Reviewing In The Name Of

****

Director: Oliver Stone

Starring: Josh Brolin, Richard Dreyfuss, James Cromwell, Thandie Newton, Elizabeth Banks, Jeffrey Wright

THERE’S no getting away from the fact that the presidency of George W Bush has been a hugely significant chapter in American history, and one that will continue to define the American political and global landscapes for many years to come.

With this in mind, it seems less surprising that a penetrating biopic of his life and presidency can be released while the man is still in office. Film-makers could, in theory, have done the same with any president, but you just can’t see anyone bothering to put together a timely feature about Clinton or Bush Snr, or even Reagan for that matter.

“Dubya”, however, is a unique case: he is perhaps the most provocative and polarising president in living memory, inspiring the strongest and most extreme feelings of love and hate. Which makes it all the more surprising - and refreshing - that the notoriously left-leaning Oliver Stone has taken such a remarkably sympathetic view of him in his new film.

For his second presidential biopic (after 1995’s Nixon), Stone has carefully chosen some choice moments of mockery, having obvious fun with his so easily-ridiculed subject (how could he not?) but also showing the kind of restraint and fairness that observers predicted he would be incapable of. This is not a film of endless jibes and cheap shots, and actually paints the 43rd president as a tragic figure; it might sound hard to swallow, but Bush almost comes across as the victim of the piece.

In Stone’s eyes, he is an insecure prodigal son; a charming but self-destructive screw-up who spent his first 40 years drunkenly stumbling from one failed venture to another, spurned on by an inferiority complex that came from living in the shadow of both his father and his younger, higher-achieving brother.

And Stone makes a convincing case for this. Scenes of Bush’s presidency are interspersed with segments of his notorious younger years, tracing the life of the leader of the free world from drink driving Yale jock, through failed oil worker, failed congressional candidate and failed baseball team owner, to an eventually successful Texan governor, via a drink problem and the redemption (sobriety) he found in evangelical Christianity.

There are some strange omissions - dodged military service, suspected drug-taking, the controversial 2000 election - but the chosen episodes build a coherent and entertaining narrative that really hammers home just how unlikely a president this man really is.

Some of this makes for uncomfortable viewing, but the film’s hardest face slaps come from inside the White House, principally because the conversations and events depicted are still so close to home. Rather than trying to cover all bases, W. has a thankfully sharp focus, confining the presidential material to foreign policy (read: war) discussions in the two year period between the “axis of evil” speech and the aftermath of Iraq, when the administration realised that Saddam never had weapons of mass destruction. There are no domestic issues at play; simply the formation of the “with us or with the terrorists” mentality and the reprehensibly aggressive foreign policy it spawned.

Which is not an easy watch, by any means. Yes, we know what happened, we know the thinking that led to it and we know about the people behind it. But this doesn’t make it any easier to fight the feelings of shame, horror and hatred when we see even characterisations of people so irredeemably loathsome as Donald Rumsfeld, and are forced to accept that he and other such cronies were allowed to get away with all that they did.

Credit is, of course, due to an impressive cast in this regard, each of whom captures their subject without sinking into caricature. But it is Josh Brolin as the man himself who really steals the show. After his revelatory performances in No Country For Old Men and In The Valley Of Elah this late-blooming actor proves just how capable he is, with a pitch-perfect performance that is utterly convincing and several steps above mere impersonation.

W. is a confident and entertaining biopic that finds director Oliver Stone returning to familiar territory, with pleasing results. Some have tried to dismiss the film as a hastily thrown-together indictment of an unpopular incumbent president. Rather, it is an altogether decent portrayal that will most likely stand the test of time. If nothing else, we’re sure to look back on it more fondly than we do its subject.

———————————————————————

Did You Know? Christian Bale was initially cast as Bush and underwent weeks of prosthetics tests before pulling out at the last minute. Rumour has it that Warren Beatty and Harrison Ford were also offered the role.

*****

Director: Steve McQueen

Starring: Michael Fassbender, Liam Cunningham, Stuart Graham

LONDON-born artist Steve McQueen has received plenty of acclaim for his previous work, the Turner Prize being just one of many accolades.

But the former Goldsmith’s student can now count cinema critics and prestigious film festival juries among his many admirers, for his first foray into commercial cinema has produced a gripping and powerful film that is remarkable on many levels.

