Paweł Pawlikowski directs Joanna Kulig, Tomasz Kot and Borys Szyc in this doomed romance film following a world weary music teacher and a grifting young singer as they fall in and out love over decades of Soviet rule in Poland. 

Hauntingly beautiful black and white photography capture the sexiest onscreen pairing in years. Broken and imperfect, internally and externally, you feel the attraction and the betrayals of this mismatched pair. The novella like format reduces what should be Doctor Zhivago epic love story down to a series of elliptical vignettes. Compelling, seductive, misanthropic stuff.

8

 

Denis Villeneuve directs Hugh Jackman, Jake Gyllenhaal and Paul Dano in this grim thriller where a set of parents make dehumanising choices after their children go missing and the police release their only suspect. 

Villeneuve is clearly a fine filmmaker. He approaches his cinematic storytelling with patient mastery, both unshowy yet confidently deliberate. He imbues his genre works with a craft that elevates them up out of being mere entertainments. And Prisoners, like all his other projects, skirts around some unwieldy issues without ever letting them consume the narrative propulsion. Faith, grief, child abuse, vigilantism, torture, truth, alcoholism, class and parenting are all explored in their darkest aspects. He wrings out committed, subtle performances from an enviable mix of big name stars and A-game supporting actors (Dano is excellently creepy). The film has small scale set pieces that grip and motor the generous running time. The thickly tangled mysteries and twists surprise though make sense as they unravel. And yet… and yet… the film leaves me cold. Both watches I appreciated the top to bottom quality of the production, the sensitive exploitation of the risky subject matter and the intelligence with which the ideas were batted about. Yet I just can’t get attached to Prisoners beyond deserved respect. An unjustifiable forcefield exists that stops the film from touching me, provoking me. Happened at the cinema, happened here on an open minded revisit. It is a movie that does everything right, except win me over. I’m left watching a daring formal exercise that doesn’t put a foot wrong, that should be my kind of cinema, wondering why I care so little about it… during and after.

6

Perry Henzell directs Jimmy Cliff, Carl Bradshaw and Janet Bartley in this Jamaican drama that switches into a crime thriller, starring the reggae superstar.

A movie that will always be more famous for its perfect reggae soundtrack (one of the best LPs ever released) than its content. The music from Cliff and contemporaries gives the haphazard plot an energy and life that not even far less naive jukebox movies have ever matched. The first half follows a country boy with a dream struggling to survive in the big bad city. It is a simple piece of neo-realistic filmmaking, one that fits Cliff’s limited but charming central turn. And while he has a hard time making his mark in Kingston, a city of corruption and hypocrisy, you couldn’t predict where the film will swerve halfway in… unless you’ve seen him brandishing guns on the poster. Midway through his tough new life, Cliff’s Ivanhoe Martin goes to the cinema and watches a cowboy movie. He cheers at the black hat taking down the law. Then for rest of our story his hustle shifts; he records a hit song, gets the girl, becomes a drug dealer, an outlaw and a folk hero. Is this a hard working boy’s fantasy or the tough path of crime readily open to a kid with stunted dreams in an unfair society? I’m not sure the film ever knowingly asks that question. Henzell just wants to get some exploitation bolted on to his production. Some shoot outs, some sex and violence to make itself marketable. And why not? So two films in one, both of which might be technically unnoteworthy but have a unique liveliness and milieu that win you over. The Harder They Come is the dictionary definition of a cult item but the unabashed positives of it make it very enjoyable.

8

David Fincher directs Morgan Freeman, Brad Pitt and Kevin Spacey in this horror thriller about a serial killer forcing deaths onto people guilty of the seven deadly sins. 

I was under 18 when I went to see Se7en at the cinema. And Se7en is the epitome of an 18 certificate film. Subliminally installing images of knife strap-ons and exploded guts and severed heads into your mind while brazenly plunging you into a rain sodden cityscape that might as well be hell. I went with my parents. David Fincher said in an interview at the time he wanted to make films that scar. Films like Jaws, that stay in your fear receptors years later. That even if the movie flopped, he hoped that some 21st century kid might catch it late night and tell their friends about the old movie they saw that ended with a surprise head in a box. The severed head.

