Review: Blackhat

Year: 2015

Director: Micheal Mann

Screenplay: Morgan Davis Foehl

Starring: Chris Hemsworth, Tang Wei, Viola Davis, Holt McCallany, and Wang Leehom.

Synopsis is here

It’s happened again. A film comes out and makes no money. The reviews for it are pretty dreadful, and here I am, finding it to be it to be an enjoyable piece of entertainment. Garnering interest in things others had little time for. Finding excitement in areas where people saw none. Blackhat isn’t the strongest of Micheal Mann’s filmography. It’s not even the best in his latter digital photography phase, but I found much to enjoy in this film that the slightly garbled plot and blunt dialogue couldn’t really deter. Blackhat isn’t just timely, but utilises stakes in a way that certain espionage films aren’t bothered with.

It seemed one or two reviews were more preoccupied upon whether an attractive man such as Hemsworth could be a hacker than the films deeper and timely insights of globalised cops and criminals and the ease of new tech attacking capitalism from the inside. We may not be looking at the Deepweb, but the way Mann focuses this imagery on the comparative ease of short range Bluetooth exchanges, before expanding to the vast destruction of a nuclear station shot helps highlight just how easily we can be infiltrated. Jokes made about Mann’s Fincher-like swooping visuals of circuity (a la 1995’s Hackers) seemed to have just how deep inside the wiring Mann delves, how small the RAT (Remote Access Tool) is and how truly high such a small blinking light makes the stakes. When the plan of the antagonist and the material it looks to limit is revealed, I really don’t believe only I held on to my smart phone a little tighter.

As a film viewer who’s already in love with Mann’s visual style, I found myself adoring the films look. The use of space and form I found at times as exceptional. Mann gracefully moves from cramped, detailed intersections of computers and concerned faces to vast exotic landscapes under threat for nothing. While wide shots of huge, broken industrial structures show just how far the damage can range. Various shots and moments carry a weight to them that would simply not be featured in a film considered more bog standard. Mann adds to this with more of his trademark shootouts. All of which are still strikingly well staged, including a beautifully composed and brutally tense finale set during a recreation of Indonesia’s Balinese Nyepi Day festival, which is currently contending with the church sequence in The Kingsmen as the most notable action set piece of the year.  

The film's casting is not only solid, but varied and diverse. Hemsworth may not have the craggy, lived in look of James Caan (Thief), but he proves that he’s a neatly calculated choice as a leading man, who holds a similar, cool swagger to that of Colin Farrell in Miami Vice (2006). It’s easy to see the similarities between Hemsworth’s Nick Hathaway and his love interest Chen (Tang Wei), and the relationship forged in Miami Vice between Farrell’s Crockett and Isabella (Gong Li). Whether you’re interested in what occurs and how, may depend on your feelings on that previous relationship. Both Wei and Viola Davis both illustrate the kind agency that is so often missing in other films of this ilk.

Frustratingly, Blackhat’s lackluster box office performance, limited itself as a decent piece of counterprogramming at a time where 50 Shades of Grey demolished records, with its strong performance. The poor American box office is probably one of the reasons, we saw a reduced number of cinemas screening it. This combined with the film’s confused marketing, and dismissive reviews helped hide a film which holds far more resonance and smarts than people had expected. For me; Blackhat’s timely themes alone make it worth seeking out. When Mann then adds his beautiful visuals and striking action, it certainly made the 20 mile trip I had to make to see it even more worthwhile.

Review: The Kingsmen: The Secret Service

Year: 2015

Director: Matthew Vaughan

Screenplay: Matthew Vaughan, Jane Goldman

Starring: Colin Firth, Samuel L. Jackson, Mark Strong, Taron Egerton and Michael Caine.

Synopsis is here:

I’ll probably keep this short and sweet. The Kingsmen is juvenile in the purest way. It’s more violent than it probably needs to be. There’s an air of smugness about it all, and any real message about Britian’s ongoing issues with class is lost in a medley of body slicing, literal bible bashing and inappropriate sexual gags. Despite all this, the film is so strangely cathartic in its displays of bad taste, I found it hard not to smirk. At a time in which James Bond has gone “back to basics” and reverted back to its original boys club with so much seriousness. The Kingsmen’s silliness do give an odd sense of relief, despite its raspberry blowing bad taste. Matthew Vaughn’s pulp sensibilities are strong, and the balance often feels right.

