James Gray directs Charlie Hunnam, Robert Pattinson and Sienna Miller in this true life tale of a career soldier and family man who became obsesssed with exploring the South American wilds for proof of a hidden civilisation.

I have struggled with my feelings for this one. Like Gray’s previous gangster flicks it has a rich golden warmth, an intricate nostalgic look and an air of intelligent mediation that suggests a work of quality and lasting merit. Yet like We Own the Night or The Yards it also just passively sits up there on the screen, distant and uninvolving, echoing better movies (in this case Fitzcarraldo and Apocalypse Now). Now there is Leanian ambition here and a riveting enough story here that my mind has drifted back more than a few times to it over the week as an experience. Retrospectively I’m struggling to dismiss its grand narrative, enthusiastic mysticism and measured visual metaphors. And a middle expedition hampered by an absolutely pompous shit of a human added a little much needed fun and humanity to the endeavour, which I loved. Fuck, I’m going to have to watch this again to be sure, aren’t I?

6

 

Andrew V. McLaglen directs John Wayne, George Kennedy and Neville Brand in this late western about an absent lawman who wants to see his boys do the right thing when they get tangled up with some bank robbers. 

The pre credit sequence is fantastic; a fake snow studio set of baddies around a hillside campfire, The Duke turns up, blathers confidentially with them, gunfire on the title card… you can imagine a little Quentin Tarantino in his Speed Racer pyjamas spitting his Fruit Loops out at the TV screen in a road to Damascus moment. After those opening credits though, you get a mawkish and meandering plodder, a distracted lead turn from the normally solid Wayne and only George Kennedy’s fake moustache really hitting its marks with any sense of urgency. For completists only.

5

Ken Loach directs Barry Ward, Simone Kirby and Jim Norton in this glorification of a rural Irish communist. 

A minor movie from Loach but also one of his most beautiful and likeable ones. A red flag The Quiet Man for all intents and purposes, catnip to me. You get plenty craftsy period lushness, peaty rainsoaked romance moments and cheeky escapes. You also suffer from Loach’s habit of casting authentic people rather than pro actors in support roles. Here the amateurs really struggle and detract. Sure, it is all viewed through rose tinted glasses and a thick layer of one sided lefty beatification… but then why shouldn’t normal people who fought for education, solidarity and social freedom be treated like saints in this movie age of winsome princesses and billionaire vigilantes?

7