Street Kings

Director: David Ayer
Starring: Keanu Reeves, Forest Whitaker & Hugh Laurie

A solid cop drama boosted by a script by acclaimed crime novelist James Ellroy and featuring a strong turn from actor Keanu Reeves.

Street Kings (originally title The Night Watchmen) is not your typical Keanu Reeves film. The opening 10 minutes of this film will convince you of that and that you are seeing a different Keanu Reeves. Opening with a hung-over Reeves, coughing/puking into his toilet, then arriving at an arms deal to sell weapons to Koreans while spitting venomous Racial slurs, getting beaten, then following them to their home and gunning them down in the name of the law. What we see is a crooked cop and a deeply racist one at that. What we also learn is that his actions save two girls who have been kept prisoner a raped. Justice is done but it’s violent and accomplished by breaking the law and covering for it later. It is a powerful, punchy opening and grips you immediately.

It comes as no surprise then to find that this film is written by crime novelist James Ellroy whose prose is famous, and acclaimed, for its punchy dialogue, morally suspect anti-heroes, corruption and for using violence almost as punctuation. The material is also what director David Ayer is well known for. Ayer, the writer behind Training Day who also adapted a James Ellroy story for the film Dark Blue is known for looking at the darker side of law enforcement, condemning corruption but endorsing a more aggressive method of crime fighting as being almost necessary to accomplish real results. So, no new ground covered then? Maybe not, at least not by Ayer or Ellroy. What does feel new is Reeves.

Keanu Reeves, while a popular actor, has not been judged critically as an actor capable of demonstrating much depth in his characters. A little unfair perhaps but Street Kings is one of his strongest roles to date. While Reeves has played cops before (Point Break, Speed) and has even dabbled in Anti-Heroes (Constantine), he’s never been this dark, this complex. Reeves character, Ludlow, is a cop in the Vic Mackey (on TV’s The Shield) mould. A cop who will happily break the law to get his suspect, even without evidence to back him up. Part of a squad of similar cops led by Forest Whitaker, he seems to be unredeemable but as we find, there are lines he won’t cross, lines of honor. When a former partner who is reporting him to Internal Affairs is gunned down in Ludlow’s presence, Ludlow investigates and uncovers evidence that there is more to the attack than believed and that while he might break the laws to apprehend crooks, there are those within his department willing to do use those methods and also profit from it. So, a racist cop, a violent cop, but not one to take a bribe. It’s a fine line to separate Reeves’ character from the villains but a line nonetheless and while it makes Ludlow our anti-hero and we root for him to survive, it doesn’t necessarily excuse his own character flaws. Reeves then manages quite well to tread that line between likeable character and sympathetic one. He manages to convince us that Ludlow is a force for good without actually being good himself.

While Reeves is good and carries the film well, the supporting cast varies in terms of quality. Hugh Laurie appears as an Internal Affairs officer investigating Reeves and others in his team. While good, Laurie merely re-hashes the American accent he utilizes in his role in TV’s House and doesn’t receive enough screen time to really develop his role beyond that of cop that tries to turn Reeves on his team. Chris Evans also appears as young cop looking for some action who gets pulled in by Ludlow to help investigate the death of his old partner and expose the corruption within his team. Evans role is underwritten and his motivations are underdeveloped which is a shame as recent performances (i.e. Sunshine) demonstrate an actor on the rise. Rounding out the remainder of the supporting cast is Forest Whitaker as Ludlow’s boss and suspected mastermind behind events. Whitaker’s turn is solid, using his physicality to intimidate while adding a bit more depth to a character that could have suffered under a different actor.

Overall, this is a strong cop drama. While the ground covered isn’t original for either the director or writer and the plot follows a fairly predictable path to it’s conclusion, it benefits from a strong performance by Reeves and while the film’s writer has written better, his dialogue is better, stronger than most cop dramas manage. Street Kings is still a film worthy of being seen and one with plenty to recommend about it.

Rating: 3/5

Son of Rambow

Director: Garth Jennings
Starring: Bill Milner, Will Poulter & Jessica Stevenson

A wonderful little indie-comedy about childhood friendship and the emancipating power of the imagination.