Fincher was justified in his fears of a flop. This was his first project after the nightmare production of Alien3. A gruelling Hollywood baptism of fire that saw him be sacked three separate times on set, have his footage reassembled by producers and spend a year of his career a pariah, a period about which he still will not comment on in public to this day. Se7en was his second movie but his chance to reboot his reputation from scratch. Smaller scale and with a cast who could use their clout to keep his vision true from executive compromise and back pedalling. Visually, it is a similar film to his Alien entry. Industrial gothic. Beams of holy light piercing into caves with sweaty walls and crumbling utilitarianism. Antiques and faulty tech littered around unloved workspaces. Oblivion with a Nine Inch Nails soundtrack.

This time his vision captured the general public’s imagination, Se7en was a modest smash and Fincher would go on to refine and control his precise, pessimistic cinematic style in classics like Fight Club, Zodiac and The Social Network. Those films slowly became more prestigious, his reputation as one of the few living greats grew with each masterful release. Se7en isn’t one of those grand, important, sophisticated awards bothering movies but it is his finest. An obscene mystery movie that pounds you with it constant bleakness and dazzles you with its revolutionary twists.

There’s only one action sequence. A foot chase that appears from nowhere but bruises and shudders you. Unlike the stunt led spectacular set pieces of an Arnie or Harrison Ford flick from that era this isn’t about a hero surfing the impossible but a human trying to avoid the probable. Every corner Detective Mills turns, every door and window he darts through, puts him in the crosshairs of a man who has proven how little he cares for human life. He stumbles, and slips, and careens towards the embodiment of death itself. Doggedly in pursuit of a villian he does not understand. It is a breathtaking break from all the world weary reviewing of the fanatic’s gruesome work. Much of the narrative is passive. Freeman’s marvellously resigned Somerset sums up Se7en’s core mode.

SOMERSET

All we do is pick up the pieces. We take all the evidence, and all the pictures and samples. We write everything down and note what time things happened…

MILLS

Oh, that’s all.

SOMERSET

We put it in a nice neat pile and file it away, on the slim chance it’s ever needed in a courtroom. (pause) It’s like collecting diamonds on a desert island. You keep them just in case you ever get rescued, but it’s a pretty big ocean out there.

 

The performances are, in general, excellent. After having his cast prescribed to him for Alien3, Fincher clearly revels in filling his shot at redemption with distinctive turns. Most only have a scene or two to impress. R. Lee Ermey, John C McGinley, Richard Roundtree all add a gruff masculinity to their disempowered men of action roles… like Mills they want resolution and justice but have no practical answers to John Doe’s crimes. Morgan Freeman’s apathetic lead detective is electric. Trying to drown out the chaos and the degradation of the city he lives in. Apathy as a survival mode. The one chink in this perfect movie’s armour is Pitt’s Mills. He’s a little too twitchy and mannered here. Pitt goes big and aggressive, a good opposite to Freeman’s composed protagonist and fitting with his character’s ultimate fate. But it is nowhere near as nuanced and relaxed as his effortless partner. Gwyneth Paltrow mainly sleeps and looks angelic until her time to shine happens off screen.

And then we get Kevin Spacey… discounting his obscured appearances earlier on, his third act arrival into the movie is one of the best played hands in genre screen writing. “Detective. Detective. DETECTIVE! You’re looking for me.” The whole movie resets around his otherworldly enigma of a performance. We even get daylight. Just who the fuck is John Doe? Do we judge the man by his methods or his honesty or his success? In just 15 minutes of shackled, restrained screentime we stare true dogmatic evil in the face and he sneers right back at us, self amused and smugly triumphant. I’m surprised Anthony Hopkins didn’t FedEx Spacey his Silence of the Lambs Oscar the day Se7en wrapped. I guess the delivery man was busy.

10

Jon M. Chu directs Constance Wu, Henry Golding and Michelle Yeoh in this romantic comedy about a university professor who travels to Singapore with her beau for a wedding… only to discover he is filthy rich. UH-OH!

Distasteful opulence abounds. There is a hint of satire to this but a satire where the only difference between the gaudy and the classy characters is whether they pull a silly or a sad face when they are onscreen. And so so many characters. 3 bland couples (the men exist only to be introduced with their tops off). 5 fairy godmothers. 6 road blocks to love. Countless bitches. It is all very brattish and brash. Which last time I checked isn’t very romantic… Still the production values are top notch and the makeover scenes are giddy confections.

