Victor Fleming directs Ingrid Bergman, José Ferrer and Francis L. Sullivan in this period drama following the virgin saint’s journey from warrior prophet to burned heretic.
A confession. I watched this over a series of nights in chunks before I fell asleep. And it is so stodgy and turgid that my eyes started to droop after only 10 minutes most evenings. It is not a complete write-off; there’s a pretty hack happy battle in the middle, the cinematography become very beautiful in the final moments. But this is now an inessential relic.
Jaume Collet-Serra directs Liam Neeson, Julianne Moore and Michelle Dockery in this action mystery where a drunk Federal Air Marshall must solve who is killing his passengers on a transatlantic flight.
I have an absolute blast every time I watch Non-Stop. Like all his slick and glossy B-Movies, this has Neeson kicking ass, taking names and threatening to be the fine actor he once was rather than pleasingly ridiculous movie star he has become. What elevates this particular mid budget slab of hokum above the other vehicles is it is utterly, utterly barmy yet also plotted as water tight as a duck’s bum. There are 720 degree twists that would make Agatha Christie piss her knickers and disaster movie escalations that would make the Airplane! team chuckle at their ludicrous catastrophic unlikeliness. Yet both forms of gamble are executed with over confident finesse continually. Non-Stop is far too compulsive and hectoring (just like its hulking star) to pick at or give up on. I loved it at the cinema on release and have watched it in bits in hotel rooms with sound down late night a few occasions since. This is my first full rewatch and I’m quite happy to say it is the best thing Neeson, Moore, doomed aeroplanes and international terrorists have done this century. The below score is generous but what else can you give as unashamed and thrusting an entertainment as Non-Stop?! Popcorn heaven.
Ken Annakin directs John Mills, Dorothy McGuire and Janet Munro in this blockbuster family adventure where a shipwrecked clan colonise their island paradise.
One of the most popular films of its day, this is pretty much non-stop peril or larks. Invariably though every scene involves shrill, bland child actors or animal cruelty. I didn’t feel guilty napping during the middle act. Movies like this exist to fill rainy afternoons in the summer holidays.
Ridley Scott directs Susan Sarandon, Geena Davis and Harvey Keitel in this road movie where two put-upon women find themselves on the run from the law and the men who take advantage of them.
While I appreciate its cultural importance and how beloved it is by many, T&L has never done much for me personally. Once it sets its actresses on a road to oblivion the script spins its wheels and goes in circles until the iconic finale. Sarandon is superb as always (tough and tender) but the usually reliable Davis’ doesn’t hit the right blend of naivety and hedonism so becomes grating. The men are pretty useless to the point of caricature… it says something when Mr Blonde plays the most sympathetic support… but Brad Pitt makes an impact in his star making turn as a baby faced hustler. Scott has a good outsider’s eye for Americana and in the final act leans towards the spectacular over the believable. Considering this is a popcorn fantasy, that is an acceptable alternative to realism.
Luc Besson directs Jean Reno, Natalie Portman and Gary Oldman in this action thriller where a loner assassin takes in the neighbour’s twelve year old daughter when her family is killed by dirty D.E.A. agents.
Like Miller’s Crossing, this is a film I fell in love with when I was hardwiring my movie tastes and obsessions to the point where it felt undeniably like my own, sole possession. I know this movie back to front, left to right, beanie hat to bullet casing. The perfect movie for a quiet teenage boy – the action is crisp and impactful, the plotting clean and purposeful, the emotional content relatable and spellbinding, the visuals iconic and believable, the backstreet Manhattan location work exotic yet recognisable, the relationship between Léon and Mathilda is both Tarantino fairy tale wish fulfilment and bubbling with nascent sexual tension.
I think it is fine to give the riskier moments of attraction between the man child and streetwise Lolita a pass if you are a teenager watching this. You know Léon is a hulking innocent, more paternal than predatory… so the precocious child who is playing with sexual fire is completely safe to crush on and flirt with her saviour. And yes, I know Besson was impregnating an underage girl at the time of the movie’s inception (she even appears as a hooker… ugh!) but that creepiness and queasiness can be separated by the sheer class of the pure hearted hyper violent adventure as it unfolds. Besson the man may be a questionable character but Besson the storyteller here wisely defines separate sleeping areas for his unlikely leads and an unspoken but strictly imposed line that his adult killer will not cross. If only he did that in real life, hey? Too many words on a footnote about this masterpiece…
What makes Léon: The Professional god tier is four superb performances. Danny Aiello’s complex mob organiser… exploiting our Léon but clearly with a fatherly affection that goes beyond manipulation. Jean Reno’s wonderful innocent hitman… believable both as an artist for destructive death and an illiterate naïf in all other matters. Natalie Portman’s orphaned protégé… take out the lurches into kink and what bullied kid would want to train with the greatest contract killer in Little Italy? Like I say, wish fulfilment. She matches the adults scene for scene, line for line. A star is born. But maniac of the match is Gary Oldman’s pill popping, Beethoven loving Stansfield… a beautifully attired, utterly quotable bastard man. He dominates every frame, often those poor frames cannot contain him, in an performance that is delightfully hammy as it is unpredictably lethal. The stuff of genre movie dreams. “Death is… whimsical… today…”
Christian Petzold directs Franz Rogowski, Paula Beer and Godehard Giese in this period-bending WWII thriller set in modern day Marseille, where refugees try to gain passage, visas and transits on ships before occupying forces “cleanse” their port.