Son of Rambow has been released at the perfect time. Following the latest installment in the Rambo movie series and also following the release of another indie-film about the power of imagination in filmmaking in Be Kind Rewind, Son of Rambow (with it’s endearing, childlike spelling mistake of it’s namesake’s hero) succeeds at beating both films in terms of it’s creativity, heart and ability to entertain.

The film tells of the unlikely friendship that develops between Will Proudfoot (newcomer Bill Milner), a put upon child from a religious family than forbids TV, music and literature from its members, and Lee Carter (Will Poulter), the troublesome boy raised by an uncaring older brother and wanting to make his own film for the BBC. The friendship begins with Lee Carter bullying Will into helping make his film. Will being naïve, unaware of some dangers and ultimately forgiving, accepts and so begins a partnership that develops into a close friendship.

There appears to much in common between the two boys, both missing father figures (Will’s died, Lee’s disappeared after his birth) but this shared history is acknowledged by neither and allows the friendship to develop more realistically for less obvious reasons. Will, having never seen a film before, finds an outlet for his repressed creativity (his imagination largely confined to doodling in his Bible or toilet cubicles) when he sees a pirated copy of Rambo at Lee’s home. The effect this has on Will’s impressionable mind is illustrated in a beautiful and stunning dream sequence where Will saves his dead father while battling scarecrows and flying dogs while imagining himself as Rambo.

Based, in part, on director Garth Jennings’s own childhood experiences, the following scenes as Lee and Will embark on their filmmaking career, with Will as star and stuntman, is filled with great humour (there are many hilarious sight gags) and also great warmth. Jennings’s also captures the look and feel on 1980s England superbly, particularly school life in the 1980s which includes a brilliant Disco scene within the school’s 6th Form. Jennings’s decisions in his casting of unknowns into the roles of Will and Lee also succeed. Will Poulter convinces as the troubled child of a broken home whose bullying nature feels genuine in light of his background while Bill Milner steals the whole film as Will Proudfoot, brimming with childlike enthusiasm beyond what his small frame seems capable of containing.

There are the occasional indulgences that sometimes interrupt the flow of the story, the inclusion of a French exchange student who gets involved in the filmmaking and becomes an obstacle between Will and Lee is given too much screen-time and representatives of the religious order that Will’s family is a part of is sometimes portrayed a too one-sidedly oppressive but this is otherwise a fun and uplifting film and even when the boys find their friendship tested and inevitably realize it’s is time to grow up, it comes naturally and still maintains plenty of hope for their futures without feeling too saccharine.

Overall this is an entertaining comedy which can be enjoyed by children and adults alike.

Rating: 4/5

Leatherheads

Director: George Clooney
Starring: George Clooney, Renee Zellweger & John Krasinki

An entertaining comedy thought not quite the screwball classic that actor/director George Clooney was aiming for.

George Clooney is a man in high regard. Often referred to as being an actor in the classic mould who has the charms and talent of old Hollywood stars like Cary Grant and Clark Gable. These comparisons are generally well deserved. Clooney is also held in high regard in relation to his filmmaking based on the critical success of his earlier directorial efforts Confessions of a Dangerous Mind and Good Night and Good Luck. Clooney’s choice for his third film is a screwball comedy. Considering the comparisons made between Clooney, Grant and Gable, this would seem them perfect use of Clooney’s abilities as an actor and his experience with period pieces would seem suited to his skills as a director and he does succeed quite well at using those skills effectively. Clooney does exude charm and further demonstrates a skill for physical comedy and the period detail and atmosphere of the film is top notch however, while Leatherheads is charming and is funny, it’s not funny or charming enough to join the ranks of classic Hollywood comedies such as Bringing Up Baby or The Philidelphia Story.

If there is fault to be found in concern to why the film does not fully achieve its ambitions as a screwball comedy, that fault is to be found in the tone and pacing. The witty banter between Clooney and Zellweger is good but lacks the energy of Grant and Hepburn while the pratfalls that occur during football games portrays a Clooney that sometimes seems at odds with the charmer we see in other scenes. The film also slows down on too many occasions when it should speed up and Clooney tries to add a little too much, serious, commentary on the changes that occurred in professional football during the 1920s when he could be focusing on the comedy that can be mined in those changes.

Overall, this is an entertaining comedy. Clooney is good on screen as usual and Zellweger looks like she was born to appear in films from this period. John Krasinski (from the American version the The Office TV series) manages to hold his own fairly well when working alongside two bigger Hollywood stars and there are some very good sight gags and occasionally witty banter. Not Clooney’s best film to date but entertaining nonetheless.