4

Eli Roth directs Jack Black, Cate Blanchett and Owen Vaccaro in this juvenile horror about an orphan who joins his warlock uncle in his doom-laden mansion.

Eli Roth does a kid’s movie! It is too delicious a prospect not to go see. I even put aside my dislike for Jack Black. While it isn’t a film for me, an afternoon was pleasantly passed. It is pretty much the standard colourful gothic slapstick product you’d expect but there are a dozen creepy images hidden among the soft play that will scar imaginative kids long term. The demon in the Black Forest could come from any hard R genre piece. And kids need their first scary movie too, so well done Roth for making something that remains family friendly while still having some fang to it.

5

 

Peter Berg direct Mark Wahlberg, Iko Uwais and Lauren Cohan in this bloody actioner where a special ops team have to transport a double agent from embassy to airstrip with the entire Fakestanistan military trying to stop them. 

16 Blocks meets The Raid. Only not very good. The action is frenetic and ultraviolent. Ronda Rousey goes out like a trooper. There’s a twist you won’t care about. Mark Wahlberg spends a lot of the film making pronouncements into thin air about how completely badass he is. Someone’s been on the fight milk.

4

Paul Feig directs Anna Kendrick, Blake Lively and Henry Golding in this comedy thriller about a single mom who gets entangled with a femme fatale who goes missing. 

What is it? WHAT IS IT?! I’d have enthusiastically gotten onboard with any one of the films this tries to be from scene to discordant scene. Colourful neo-noir. Hitchcockian farce. Broad Gone Girl spoof. Kinky soccer mom wish fulfilment fantasy. You want to like A Simple Favour but it is all a bit too much. Incest and 180 degree U-turn character growth arcs… and potty mouthed kids… and Anna Kendrick’s ditzy klutz twice being thrown on a bed to be ravished by men she clearly shouldn’t be fucking… and sassy bitches sassing. All happen jarringly in a film that should be… well… simple. It feels as jumbled and as uncertain as The Predator did last week. I wouldn’t be surprised if there were also extensive reshoots here. The lead investigator changes from act to act, for no real point. The ending is garbled… the twists ineffective. Frustratingly it squanders two strong star turns. Lively looks fantastic, her comically chic wardrobe is spectacular and she confidently seduces us with less screentime than she deserves. Kendrick goes at her hyper super mom role with admirable quirk, but she is weighed down by subplots that mark her out as a potential villain. That’s fine to keep us guessing but leaves us without a solid protagonist for a good hour. You can’t have the same character be investigator, patsy and possible antagonist concurrently. All the while putting them in slapsticky situations. And then expect the mystery elements to engage. Far too sloppy for something so polished looking. What starts out brimming with possibilities, ends on weak punchlines and patience testing confrontations.

4

Paul Grimault directs Jean Martin, Pascal Mazzotti and Raymond Bussières in this animated fairytale about a mockingbird who helps two painted urchins escape the tyrant king who wants to break up their romance.

A film that took 30 years to complete and was released in various half produced states until 1980. It is a bit naff and naive at times. The plot is very loose and random. However it does conjure up some lovely images; a 3D airbrushed castle connected by rocket ship elevators, a polar bear dancing with a blind busker and a hunting dog adopting his prey. The funniest parts involve the terrible king punishing his useless minions. If you are a fan of steampunk or Disney this has overlapping form, but the joins of a rocky journey to completion do show a little too glaringly.

6

Damiano Damiani directs Gian Maria Volontè, Lou Castel and Klaus Kinski in this spaghetti western following a group of bandits profiteering from the Mexican Revolution.

Starting with a domino rally of tense set pieces (so smartly devised that The Joker from The Dark Knight would be impressed by their cruel zero sum gamesmanship), Damiani’s Leone rip-off sets out his stall thrillingly. It eventually becomes a little mawkish and didactic but never dull. Volontè is superb as the criminal El Chuncho, a charismatic man whose better instincts keep him from true evil. The colours of the clear sky and arid vistas are beautiful in this.

7