cinema, the beach, the countryside, the narrative offered is suspiciously convenient for a filmmaker.

Susanne makes a phone call to her 88 year old mother, their first contact in 50 years. It seems particularly opportune rather than the organic result of a new era of domestic glasnost.

Plus the subjects’ sweet natures consistently neutralise the use of crashing guitar chords and Halloween imagery to convince us of a tragedy in progress.

★★★☆☆

Good People

Director: Henrik Ruben Genz (2015)

Temptation brings danger to a struggling young couple in this silly and dingy thriller.

Americans Tom and Anna are the good people making a fresh start in London after suffering a domestic tragedy. They’re neither especially bright nor particularly likeable.

Though we’re told they’ve been together for a long time, there’s an unfortunate lack of chemistry between James Franco and Kate Hudson in the lead roles.

Having inherited Tom’s grandmother’s large house, they’ve accumulated large debts trying to renovate it.

When they discover £220,000 of much needed cash in the flat of dead neighbour, they can’t resist helping themselves.

Danish director Gnez has his cinematographer Jorgen Johansson dress the city in the gloom typical of Scandinavian noir, adding an extra layer of dreariness to proceedings.

The moral question of taking the money is quickly glossed over as the plot descends into bloody, predictable, tension-free violence. It occasionally strays unintentionally close to farce.

Tom Wilkinson plays a grieving cop chasing Sam Spruell’s villain who is trying to recover his stolen drugs money.

As Omar Sy wanders through as an urbane Frenchman trying to muscle in on the London heroin trade, the always engaging Anna Friel is wasted in a role requiring her to cradle a baby, squeal at a washing machine and perch precariously up a ladder.

As threats are issued, hands broken and furniture is destroyed, nail guns and snooker cues are put to use which probably affect their warranty.

★★☆☆☆

Trainwreck

Director: Judd Apatow (2015)

This comedy about a young woman on the path to redemption feels like a series of sketches strung together by a threadbare plot.

Amy Schumer writes and stars and though she and co-star Bill Hader are engaging, their charm and talent can’t overcome the limitations of the script or the dead hand of director Apatow.

It is indulgent in length, grossly sentimental, fawning to celebrities, loosely improvisational and insufficient scenes to are brought to a strong close. Too often too many characters are allowed to waffle.

Drunk and promiscuous journalist Amy Townsend (Schumer) has a varied if unfulfilling sex life and is merrily chasing promotion at work at edgy magazine S’nuff.

Her colleagues are irritating idiots and her boss Dianna is played by an alarmingly accented Tilda Swinton. The hard-faced career woman is contrasted with Amy’s sister Kim (Brie Larson). She’s a warm, soft role model of stable maternity.

A happy homeless man offers a warning as to how Amy’s life may develop if she doesn’t change her wanton ways. She enables him in the worst possible way.

Dianna sends Amy off to interview Dr. Aaron Conners (Hader). He’s a knee surgeon famous for saving the careers of sportspeople I’ve mostly never heard of.

Before she realises it she’s falling in love, rejecting her former life of drugs and fun and embracing sobriety and monogamy.

Amy pulls a reverse Sandy (Olivia Newton-John) from Grease (1978). She migrates from independent woman to a person subservient to the needs of her un-inspirational boyfriend. But he’s a doctor, so that’s alright.

Even Grease’s Danny Zucco (John Travolta) recognises he has to compromise his behaviour to win the heart of Sandy. But Aaron is oblivious of the potential to change and so Amy must bend to meet his needs. The leader of the T’Birds is far more progressive than anyone on show here.

By the end Amy is publicly humiliating herself to prove her worth in a way that would have made her earlier, more attractive persona shudder.

Embracing family and domesticity is presented as the pinnacle of female endeavour. Her career success is dependent on the reflected glory of her beau.

The story is in thrall to the sexual politics of the ’50’s, the 1850’s. Even Charlotte Bronte (Jane Eyre pub. 1847) would blush to write a female so eager to be defined by a man for happiness and fulfilment.

There’s a funeral, a baby shower, an invasive medical procedure and several dates. It’s not the least embarrassed to lift from Woody Allen’s Manhattan (1979).

Featuring far too much basketball, someone called LeBron James features prominently as an emotional mentor to Aaron. Daniel Radcliffe, Marisa Tomei, Matthew Broderick and err, former Tennis champ Chris Evert all appear.

Amy gives a 16 year old – a legal minor – alcohol, assaults him and then attempts to have sex with him. Good luck switching the genders and getting away with that scene.

All of these failings could be overlooked if the film was rip-roaringly funny and entertaining – but it rarely musters a chuckle. The funniest scene is the first one – and Schumer isn’t in it.

★★☆☆☆