Rating: 3/5

Vantage Point

Director: Pete Travis
Starring: Dennis Quaid, Matthew Fox & Forest Whitaker

A decent action/thriller based around a neat gimmick, but possessing little that would entertain beyond the first viewing.

The TV series 24 has a lot to answer for. From its massive success and its reinvention of television action dramas, 24 have spawned many imitators both on TV and on the big screen. Vantage Point seems to be the latest in this series and while more entertaining than most, it can’t live up to its influences.

The story revolves an assassination of a president, a bombing and the inevitable conspiracy that these acts reveal. The gimmick is that the scenes are played out again and again, each time from the viewpoint of a different character that witnesses the events and each one possessing information the others don’t that allow audiences to put the pieces together and see the conspiracy. The gimmick itself is fairly successful; starting from the some moment in time with each character, playing out its scenes then the film rewinds back to start and begins again with a different character’s experience. There is entertainment in trying to guess what will be revealed in the next scene although the film and the editing move at such breakneck pace that many questions are actually left unanswered (to probably be revealed on deleted scenes when the film is released on DVD) and some scenes actually contradict others (one perspective sees Secret Service agents open fire on a character yet in later perspectives they have disappeared and someone else does the shooting). It seems that the director was overconfident in his ability to be clever by overlooking some glaring plot holes.

The film still manages to be very entertaining. Action sequences are mostly well done including a great little car chase towards the end and the characters, while having little time to really impress, are fleshed out more from the abilities of the cast than from the script with Forest Whitaker adding warmth to his tourist and Sigourney Weaver adding an almost “seen it all before” weariness to her TV news editor and Dennis Quaid fills the role of action sequence fairly well, even though his near invincibility in some sequences seem at odds with someone of his age. Some actors and characters do suffer in the editing. Matthew Fox is given little to do until the end and little is given to tell us about what his background is and the villains of the film are mostly stereotypical bad guys spouting clichéd dialogue.

Overall, the film is entertaining, if flawed. It has, however, little substance that would warrant repeat viewings and few too many inconsistencies to be truly satisfying. If you miss this at the cinema you’d probably be better served by sticking with 24 at home.

Rating: 3/5

Drillbit Taylor

Director: Steve Brill
Starring: Owen Wilson, Nate Hartley & Troy Gentile

A fun comedy, mostly aimed at younger viewers but featuring a likeable performance from Owen Wilson that will entertain most audiences.

If you are not a fan of Owen Wilson, then it would be doubtful you would be going to see Drillbit Taylor. However, if you are a fan then there is plenty here to satisfy you even though its plot being aimed at younger audiences means it won be quite as entertaining to older audiences as some of the actor’s previous efforts.

After standing up for a kid being bullied on their first day of school, Ryan (Gentile) and Wade (Hartley) also find themselves becoming the focus of the school bully’s attentions. Not confident enough to fight for themselves they look to hire a bodyguard to protect them and ultimately come across Wilson’s Drillbit Taylor, a charming, but homeless army deserter. Playing on his usual loveable loser persona, Wilson’s Drillbit Taylor initially sees the kids as a chance for a quick buck by scamming out of their money with made up life lessons and martial arts training but upon seeing the kid’s suffering firsthand and realizing his own accountability in that suffering, he finds himself genuinely wanting to help. Of course this is made difficult when he is unaccustomed to handling responsibility.

While the plot takes predictable turns and the lessons each character will learn can be guessed right at the start, it is the performances of the cast, Owen Wilson in particular, that make Drillbit Taylor enjoyable. Wilson isn’t adding anything new in his performance here but is still as charming and funny as usual while also offering greeting card sentiment and motivational speeches to the kids in deadpan style. The performances of Troy Gentile and Nate Hartley as Ryan and Wade are also highly watchable with Gentile in particular showing promise for a future career in comedy. Stephen Root puts in an amusing performance as a clueless principal and producer Judd Apatow’s wife Leslie Mann makes an appearance as a flirty English teacher who becomes involved when Wilson’s Drillbit talks his way into a substitute teacher job to be able to protect the boys without revealing his true purpose as a bodyguard. The only weak point in the casting is David Dorfman as an, unnecessary, addition to Ryan and Wade’s circle and manages to do little more than annoy and distract from other characters.

