Category Archives: Movies

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Inside Out  (2015)    62/100

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Rating :   62/100                                                                       94 Min        U

Disney Pixar’s latest is unsurprisingly ambitious and technically accomplished, but on this occasion they’ve overshot their own creative mark and landed a little too close to the dead zone of thematic ambiguity for comfort. The plot is theoretically about one family: father (Kyle MacLachlan), mother (Diane Lane) and young eleven-year-old girl Riley (Kaitlyn Dias) who relocate from Minnesota to San Francisco, causing Riley to suffer numerous quite natural insecurities and regrets as she waves goodbye to several friendships and a hallowed place on her ice hockey team.

In reality, the movie is focused on what’s going on inside Riley’s brain as we see Joy (Amy Poehler), Sadness (Phyllis Smith), Anger (Lewis Black), Disgust (Mindy Kaling) and Fear (Bill Hader) brought to life as individual entities at the helm, ‘Headquarters’, of Riley’s entire personality and normal function. Herein lies problem number one – an attempt to personify characters as representative of one distinct and solitary emotion but also as characters in their own right who must necessarily exhibit more of a range.

The whole motif behind the movie is that it’s OK to feel sad sometimes, as this can be a visual signal to others that we are in need of help. Sadness initially messes everything up before her place in the grand scheme of things becomes apparent, and as her chaotic influence sweeps throughout the labyrinthine corridors of Riley’s grey matter we watch as entire elements of the host’s personality are completely and irrevocably annihilated by mistake, whilst in the real world her life is equally devastated as a result. All of which has the effect of largely distancing Riley from being in any way in control of herself and her own state of being, which in turn is conceptually very alienating for an audience.

Similarly, there are a lot of very eerie goings-on; we see a large creepy clown lurking around in locked away memories, entire characters begin to fade into nothingness as Riley starts to forget them. Notwithstanding this, there are funny moments and the artwork involved is top-notch, as we’ve come to expect, just as the adventure the central personality profiles go in does more or less hold interest until the end. Still, the film’s premise hasn’t been satisfactorily fulfilled and The Red Dragon is by no means convinced this is a good film to be taking youngsters to go and see.

Southpaw  (2015)    63/100

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Rating :   63/100                                                                     124 Min        15

Director Antoine Fuqua (‘The Equalizer‘, ‘Olympus Has Fallen‘, ‘King Arthur’ 04, ‘Training Day’ 01) tries his hand at the boxing genre but alas overcooks the melodrama and when considering the ultimate test of ‘does this film make me want to train?’, the answer is a disappointing ‘no’. Jake Gyllenhaal, Rachel McAdams, Forest Whitaker, 50 Cent, Naomie Harris and Oona Laurence bring the action to life as successful light-heavyweight Billy Hope (Gyllenhaal) suffers personal tragedy, sending his life and career into free-fall and forcing him to fight to regain not just his financial status but his own peace of mind and the respect of his friends and family too.

Oddly enough, screenwriter Kurt Sutter, for whom this is his first feature film after working on ‘Sons of Anarchy’ and ‘The Shield’ for many years, has stated this is actually the metaphorical story of the latter half of Eminem’s life, somewhat following on from 2002’s ‘8 Mile’, and indeed the rapper was initially set to take on the lead role, with the notion of a southpaw (which means a boxer who puts the power behind the left instead of the normal right, although precious little is made of this element in the film itself) meant as a parallel for Eminem’s position as a white artist in a predominantly black industry. Yes, it’s a rubbish metaphor.

This goes some way to explain the numerous overindulgences, especially so with the heavy overuse of music throughout the movie (Eminem released the singles ‘Kings Never Die’ and ‘Phenomenal’ from the soundtrack) and whilst the performances are very solid throughout, especially so from Gyllenhaal and Laurence who plays Hope’s young daughter, the film never really manages to make you care all that much about any of the characters in the very basic, hackneyed and predictable story, though it remains watchable enough for what it is.

The film will also be remembered for presenting to the world the final completed score by legendary composer James Horner (‘Braveheart’ 95, ‘Titanic’ 97) who tragically died in a plane crash earlier this year and who apparently worked on Southpaw for free after seeing the film and loving the father-daughter relationship, even paying his crew from his own pocket. He had also secretly finished the music for Fuqua’s upcoming ‘Magnificent Seven’ (1960) remake (‘The 33’, a film about the 2010 Chilean mine collapse due to be released later this year, was also scored by Horner but he finished it before Southpaw) so it will be interesting to see how much of it makes it into the final edit, or indeed if Fuqua shoots parts of the film to specifically fit the music itself.