A cracking thriller / romance with the existential attitude and atmosphere of a Camus story. Though based on Anna Seghers’s 1944 novel (and I would assume relatively faithfully), this is filmed as though set in 2018. The clothes and props are often period, the technology and locations unashamedly current, the dialogue and political backdrop ambiguous. Rather than taking you out of the human drama and the oppressive fatalism of the refugees’ plight, it actually makes you engage with parallels of today’s geopolitics and the tragedies of the past. Rogowski and Beer make for a pairing almost as attractive and alluring as Rick and Ilsa in Casablanca. Effective and gripping.
Dominik Graf directs Herbert Knaup, Katja Flint and Hansa Czypionka in this German police thriller where a special forces cop gets dragged into a world of corruption and conspiracy when he recognises his dead partner on a raid.
A decent police thriller that might have been more praiseworthy if it were a four part miniseries or an airport novel. As a feature film, Graf brings it in terms of its set pieces, savagery and explicit sex. But there’s something quite pedestrian about the unravelling plot, paranoid tropes and soapy revelations. More Prime Suspect than The Wire in it sophistication and depth. The version we watched had “lost” video grade footage spliced back in that was excised at time of release. The glaring reinstated scenes mainly consist of laddish banter between the SWAT colleagues, these add little to the overall story or milieu but maybe were enough to at least justify a re-release and reappraisal. Not a terrible way to spend a Saturday night but no overlooked classic either!
Alfred Hitchcock directs Paul Newman, Julie Andrews and Lila Kedrova in this espionage thriller where an American scientist defects over to the Soviets… only for his unwitting girlfriend to follow him beyond the Iron Curtain.
Nobody’s favourite Hitchcock. The set-pieces are actually pretty awesome – an arduous drawn-out murder, a bus ride con, a chase against a sea of escaping bodies! All these wonderful burst of extended tension are expertly orchestrated. The plot that strings them loosely together is wayward and unfocused. A few more drafts of the screenplay might have wrung a bit more mileage out of Newman and Andrews’ mistrust of each other’s motivations. Instead we often tread water – with Newman avoiding letting his beloved in on the grand scheme and her waiting in reception areas until the great escape picks up pace. Neither star feel particularly stretched in their bland roles and they certainly don’t generate any heat as a potential red hot pairing. Torn Curtain still fills an afternoon neatly, the now unknown faces who populate the film make up for the mismatched leads. If anything Torn Curtain reminds one most of Hitchcock’s Thirties thrillers where couples jauntily evaded the continental saboteurs and the double agents of a totalitarian regime. Maybe this style of thriller had its day back when the Allieds took Germany? It certainly feels creaky sitting between Marnie and Frenzy.
Just Jaeckin directs Corinne Cléry, Udo Kier and Anthony Steel in this softcore Eurotrash adaptation of the classic anonymous work of erotic literature.
Corinne Clery is very attractive on the eye, comfortable with her near constant nudity and the often ridiculous S&M contortions she has to make. The secret cabal of subs and doms world of hidden chateaus and cultish rituals is essayed quite convincingly. But Jeackin’s direction is uninvolving, the characters all remain insipid blanks and there is very little for the ladies in terms of beefcake or nudity to make it a workable “couples film”. A dirty mac museum piece with a nice visual language all of it own.
John Boorman directs Lee Marvin, Angie Dickinson and John Vernon in this classic thriller where a left-for-dead career criminal stalks the partner, the wife and the organisation who have his $93,000.
Richard Stark’s The Hunter is one of my favourite novels. A focussed, resourceful and amoral individual taking down a syndicate that is too big to fail. It is the template for a fantastic thriller and has had many incarnations over the years. Mel Gibson’s Payback is probably the most popular. Robert Duvall’s The Outfit is probably the most faithful adaptation, even though it is based in name on a different novel. But when I read a Parker novel, I see Lee Marvin. I see Lee Marvin marching like an invading army of one. I see Lee Marvin in his immaculate suits. I see Lee Marvin like a vengeful otherworld wraith that barely acknowledges his adversaries existence unless he is killing them or demanding what is his. Sure, the artier aspects of Boorman’s direction befuddle the purity a little bit. This 80% pure Siegel or Fuller, 20% Swinging Sixties mustard. Those elliptical flashbacks and allusions to the supernatural are cream for critics but sour for those of us who just want to see a brutal man take down the suits. Three last words: Angie Dickinson – smoking!
Bobby Carroll's Movie Diary 