Overall, while not the best comedy of 2008 or of Owen Wilson’s career, there are still plenty of enjoyable moments and performances to make this film worth watching.

Rating: 3/5

The Orphanage

Director: Juan Antonio Bayona
Starring: Belen Rueda, Fernando Cayo and Geraldine Chaplin

An excellent film and while it qualifies as horror and contains several skin crawling and jump in your seat moments, it is really an absorbing mystery/drama involving the supernatural.

This Spanish horror/drama is supernatural horror made in a classic style. While British and American horror has fallen back on either dealing with excess gore and violence or remaking Asian horror film (which themselves have become stuck in a repetitive rut of Ring rip offs) its good to see that some people still remember how to scare through building the right atmosphere and actually giving us a story and characters that we can become emotionally attached too.

Directed by Juan Bayona and produced by Guillermo Del Toro (Pan's Labyrinth & The Devil's Backbone), The Orphanage is the story of one woman, Laura. Laura, with her husband and son, have moved into an old house that was once an orphanage that Laura once resided at. What soon comes to light is that they are not alone in the home as Laura's son begins talking to imaginary friends, friends with an intimate knowledge of the orphanage and of Laura herself which leads to a mystery within the orphanage's past, of secrets kept, of Laura's own secrets concerning her son and then a mission to find her son when he disappears with his imaginary friends supposedly taunting Laura to find him.

What occurs in the film is an emotionally engaging drama as one woman's search to find her son and her belief that the orphanage is haunted by children from the past who hold her son hostage threatens to leave Laura unhinged and also to alienate her from her husband. You will, however, find yourself believing her fears to be true.

The focus on mood and character makes later scares more effective. Some come during moments of calm (a car accident that made the entire audience jump) while others are the result of scenes filled with building levels of suspense, of dread from slamming doors, creaking floors, glimpses of a child in a sackcloth mask and a seance scene that truly chills you before scaring you outright.

All of this is accomplished without excessive violence or gore and without cheap tricks. Everything is built up carefully, balancing the scares with drama and resulting a truly heart wrenching climax.

I can only hope that audiences can overlook the subtitles and their blood lust and go and see a horror that will have an emotional impact that will stay with you afterwards just as much as the shocks do.

Rating: 4/5

Diary Of The Dead

Director: George A Romero
Starring: Michelle Morgan, Josh Close and Shawn Roberts

A decent attempt by the father of the zombie genre to add some originality to the genre. The results are only partially successful and is both helped, and handicapped, by Romero's decision to go back to low-budget.

We all know that without Romero's Night/Dawn/Day (and later Land) of the Dead films that it is likely there wouldn't even be a zombie genre in horror. After working with studios, Romero decided to revisit his roots by going very low budget this time and going back to the beginning of his franchise by retelling that first Night of the Living Dead but through new sets of eyes. This time those eyes are through the lense of a video camera belonging to a student and his friends who are filming their own horror film in the woods when the dead begin to rise and they find themselves living out something far worse than they could imagine.

The documentary style works quite well, though the effect suffers slightly by coming out so soon after the larger budget Cloverfield that uses the same technique. Here though, instead of the Blair Witch/Cloverfield device of this footage being 'found', we have a narrator, one of the students, who tells us that this footage is real and that it has been edited into a film designed to scare you as well as show you what happened. Allowing us to see the footage edited this way, with narration allows Romero to critique society as he has done in previous films. Here Romero attacks the media, particularly the 'spin factor' of government/corporate sponsered media as they try to play down the truth of the events occuring. One sharp example of this is us witnessing the unedited footage of an attack at the start of the film that was put on the internet only to appear edited later when our characters see it on TV with a police chief denying that the situation is as dire as first reported.

Romero's criticisms of the media though are now so one-sided as to look solely at the mainstream media and censorship. He also criticises the internet generation of Youtube and Myspace and the popularity of anyone being able to film their own footage and upload it to the internet for all to see whether it is wnted or not and how the amount of footage out their allows us to see as much coldness and cruelty in society as we accuse the mainstream media of possessing. Footage of people torturing zombies and filming it for their own amusement is particularly disturbing and our 'director' within this film, a boy named Jason, is likewise cold as he documents events and often chooses to film his friends under attack and dying rather than help them.