One the most impressive things about Hunger is how utterly compelling it manages to be while entirely eschewing many of the conventions of mainstream cinema. The structure represents a bold leap into virtually uncharted waters; seemingly important characters suddenly disappear without explanation when the film enters a new chapter; the first 40 minutes and the last half an hour contain virtually no dialogue, but bracket a central section that chatters away about morality and religion for 25 minutes.

We are obviously a long way from pretty much everything else you’re likely to find in the local megaplex this autumn, but then we were never going to get a straightforward drama from an artist whose most celebrated work to date was a film of him pushing an oil drum around the streets of Manhattan (artistically impressive but hardly Disney territory).

Hunger tells the story of IRA prisoner Bobby Sands’ (Michael Fassbender) 1981 hunger strike inside Maze Prison’s notorious “H-blocks”, with the narrative broken into three very distinct acts. The first shows the build up to the hunger strike and the prisoners’ prolonged dirty protest (smearing their faeces on the cell walls), though it is more of an evocative scene setter than an introduction to characters, an atmospheric slope that sucks the audience into this inhumane world. As an opening chapter it is incredibly effective at conveying the life of these prisoners, dumping us all amid the shit-smeared walls and piss soaked floors; a dark and depressing portrait that sharpens rather than smooths its edges, hanging interminably on the mundanity of confinement (one shot stays in close up of a prisoner moving his hand around a window grill, toying with an injured fly, for something close to two minutes), but then startling its audience at every turn with sudden eruptions of cacophonous violence. These then give way just as quickly to lingering silence; silence that is almost more terrible and unsettling.

The second act is the famed 22 minute real-time conversation between Sands and Father Dominic Moran (Liam Cunningham), the vast majority taking place in one static shot. This alone is an audacious and exciting move on McQueen’s part, but the thrill of the scene and what makes such a long stationary shot of two people talking so enthralling and intense is the consummate skill of Fassbender and Cunningham. It is difficult to find fault in either of the perfectly measured performances, but Fassbender in particular is utterly mesmerising, holding your attention like he’s reached through the screen and grabbed you by the lapels.

You feel both exhausted and exhilarated coming out of this scene, the effect made more pronounced by the sudden cut in dialogue. After such an extended conversation, the absence of talking then hovers like a ghost over the taciturn final chapter. Fassbender’s performance becomes increasingly revelatory as we watch him portray Sands’ slow and painful but determined starvation, the actor himself having undergone a 10 week supervised fast to properly show the emaciated end of his character.

There is no gloss to cover the grim reality in McQueen’s brave, thoughtful and all-round exceptional debut feature. Much like the H-Bloc prisoners, Hunger audiences are given no where to hide on a relentlessly difficult cinematic journey.

This won’t be to everyone’s tastes, nor will the unconventional structure, or the fact that seemingly prominent characters disappear half way through the movie while an apparent bit-player becomes the sole focus. But these are, in fact, the defiant strengths of a film that I defy anyone not to be intensely moved - if not disturbed - by.

Bobby Sands may well be the role that propels the fantastic Fassbender into a much higher (ie Hollywood) profile. And Hunger will certainly establish McQueen’s status as a director, making him a great asset to British film as well as art.

———————————————————————

Did You Know? Michael Fassbender is currently filming Quentin Tarantino’s new World War Two feature Inglourious Bastards with Brad Pitt and Mike Myers (among others). He is also rumoured to be starring with Ray Winstone in a new film version of hit 70s TV show The Sweeney.

**

Director: David Koepp

Starring: Ricky Gervais, Greg Kinnear, Téa Leoni

THERE’S no getting away from the fact that Ghost Town resembles a rather sizeable number of similar “I see dead people” movies.

It’s a bit Ghost, a bit Truly Madly Deeply, very Sixth Sense (the comedy version), a little bit Scrooged and even a teeny bit It’s A Wonderful Life (I know, no dead people but trust me).

This alone doesn’t matter a great deal as the idea behind the film is actually quite funny: a cantankerous, people-hating dentist (Ricky Gervais) dies for a few minutes during a basic hospital operation, returning to life to find he now has the annoying ability to see and converse with ghosts. New York’s innumerable gang of bored spirits then descend on him like a swarm of moths around earth’s only remaining lightbulb, badgering the misanthropic tooth doctor to give messages to loved ones, fill out tasks they didn’t manage to finish in life and various other bits and pieces that suggest The Seventh Sense might have been a more appropriate title for the film.