It’s clear Kingsmen wishes to be a more out and out, subversive take on the British spy genre (something you feel that Vaughan has been angling at since Layer Cake), but despite this, the film still leans towards the conservative elements that the likes of Bond have never truly shaken off (consider where we sit at the end of Skyfall). There’s lots of talk on gentlemanly conduct and nobleness. Yet the film seemingly wishes to clearly establish a certain type of Britishness. Converting the rough around the edges Eggsy (a confident Taron Egerton) to a Kingsman is a relatively fun hero’s journey, but it doesn’t hit the peak of subversion that Joe Cornish’s Attack the Block (2011) brought across. The film never really takes or challenges the Bond mantle, it mimics the franchises absurdity under a veneer of colourful gloss.

This isn’t really a problem, however, depending on how you feel about the likes of Mark Miller (writer of the comic book the film is based on). Vaughn’s brazen joy of staging Miller’s near nihilistic tendencies is the tipping scale of enjoying this film. A church sequence which involves the fatal causalities of many nasty (yet innocent) people, has caused issues with some, yet is so brilliantly executed it is hard not to admire. A particular joke near the end of the film has caused a certain amount of controversy – rightly so when reading the credits to see who Vaughan makes the film in memory of – but to me, only really highlights the type of provocations that Connery and the like were getting away with for decades. Muddled and icky? Yes, yet no more than the general politics of the film and it’s clear that if you’re a fan of Vaughan’s brand of humour, you can see the nonsense of it all.

I won’t lie. As someone as centre-left leaning as I consider myself, I didn’t find myself completely hating the films puerility as much as I often would in similar films. Vaughan’s keen direction and the solid cast clearly wish for you to be in on the joke. The Kingsmen has a sensation of a sugary cinematic purge which wants us to get in touch with some of our baser reasons for going to the cinema, before we’re reminded of our more levelled head sensibilities. I know many who will disagree with me and their reasons will be totally justifiable. But I went into this film holding a Tango Ice Blast. I think helps establish the type of film I was expecting.

Review: It Follows

Year: 2014 (U.K release 2015)

Director: David Robert Mitchell

Screenplay: David Robert Mitchell

Starring: Maika Monroe, Keir Gilchrist, Jake Weary

Synopsis is here

A friend of mine, warned me about It Follows not being “scary” in the slightest. Informing me of the walkouts he had in his screening, he was quick to label the film as pretentious. Once that word was used I was wary about his reaction. However, when the film made a splash with some of my other film friends last year at the London Film Festival, I was even more cautious. I saw one tweet from an acquaintance labelling it as one of the horror films of the decade. After finally viewing the film on the Saturday of its opening weekend. I can safely say that while I lay somewhere in the middle of both reactions, the film’s unsettling style and thoughtful subtext had me wondering about the film in fascination for a good two days.

It Follows is not scary in the now more conventional sense of long banging jump scares (although one such moment is perfectly handled). The film mines great amounts of discomfort from it’s startlingly simple premise. If you have sex with someone who has had “it” passed on to them, then “it”, a shape shifting apparition, will follow you. It makes a beeline for you. It’s slow, yet unrelenting. It can look like someone you know, or a complete stranger. Once “it” has you, then it leaves your mangled corpse before moving on to the person who passed it before.

Part of the film’s strangeness comes from the various human forms the shape takes. One of the earlier scenes has us witness “it” as an elderly woman. Once you consider the films mechanics, the film becomes more disquieting. It takes forms of people these teens know and love. This not only disarms the youths, but also implies transgressive consanguinity based anxieties, which are difficult to shake off. Two of the key scenes are quick to remind you not only of the absence of adults, but also the destruction of the suburban family. A well-known component of U.S horror, which often rears its head amongst the strongest entries of the genre.

Then the film contrasts this with the way it observes teenage sexually (particularly female) and relationships. Marking them with a keen eye for closeness and rapport. While the dialogue isn't remarkable, the performances do grow as the film continues and the icky creepiness of the premise and the cold deliberate dread of the film then really takes hold. Highlighting relationships, not too dissimilar to the seemingly parentless teens who permeate the films of Larry Clark. A sense of loneliness begins to penetrate throughout. Parents are often heard but never really seen, while most of the information shared between the kids never trickles up to them, only emphasizing the generation gaps and isolation.  

The main reason the film manages to instill such a beautiful sense of dread, is its cinematography. Excuse me for my hyperbole (I’m sure you have before), but I can’t think of a horror film which lies so much fear on such precise compositions. Utilising the widescreen format (as well as autumn, suburb setting) in a way that harks back to one of horror’s granddaddies: Halloween. While so many horror films have attacked the forefront and centre. It Follows, like Halloween, understands just how disturbing things are when we’re not fully focused on them. Things don’t jump out in It Follows, they stalk towards. Close ups make us restless, as due to their tightness, we can’t peer round the frame. Innocuous background characters, suddenly pose threat when walking into the shallow depth of field.  The film becomes a “Guess Who” of the genre, gleefully recalling the “did you see that” feeling of Carpenters 1978 hit feature.

