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

Kiah Roache-Turner directs Jay Gallagher, Bianca Bradey and Leon Burchill in this zombie comedy horror about regular Aussies trying to outrun an outbreak in improvised armour and undead fuelled jeeps.

Cheap and nasty and inventive. Clearly made over half a decade of fun weekends but never letting that lack of professional resources excuse unprofessionalism onscreen. It looks the part. This is daft and dirty ride, packed with gory moments, creepy moments, great unsubtle gags and a revolving door of protagonists… gleefully, not many survivors survive more than a few scenes. If you like Braindead or Shaun of the Dead or The Evil Dead then this is a modern low budget show-off well worth chuckling along to.

7

 

Renny Harlin directs Geena Davis, Matthew Modine and Frank Langella in this infamous pirate movie that flopped massively.

It killed a studio. Proved women couldn’t lead action blockbusters. Highlighted that pirate films never work at the box office. All nonsense of course. Twenty years down the line the best you could say was Cutthroat Island is a folly but not one indicative of box office trends. Carloco Pictures was already struggling to make ends meet before production began. They had the choice of this project or an Arnold Schwarzenegger / Paul Verehoven crusades epic as their last shot at survival. Paul Verehoven came into a production meeting with some extreme ideas one day and Cutthroat Island was greenlit by default. They raised a lot of the budget by pre-selling it to foreign distributors. The package was Davis, Michael Douglas and massive period set action. Then Douglas pulled out. When they couldn’t find a leading man Davis and director Harlin tried to run also. Their contracts wouldn’t allow it. So Modine was roped in. The film HAD to be made as it had already been sold. And no one wanted to be there. Maybe that explains why it is all so distant and uninvolving. Because Cutthroat Island is a handsome lavish production. The costumes and the ships and the locations look like a $100 million dollars but the direction of them and acting in them is half hearted at best. Davis behaves like a secondary school teacher who has to oversee a two hour detention rather than the captain of a ship. Modine apes Kevin Kline for a bit but eventually gives up and matches his co-star’s ambient energy. Harlin stages spectacular battles and stunts but never involves the audience in them. There are lines that sound like jokes without any humour to them. There is a conspiracy of factions at loggerheads but this never produces much peril or conflict. It just sits there like a very expensive punishment. There are far worse blockbusters out there. Uncharismatic, sloppy cash-ins that should never have seen the inside of a picturehouse. Cutthroat Island isn’t one of those travesties… it merely has the misfortune of having the reputation and box office of one with little else to exonerate it.

5

Woody Allen directs himself, Charlotte Rampling and Jessica Harper in this arthouse satire where a filmmaker is the star guest at a weekend retrospective of his own work, while trying to unpick his complex relationships to women.

A pleasant surprise this. One of Woody’s best that I had long avoided due to iffy critical standing. He visually apes Fellini and a bit of Bergman and the result are sumptuous. Gorgeous monochrome vistas are danced around in. The opening moment of Kafkaesque disappointment is a brilliant wordless joke. Though you wouldn’t want to be cast as an extra in any of this. Every crowd shot features a gaggle of cloying and grasping grotesques. Psychologically I don’t know how sound all of Woody’s confusion and frustrations are but he lands as many laugh out loud jokes here as in his “earlier, funny ones.” Proof that despite his desire to explore drama and stretch his pretentions as a serious filmmaker he still had it in him to tickle us.

9

James Marsh directs Michael Caine, Tom Courtenay and Charlie Cox in this crime caper retelling the downfall of the Hatton Garden jewel thieves, a gang mainly made up of pensioners. 

When news first broke that one of the biggest heists on British soil was perpetrated by greying old lags I said to myself “I bet there’s a great movie in that.” And bless the producers of this starry ensemble they get the casting right. Caine. Courtenay. Ray Winstone. It is a Last Orders reunion movie. Add in Jim Broadbent, Paul Whitehouse and a decrepit Michael Gambon and I bet the makers thought we can just leave the camera running and we’ve got ourselves an instant classic here. Sadly King of Thieves is a film of two halves. The first section with the planning and the caper itself, glides nicely. Marsh lays out his game swiftly, adds a neat visual flourish where the old boy illegal larks are often intercut with similar footage from Swinging Sixties genre films. Then after the robbery things fall apart. It becomes a very loose downfall where old men bitch and gripe about each other behind their own backs. For what feels like hours. Very similar to the recent American Animals we shift from charming naughty enthusiasm to reprehensible anti-socialism in the final stretch. I’m guessing this is less a moral choice. I don’t think Marsh cares about a “crime doesn’t pay” message. I think the creatives had too much access to the real old crims’ statements, confessions and mobile phone transcripts. A by-product of the net closing in on the perpetrators is you no longer have to imagine the legend and the myth, their frailty and nastiness has been documented as evidence. It is a shift in tone the more playful air of the film cannot survive. Worst still there is a better, only briefly explored subplot, where the younger member of the team benefits from their ignorance of modern surveillance and childish back stabbing. He uses their infighting to getaway, their greed to snag a small but ultimately more valuable cut. With his mocked disguises, burner phone and low profile he slips out of the country while the tall tale of bus pass bank robbers fires up the media. Maybe his gaming of the experienced “experts” should have been the focus of the final half. Rather than wrinklies moaning and insulting each other ad nauseam.

6

Peter Segal directs  Adam Sandler, Jack Nicholson and Marisa Tomei in this comedy where a mild mannered guy is forced into anger management therapy where his doctor is an intrusive, disruptive arsehole. 

As a fan of both stars I had high expectations for this pairing but it seems to just go through the motions. There are some fine trailer moments; beating up a Buddhist monk, a traffic jam causing in-car therapy session. Even these don’t exactly produce guffaws though. The film sets up a manic support cast in the group sessions then ignores them for much of the running time. Overall, not much wit. Unambitious and forgettable.

4

Neill Blomkamp directs Sharlto Copley, Jason Cope and David James in this sci-fi actioner about refugee aliens in South Africa who find themselves oppressed by a corporation dispossessing them from their ghetto. 

I always want to like District 9 more than I actually do. It is an experience whose better qualities stay with you afterwards, even though watching it in the moment is an uneven jerky ride. Good stuff first. The immediacy of Blomkamp’s documentary introduction; retelling the history of the “prawns” arrival, their horrific treatment and the brutal day they are evicted from their hovels… an event that kickstarts the remaining action. The transformation of penpushing middle management stooge Wikus from cowardly arsehole to cowardly arsehole alien has shades of Trading Places satire and lashing of Cronenbergian body horror. Nice. The space craft, creature and weaponary design is truly iconic. Yet the story flows in unsteady bursts. Nightmare scenarios crop up from nowhere (good) or violent tangents distract us from getting involved with the end game (symptomatic). While Copley puts in a fine, mannered performance, his character is far too much of a shit. The trials he goes through are far too heinous. There’s no relatability for us to connect to him or care about his outcome. Emotionally it is all too scrappy and dirty to become a mainstay in my viewing habits. Preachy and exploitative, manipulative yet distracted.

7

Bennett Miller directs Philip Seymour Hoffman, Catherine Keener and Clifton Collins Jr. in this biopic where the flamboyant writer researches and writes about a rural multiple homicide. 

As a showcase for Hoffman this gives him time to shine. He captures Capote’s ability to command a room and inveigle his way into the trust of closed off figures with elan and brio. The rest of the film is turgid though. About an hour in it gets stuck in a terminal loop of prison visits and appeals which shudderingly stall the story. Miller directs solidly but there are only hints of the forceful visual seduction he would later bring to his masterpiece Moneyball.

4