So, while Romero's decision to go low budget helps give him the freedom to make the film he wants with the message he wants, the low budget aspect also threatens to undermine the actual horror. The cast is filled with unknowns and of this results in a mixed batch of performances. Our heroine is generally fine though sometimes struggles with some clunky dialogue while an English film studies professor is highly entertaining. The rest of the cast are quite stiff (pun not intended) and are annoyingly amateur. This might be intentional on the behalf Romero (these being amatuer filmmakers) but it also means we are less than interested in caring about the fates of most of the cast and the inevitability of some of their deaths lacks impact. The scares themselves only succeed some of the time but the low budget nature of the film does allow for some of Romero's impressive make up effects and gore which is more interesting than CGI.

Overall, the film is a decent addition to Romero's zombie saga. It is good to see he hasn't lost his edge when it comes to socio-politcal commentary but the option to go low budget, in today's media, often brings the look and feel of the film perilously close to that of the Youtube generation is sometimes criticises.

Rating: 3/5

National Treasure: Book Of Secrets

Director: Jon Turteltaub
Starring: Nicolas Cage, Diane Kruger and Ed Harris

An entertaining follow up to National Treasure, Book Of Secrets provides more of the same in treasure hunting adventure, complex government conspiracies and puzzles to be solved. This series of films succeeds in being a more fun Da Vinci Code style of film though still provides nothing that could come close to challenge the fun and adventure of the Indiana Jones films.

Nicolas Cage returns as our hero, Benjamin Gates, and slips right back into character. Cage clearly enjoys the adventure and his brand of tics and behavioural eccentricities is more acceptable when he's playing a role for enjoyment (rather than playing things deadly serious where his mannerisms can distract). Most of the cast is also lured back from the first film too. Diane Kruger is more fun this time around though her performance is still a little wooden and lifeless at times. Jon Voight is given more to do which is welcome and Helen Mirren is a nice addition to the cast. Justin Bartha plays the role of comedy sidekick with relish although it is disappointing to find Harvey Keitel sidelined to a virtual cameo role and Ed Harris as our main villain is fine but just a rehash of his earlier roles.

The plot itself is fun in its unbelievability, taking us from America to Paris, to Buckingham Palice in London, to The White House and then to Mount Rushmore collecting clues and artifacts while kidnapping the American President and finding a book full of U.S. conspiracies (including Area 51 and the JFK assassination) along the way. Enough little facts and educational tidbits are thrown in to make the plot seem more plausible (and make the film more educational, it being financed by Disney as a family film) though the attempt to cram as much of history into its mystery sometimes feels excessively forced and threatens on occasion to bring the momentum crashing down under the weight of it's own ambition.

The climax of the film though is a little disappointing though. The final sequences under Mount Rushmore is a virtual carbon copy of the first film's down to near-identical death traps, villains and with the reveal of the treasure although, like with the first film, it's certainly refreshing to see actual sets and props being used instead of turning to CGI.

Overall, this is a fun film if predictable but is suitable for the whole family. However, it seems set to spawn further installments in the attempt of making National Treasure a franchise and to succeed it will need to show a little more focus and a little less formula than seen in this sequel.

Rating: 3/5

My Blueberry Nights

Director: Wong Kar Wai
Starring: Norah Jones, Jude Law, Natalie Portman & David Strathairn

An interesting effort from Wong Kar Wai to try and transfer his style of romanticism to an English-language film.

Wong Kar Wai is an aquired taste. He is well known for his visual style, pop music soundtracks and his desire to explore romance through wistful glances and silences over traditional speeches. His dialogue feels natural and the mood his films evoke often feel unreal, magical. Of course for every fan (like myself) there are those who find his films slow with little happening (or at least it seems that way at a glance).

My Blueberry Nights marks Wong Kar Wai's first attempt at an English-language film in an effort to see if his style translates as well overseas. The results are mixed. The opening half hour feels like vintage Wong Kar Wai as an English cafe owner (Jude Law) spends his evenings getting to know a young woman (Norah Jones) over blueberry pie as she copes with the end of a recent relationship. The mood is similar to that of Chungking Express and Jude Law fits into the mood of the film well and Norah Jones does so especially. Her character is a quiet one, not given to long conversations but rather learns from those she's with as she tries to figure out who she is. In her first film role, musician Norah Jones impresses with a subtle performance.