It’s a potentially hilarious scenario - a man who hates people is pursued by them at every turn, and not even ordinary people but an annoying bunch of needy loser ghosts who pester him for favours. Unfortunately, not nearly enough is made of this concept and the comedic foundation it provides.

Instead, in a way that is painfully inevitable, Ghost Town opts to pursue a flaccid rom-com plot with all the conviction of an embarrassed teenager forced to sing hymns in church. Along comes the ghost of Greg Kinnear (a likeable actor but given very little to work with here) who convinces the dentist to help foil his widow’s (Téa Leoni) marriage plans, promising to get rid of all the other pesky spirits in exchange.

Shock horror, the dentist falls for the widow and the plot bumbles along from here to a tune as repetitive as a mobile phone ring tone, tripping on its way in enough plot holes to sink the Titantic - again…and again…and again.

Ricky Gervais’s exceptional television comedy has made him a box office draw on both sides of the pond, but he struggles to carry an entire movie and often falls back on watered down versions of David Brent and Andy Millman to see him through.

Both characters are fantastic comedy creations, Brent being in the same league as Basil Faulty and Del Boy, but Gervais doesn’t seem to posses the range to deliver much beyond them - or not when he hasn’t scripted the parts himself at least. The unmistakable Brent-esque quips were hilarious the first time around, but we’ve seen him follow that style so much that they are now quite bewilderingly tiresome.

He manages to raise some laughs in Ghost Town, particularly as the bitter character he starts off as. But his lack of depth as an actor becomes rapidly evident and you can’t help wishing someone like Bill Murray had taken the role instead.

Even if he had, however, there’s no getting away from the fact that this film is a half-arsed affair; a funny idea that has been executed in the most unimaginative way possible.

Like Gervais’s character, I felt like I was pulling teeth for much of the movie.

———————————————————————

Did You Know? Ricky Gervais claimed in an interview that the script for Ghost Town was “absolutely the best script I’ve read for a movie”. Hmm. Well Ricky, either you’re lying to promote the film or it’s time to get a new agent.

***

Directors: Joel and Ethan Coen

Staring: George Clooney, Frances McDormand, Brad Pitt, John Malkovich, Tilda Swinton

TWO-bit opportunists driven by greed. Screwball shnooks meddling in matters they don’t understand. Very different people from very different worlds meeting and getting mixed up in ways they never should - often with tragic circumstances. Situations spiralling out of control. Bizarre coincidences. Deception. Desperation. Mid life crises. Bloody murder.

Sound familiar? Like a Coen brothers’ movie? Well yes indeed, and the latest film from cinema’s favourite siblings is stuffed full of these usual hallmarks, to the point that it would be impossible to mistake it as anything but a Coen brothers movie.

Say what you will - at least they’re consistent - but Burn After Reading is about as archetypal to their favoured themes as it’s possible to get. And it’s stars Frances McDormand. And George Clooney!

But of course, none of this matters a great deal. The premise - what happens when the worlds of CIA agents and gym employees collide? - is a fair old leap from any of their previous films. The problem is that, for all its quirky cleverness, Burn After Reading simply doesn’t have the mood or charm that enriches much of the Coens’ similarly-themed back catalogue.

There are elements of Fargo, The Big Lebowski and No Country For Old Men, but very little of their unique class and distinction. And, coming so soon after No Country, it’s hard not to see Burn After Reading as a rather insignificant and flimsy career cough, cowering in the grand and towering shadow of the brothers’ Oscar-winning masterpiece.

That said, there are some classic moments, courtesy of a classic plot.

John Malkovich (playing very close to his excellent assassin from In The Line Of Fire) is CIA analyst Osborne Cox, who quits the agency when they try to demote him because of a drinking problem (prompting the fiery and amusing reply: “I have a drinking problem? You’re a Mormon! Next to you we all have a drinking problem.”).

He decides to fill his newly unemployed life by writing his memoirs, much to the horror of his wife (Tilda Swinton, cold and brutal as ever), who is already deep into an affair with the unhappily married federal marshal Hary Pfarrer (Clooney).

Meanwhile, the seemingly unconnected Linda Litzke (McDormand) is agonising over how to afford a wide-ranging package of cosmetic surgery, and moans about the situation to her friend and co-employee at Hardbodies gym Chad Feldheimer (Brad Pitt as an amusingly clueless fitness nut). When a computer disk of Osbourne Cox’s memoirs is found at the gym, Chad mistakes the information for secret intelligence and tries to convince Linda to help him blackmail Cox for the return of the disk. Desperate for her new ass, boobs, face and whatever else, she agrees.