Unfortunately It Follows sometimes suffers from some frustrations. A character informs another of a certain rule and it’s broken with a hint of irony. One could easily place this down to fear and I urge you should for more enjoyment. However, the fact that characters play a little fast and loose with the rules more than once, only reminds me of just how Scream (1996) broke a generation of film goers. The film also feels more than a little indulgent at the best of times. Not all the directorial flourishes always help tell the story or build the character while the music often comes off as more jarring and incessant. 

However, by the end of the film, It Follows posed questions and feelings that, much like Kill List (2009), or Ringu (1998) provoked me with a complexity and ambition that I so often crave from a horror film. Much of the films beauty lies in the fact that despite having elements that will remind folks of Kids (1995), Final Destination (2000), Under the Skin (2014), The Terminator (1984), The Night of the Hunter (1955) or the photographic works of Gregory Crewdson, It Follows never feels like it a list of obvious homages. It never rests on its retro leanings or its laurels. It uses subtext to its advantage and does what I feel a good horror should do: make the mundane feel frightening. It Follows sets a high bar for horror movies in 2015. Unlike my friend in the first paragraph, I hope that the other contenders can keep up. 

Review: Foxcatcher

Year: 2014 (2015 U.K release)

Director: Bennett Miller

Screenplay: E. Max Frye, Dan Futterman

Starring: Channing Tatum, Steve Carrell, Mark Ruffalo

Synopsis is here

There’s a mordant sense of humour running through Miller’s Foxcatcher that creeps up from time to time. Something you shouldn’t think should appear and yet is quite welcoming when it does. Watching protagonist (Tatum) strain his reasons on why winning Olympic gold is important, to a bunch of wide eyed, befuddled children has a quiet drollness to it. As is the twisted matter of Bennet Miller’s American true crime drama is ultimately a Greek Tragedy of dysfunctional families, set within the world of competitive wresting, which of course became prominent in Ancient Greece.

It’s too bad that despite having such a sense of self, Foxcatcher is such a distancing slog to get through. It’s a film which is competently crafted and features a trio of performances which, with their differing areas of physicality, do raise an eyebrow from scene to scene. The first, awkward engagement between Tatum’s Mark Schultz and his brother Dave (Ruffalo) is such an interesting jumbled mess of sibling tension and force I had high hopes for where the rest of the film was heading. Unfortunately, two considerably long hours later, I found myself still no deeper than the scratches that may have been caused during this first grapple. The tragedy between these brothers is indeed upsetting, but Miller’s remarkably static film did little to stir.

The film is understandably meant to be a little cold, as the characters we follow the most are not only unlikely bedfellows, but difficult people to engage with due to their simmering tensions between class and family. The scene in which Steve Carrell’s John E du Pont first meets Dave and his family is one of the more potent moments. Miller’s simple blocking of the scene easily show the division between the blue collar yet connected family, and the isolated aristocrat trying to purchase his way into such a warm relationship. Such moments highlight the discomfort accordingly.

Despite this, I found myself so alienated by the films blunt, matter of fact approach, I struggled to identify fully with the proceedings. This is obviously not a film to “enjoy” in the typical sense, yet at no point did my own defences go down for what was happening on the screen. The films immensely dour approach and turgid pace overshadowed the films main attractions: The cast.

Channing Tatum’s Mark is brusque and stoic creature. His jutted out jaw, furrowed brow and physical stature, hides his character’s naïve ideals which slowly seep through as the film pushes on. The roles help show the actor’s ability to corrupt the dumb, man child nature that many have known him for when cast the amusing Jump Street films. Mark Ruffalo; ever the effective character actor, morphs his poise beautifully as he becomes the film’s heart. He makes being the film only emotional link look far too easy for his own good. The intensely creepy Du Pont has Carrell channeling his inner Bela Lugosi to good measure. However, observing the real Du Pont, makes the clipped mannerisms of Carrell feel a tad overblown. There’s also a feeling that delving into the grey matter of such a troubled being is a step too far. As such, Du Pont feels a lot like a cartoon boogeyman stuck in a high class crime reconstruction. The heavy makeup doesn’t help matters.

Between this and Moneyball, Bennett Miller is locating fascinating subject matter within modern sports to focus his energies on. Foxcatcher however, does little to make me delve into the backstories of this unfortunate event in the same way that Moneyball opened my eyes to the modern ideas that lay within America’s favourite pastime. If I saw myself viewing this film again, there’s a good chance I’d be tapping out early.