The same cannot be said of every performance in the film. While there are no 'bad' performances, some just suffer in comparison to those in the directors other films or even the actor's own earlier perfomances. One example is Natalie Portman. While engaging, her character feels like Portman based her mannerisms on those used in Garden State or Closer but without being as well realised. Rachel Weisz appears as the ex-wife of David Strathairn's boozy policeman and delievers 'sultry floozy' well enough but lacks the glamour and walk of Maggie Chung or Gong Li.

Outside of Jones and Law, the only other impressive performance comes from David Strathairn as an alcoholic policeman drinking to forget and deny the pain of his marriage to Weisz's character ending. You can feel the pain in his silences and feel sorrow.

For his first film overseas, Wong Kar Wai has a new cinematographer in Darius Khondji (Se7en) and, luckilly, he manages to capture the style of Christopher Doyle well. The opening and closing scenes in Law's cafe look especially beautiful with rich colours, reflecting light and smooth camera moves between the characters as the converse. Visually, the style has been translated effectively as has Wong Kar Wai's skill in building a strong, mood setting soundtrack using classic pop tunes.

Overall, this film is a strong attempt, by a skilled director, in translating his style abroad. It is visually rich, the mood and atmosphere is maintained and performances are solid, though not outstanding. It doesn't stand up to his previous efforts, and while future English-language films will no doubt improve, I hope Wong Kar Wai does not leave his roots behind permanently.

Rating: 3/5

Rambo

Director: Sylvester Stallone
Starring: Sylvester Stallone, Julie Benz & Matthew Marsden

Sylvester Stallone returns to the big screen with a new installment of the Rambo series after a twenty year absence.

After successfully resurrecting the Rocky franchise in 2007 with Rocky Balboa, Sylvester Stallone tries to achieve similar success by resurrecting another character he was famous for portraying after an even longer absence. However, while Rocky Balboa successfully capitalized on the period of absence between it and the last Rocky film by making it an underdog story of an old boxer looking for lost glory in a sport that has changed as much as he has, Rambo instead rehashes old attitudes without updating them to make them relevant to new audiences.

Whilst a fondly remembered, if not critically acclaimed, franchise from the 1980s, the Rambo films main themes were its message that “War is Hell” and in its conviction that John Rambo is a man can that take on all opponents. While the original Rambo films and its lead character were a response to the, then recent, Vietnam War, this new installment in the franchise chooses neither to re-visit that old conflict or confront any the conflicts taking place today. Taking place in Burma, its villains seem faceless and under-developed. Little motivation is given for why the villains exist or do what they do being stereotypical soldiers/slave traders living in the jungle and instead seem to serve no more purpose than to give Rambo someone to fight and to have people to save.

Sylvester Stallone also struggles somewhat in reviving the role of Rambo. Where Stallone’s age helped with his performance in Rocky Balboa, here it hinders it. While he offers many a gruff one liner or stoic sentiment regarding the necessity to confront violence with violence, his age and appearance makes it seem even more unbelievable that he can fight off soldiers in the numbers he faces here than it did in the original films. Even Stallone submits to the reality at first that Rambo is no longer a one man army when, as he goes on a mission to save some missionaries he helped earlier in the film, he realizes the need to hire mercenaries to assist him in his rescue mission. These mercenaries, while fulfilling almost every stereotypical class of soldier, also mean that Stallone’s Rambo sits out of most of the action until the final 15/20 minutes and then proceeds to accomplish what the mercenaries could not.

Despite the thin plot and characters, Rambo does succeed in delivering some decent action/battle sequences. Dark, gritty and violent, even by 1980s action movie standards, the battle scenes leave an impression. It is certainly enough to satisfy Rambo fans or fans of 1980s style action films though if Stallone is intending a deeper meaning in his presentation of violence then it is somewhat lost in the later scenes and the use of operatic music in earlier scenes when the missionaries, that Rambo is out to rescue, are captured comes of heavy-handed.

Overall, Rambo is a missed opportunity to revisit a character whilst addressing more recent attitudes to war. While Stallone’s attempts to capture the look, feel and message of the earlier films are successful enough to entertain the more hardcore fans, it nevertheless feels too dated and unoriginal to impress new or more critical audiences.

Rating: 2/5