At the same time, Clooney’s serial womaniser has begun a relationship with Linda via an Internet dating site…and so the web is woven.

There are, as you’d expect, some funny instances (put the words “dildo” and “chair” together and you’ve got one of the best ones), but many struggle to raise much more than a chuckle. And the brothers’ fondness for surprises and bucking convention (sudden deaths, killing key characters off screen and having bit players casually relay what happened) are also present.

But there’s more to producing a great meal than throwing a few tried and tested ingredients together. It’s hard to fight the feeling that this one is a meal of leftovers, a film the Coen brothers have thrown together in the absence of any better ideas.

By their standards at least, Burn After Reading is a fairly average dish.

———————————————————————

Did You Know? The Coen brothers wrote the screenplay for Burn After Reading while also adapting Cormac McCarthy’s novel No Country For Old Men (released last year). They would apparently alternate scripts every other day.

****

Director: Matteo Garrone

Starring: Marco Macor, Ciro Petrone, Toni Servillo, Salvatore Abruzzese, Salvatore Cantalupo

FILMS about the Mafia are 10 a penny. Good films about the Mafia are in far shorter supply, with the most famous and applauded examples usually focussing on the Italian American organisation - The Godfather, Goodfellas and so on if you need it spelling out.

It is quite possible that the excellent Gomorrah will become a classic Mafia movie of similar standing - it has already won the Grand Prix at Cannes - but it is as radically different from its Hollywood cousins as Leonard Cohen is from Leona Lewis; heartbreak might be a common theme but their style and sound are worlds apart.

The same is true for Gomorrah and its distance from the landmark mob movies that have, until now, defined the genre. Not only is Gomorrah set in Italy, specifically in Naples, but it is stark, brutal and uncompromising where its famed predecessors have been slick and finely polished. It is the vicious and ugly reality to The Godfather’s classy and romantic nostalgia.

The film opens in the harsh blue light of a tanning parlour, where several mobsters are basking under the oppressive blue rays while another has a manicure. These are hoods of the modern age, meterosexual Mafioso whose hands have to look immaculate before they get blood on them. Within minutes the chillingly inevitable executions begin and the bronzing mobsters are left slumped in the sun showers with bullet holes in their heads and necks, the camera panning round to survey the blue-lit carnage to the sound of cheesy Italian pop. We are a long way from emotive classical guitar and soaring orchestral themes, just as we are from the familiar “barbershop hit”.

This is the Mafia of today, and not just any Mafia but the Camorra, Naples’ infamously violent criminal organisation that operates as a series of warring clans rather than in the classical pyramid structure. As the film’s post-script tells us: “In Europe the Camorra has killed more than all other criminal organisations: 4,000 deaths in the last 30 years - one every three days.”

This is the world that Gomorrah presents, though it is not all violence; we are also shown the industrial-scale drug dealing, the infamous waste (mis)management - the pollution from which has had disastrous results on the health of the general population - and the way illegal money is then invested in legitimate business.

Most of all, the film shows us the grip the Camorra has on its society, how even the most well-meaning people are caught up in its merciless tentacles and how it is the expected and accepted career path for many youths.

One reviewer I have read compares the film to acclaimed US TV show The Wire. This might be a little overgenerous (there ain’t much in this world as good as The Wire), but you can see the point he is making.

Much like the TV show, Gomorrah presents a world that seems almost beyond help, where crime is not so much the alternative as the only choice for many young people. Again like The Wire, the film is based on an in-depth journalistic investigation (Roberto Saviano’s best-selling book Gomorrah), and chooses multiple characters to tell its story, rather than a central protagonist.

As such, a distinctive plot is thin on the ground, but the film is packed with striking and memorable scenes - a flash Mercedes ploughing off the road into an ornate classical sculpture garden (it’s, like, totally metaphorical and stuff), or two reckless teens firing rounds into the ocean from a cache of stolen weapons, clad only in their underpants.

My only real gripe would be that such characters don’t have the time to develop and evolve. Unlike The Wire, which has at least 12 one hour episodes in each of its five series, Gomorrah has to pack its narrative into a little over two hours. But my criticism is less an artistic judgement than a personal frustration, as the film consciously chooses to be more interested in society and culture than the individual stories of inhabitants. It is cinema as social study, and uses as many characters as necessary to open a window as wide as possible onto this world.