Review: Inherent Vice

Year: 2014 (U.K Release 2015)
Director: Paul Thomas Anderson
Screenplay: Paul Thomas Anderson
Starring: Joaquin Phoenix, Josh Brolin, Owen Wilson, Katherine Waterston, Reese Witherspoon, Benicio del Toro, Jena Malone, Joanna Newsom, and Martin Short.

Synopsis is here:

I don’t know where to start or what to say. Inherent Vice; Paul Thomas Anderson’s seventh feature film, is scuzzy, meandering and near meaningless. It’s a shaggy dog story, which is even less accessible than Anderson’s previous film; The Master (2012), which had many screaming in maddening frustration. I say this as if I had an issue with the film. I write those words as if I had hated my time I spent with Doc Sportello and the gang of misfits we’re introduced to.

I didn’t hate Inherent Vice. If anything I may have already found my first favourite film of the year. By the time Vice had its final credit run up the screen. I had myself having to convince myself that I didn’t have the time to watch the film again. I went to the nearest retail store and brought the soundtrack instead, to tide me over until I have the space in my schedule to for some more cinema time, or even worse, wait until the Blu-ray. I just wanted to spend more time in this world, with these characters immediately. I loved the film that much.

If anyone was going to create a rambling, blissed filled homage to the noirs of old, it had to be Anderson. Inherent Vice maybe an adaptation of Thomas Pynchon’s equally as wandering novel, but it’s also another chance for Anderson to let his shoulders droop, reference his favourite influences and get a little loose after two of his most austere features to date.

It may be a cop out to say this, but Inherent Vice is a film about mood and character rather than story. It's a film dictated by its time and location as opposed to anything else. A world of mumble mouthed hippies, jive talkers and dopers, whose time is spent stumbling around looking for what they've lost. Plot flitters into view and yet remains out of reach. Red herrings swerve manically into view, taking time to roll up some grass and talk about nothing. This is a vacuum left by the death of the swinging sixties. The revolution lost by the dreamers and won by the squares. It’s a tad silly to try and pinpoint the logic of these people and the shaggy dog tangents they cook up. Spend enough time with these guys and you release: “What makes sense to these guys?”

“We blew it” was the hotly contested line of 1969’s Easy Rider. Often considered as a remark that hints at the end of the counterculture lifestyle enjoyed by Billy and Wyatt. Vice often feels like we’re watching the walking dead of that culture, looking to soak up any remnants that may exist. Doc (yet another superlative Joaquin Phoenix performance) appears to be taking case after case to fuel his drug habit more than anything else. Yet the real drive of the story is the disappearance of his girlfriend Stasta, who originally sets him on his merry way of missing real estate developer, shady crime syndicates and new age cultism. Each “case” shows at least one aspect of how the hippie culture slowly began to eat itself. As does the recurring talk of Charles Mansion, whose crimes linger in the air like a sour stench. Once Stasta disappears, we nearly only ever see her again in hazy flashback and drifting transitions, almost as if she was a dream and that as an actual entirety, never really existed.

Younger, alleged film writers like myself can only really dream of this era, but the way Anderson and cinematographer Robert Elswit capture the sun kissed beaches, creepy upscale asylums and run down brothels is so remarkably textured and authentic that it makes a strong impression. Yet despite its lazy, slightly woozy surroundings, a strong element of farce and slapstick often pervades and punctuates scenes. Much Like Elliott Gould in Robert Altman’s The Long Goodbye (1973), Doc is a private eye whose street smarts give him high cultural currency, yet his cluelessness about just how the strings of his cases are being pulled, allowing a large amount of comedy at his expense. For a film which is often at times highly melancholic, in a genre that was always considered to be grim, it’s refreshing to see just how often Anderson (a big SNL fan) goes for hard laughs.  Gleefully aiming at the sheer preposterous of it all.

Despite the talk of the film’s murky and multiple plot lines, I found the main intentions of the film to be abundantly clear (in my eyes). Of course, while the actual message of the film lie within the eye of the beholder, I feel it’s safe to say Inherent Vice is a wistful film about loss. Every character is found wanting and chasing for something that either no longer open to them or disappearing in front of their eyes. Like all of Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest period of films, Inherent Vice has its director peering into both the deaths and beginnings of eras and revolutions and observing the fallout through their failed relationships. Vice is not only is the most nostalgic of Anderson’s recent endeavours, amusingly harking back to the heady days of Boogie Nights (1997). Looking at Vice with all its exasperated plot strands, paranoid theories and generally warming glances back at nostalgia, manages to help establish Anderson as one of the most entertaining chroniclers of modern American history currently working.