More than anything - and again like The Wire - Gomorrah tells it like it is. Shot in a handheld, docu-style to terrible Italian pop, the film shuns the conventions of its genre and our well-honed ideas about the mob; Gomorrah’s Mafioso are not husky-voiced family men but poorly dressed thugs, ruling over deprived estates; the many killings are sudden and brutal, the characters disposed of with little fanfare.

It is perhaps best put by a man who used to live in Naples and posted the following comment after a web review of the film: “Those who believe The Godfather is the way of the world in terms of organized crime should see this to get a feeling for what an ugly world it really is. There are no men of honour, just leaders and those who are misled. There is nothing worthwhile in this way of life and the best thing one can do is escape.”

—————————————————————————————— 

Did You Know? Journalist and author Robert Saviano, whose 2006 investigation of the Camorra the film is based on, received numerous death threats from the organisation after the book was published. The Italian Minister of the Interior has since granted him a permanent police escort to protect him from assassination.

**

Director: Robert Weide

Starring: Simon Pegg, Kirsten Dunst, Jeff Bridges, Gillian Anderson, Megan Fox

REMARKING on Simon Pegg’s role in How To Lose Friends And Alienate People, producer Stephen Woolley says the following: “Simon is generally somebody that, no matter how hard or tough or bad they seem, you always know that it’s Simon Pegg and in the end he’s going to make you smile. You instantly love him; he’s an instantly loveable guy.”

Well quite. I couldn’t agree more, but while Woolley uses this to justify the choice of Pegg for lead character, I would argue that this “quality” is, in fact, one of the film’s greatest flaws: Simon Pegg is a very likeable screen presence indeed, but he is not right for the role and the film is all the poorer for this casting misstep.

The role in question is that of Sidney Young, a tweaked, polished and humourised version of Toby Young, whose infamous memoir (also called How To Lose Friends And Alienate People) the film is based on. Like it’s darker source material, the film tells of Young’s move from a small-time London arts publication to a trend-setting giant of celebrity journalism in New York (Vanity Fair in real life, Sharps in the film).

It shows his unquantifiable ego and naive expectations - his head full of penetrating cover stories and plans to “shake things up” in the celebrity world - which all evaporate amid the humiliating discovery of the industry’s truly vacuous, back-scratching culture, and the grim reality that he is little more than a wordsmith for hire, a replaceable bitch in a world ruled by PR pitbulls.

Albeit funny, it’s a rather bleak tale that is not likely to restore any kind of confidence in the media.

And while the film of HTLFAAP certainly shows this world in all its ugliness, along with the ignominious bursting of Young’s bubble, the problem is that it feels stripped of any edge.

There are similarities to The Devil Wears Prada and the amusing view it gave us of the fashion industry. But HTLFAAP is not nearly as penetrating or well crafted and comes across as a sugar-coated, Hollywoodised rendition of its memoir source. In essence, it’s been given the rom-com conversion treatment and packaged up with a watered-down Englishman abroad cliche to capture America’s Hugh Grant market.

Pegg’s Sidney Young is a fairly typical red faced, poorly dressed, accident prone and socially inept English stereotype. It’s Pegg at his most Carry On and, with that, least funny. He certainly elicits some laughs and he’s given some amusing slapstick moments, but they’re matched by an equal number of poor gags that fall flatter than Bernard Manning at a racial harmony rally.

Perhaps the toughest rub is that this is the first feature project for director Robert Weide, who’s spent the past seven years at the helm of the hilarious (close-to-genius is no exaggeration) TV show Curb Your Enthusiasm.

It’s one thing to expect more from Pegg, but we should virtually demand it at gunpoint from Weide. He’s basically gone from perhaps the funniest American comedy show in years to an instantly forgettable, downright disposable rom com.

Perhaps this is a little harsh, but it’s only fair to expect something smarter, funnier and more original from both him and Pegg, and it’s hard to hide the disappointment.

Pegg is no Larry David (Curb’s ritually humiliated central character), but he’s also no Toby Young, which brings me back to problem number one: he is simply too nice to play the deplorable egomaniac that this story hinges on.

Crafting the film so that the audience gradually warm to Young is one thing. It’s another to cast an “instantly lovable” actor who you can’t help grinning at from the start.