Hot Pursuit  (2015)    70/100

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Rating :   70/100                                                                       87 Min        12A

Perhaps alarmingly, I quite enjoyed this. It’s a buddy film with two female leads in place of the usual male ones – indeed, most of the chatter surrounding its release has revolved around this element combined with its being helmed by a female director: Anne Fletcher (‘Step Up’ 06, ‘The Proposal’ 09). This combination of the sexes, earth shattering as it is, has seen several criticisms lain at some of the jokes, but in each instance there often equally appears to be a unique omittance that the screenplay was written by two men – David Feeney and John Quaintance. These socio-political elements aside, the story follows Reese Witherspoon’s extremely-by-the-book cop Cooper as she attempts to both protect Sofia Vergara’s Riva and to also make sure she testifies against a criminal heavyweight, as without her testimony the case is set to collapse.

The first third or so will probably make you want to kill yourself, but eventually the corny story is buried in the infectious fun the two leads are clearly having together and their chemistry alone gives the fairly run-of-the-mill comedy the lift it needed to actually generate some laughs. Indeed, I found myself sniggering away several moments after some of the jokes had been delivered, and any film that can do that and then finally send me away from the cinema in a good mood deserves some credit. Flawed to be sure, and by the end it has begun to peter out a little again, but very likeable and some lovely stealth laughs in there for those not too proud to admit it.

Maggie  (2015)    46/100

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Rating :   46/100                                                                       95 Min        15

A bizarre film starring Abigail Breslin and Arnold Schwarzenegger, as her doting father, in a blight infested world that sees infected people turn into zombies. Nothing remotely original about the concept then, but here the focus is on the human and familial trauma of dealing with a loved one who has been infected, in this case Breslin’s character, as families are permitted to look after the inflicted up until a certain point whereafter the dreaded quarantine, from which there is no hope of return, must be enforced before they start eating the neighbour’s chickens and defecating blood and teeth all over the freshly cleaned kitchen floor.

Naturally, many wait a little too long before bringing themselves to say goodbye once and for all, and despite the abundant scope for allegory (especially in the wake of the most recent, and deadliest yet, Ebola outbreak – although hopes are high a dependable vaccine has now been engineered) the artfully shot drama about a father’s, ahem, undying love for his daughter suffers the irredeemable sin of simply being flat-out-dull throughout. It’s an awful long time before we hear any substantial dialogue to make us invest in the characters and despite being a zombie flick there is very, very little in the way of tension in any sense, never mind action or excitement. The principal acting is good, so too from Joely Richardson as the step-mum, but first time director Henry Hobson is no Terrence Malick and the well meaning cinematography, that comes in multiple shades of grey, does not unfortunately make any real substitute for the void that exists where pace and story ought to have been drawing the audience in.

The Legend of Barney Thomson  (2015)    55/100

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Rating :   55/100                                                                       96 Min        15

A reasonably solid first attempt behind the camera (notwithstanding an episode of Stargate) for Robert Carlyle, but sadly one let down by a common fault within the black comedy genre – over reliance on a concept to be continually be amusing in its own right; much like filming squirrels going rogue and deciding to collect human nuts for the winter could be quite funny, but it may also become incredibly tedious watching the little critters continuously emasculate runners in the park (actually, I think this concept would work no matter how it was done). Here, Carlyle plays nondescript local Glasgow barber Barney Thomson (he only knows two different styles of cut, although this is already one more than most of the barbers in Scotland) who accrues a habit of accidentally killing people who would otherwise have been in a position to cause him significant hardship. Alas, he spends most of the film whining and stressing about it and we simply don’t care – it’s not a terribly amusing concept to begin with, better if he laughed manically every time it happened and then started to create scenarios that induced a high likelihood someone he doesn’t like might ‘accidentally’ bite it.

The film is based on the novel ‘The Long Midnight of Barney Thomson’ by Douglas Lindsay and there are a number of nice comedy moments but unfortunately the majority were spoiled for us by the trailer, and whilst Emma Thompson as Barny’s mum and both Ray Winstone and Ashley Jensen as the cops investigating the murders all give really strong performances, everything just becomes increasingly humdrum as the film progresses, the story continually bogged down by the protagonist’s lugubrious outlook and demeanour turning everything as stale and depressing as indeed the choice of cinematography, with its hazzy late-fifties vibe, had always been suggesting we could expect throughout. With Tom Courtenay, James Cosmo and Martin Compston in support.

Self/less  (2015)    63/100

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Rating :   63/100                                                                     117 Min        12A

An odd film from director Tarsem Singh (‘The Cell’ 2000, ‘The Fall’ 06, ‘Immortals’ 11, ‘Mirror Mirror’ 12) and writers David and Alex Pastor, concerning the invention of a method by which one person’s consciousness can be transferred from their body into that of another. The film opens with Damian Hayes (Ben Kingsley) thinking about undergoing the expensive and highly secret procedure; the cancer that his body is riddled with having metastasised and left him with mere months to live. Deciding he’d rather not die, his soul and mind are plonked into a much younger, fitter body (that of Ryan Reynolds), a body he has been told was built in a lab with no prior mind of its own. Afterward, Damian finds if he doesn’t take his regular medication, given to him by the set-up’s organiser Prof. Albright (Matthew Goode), strange and compelling visions begin to dance before him, although he is told it’s nothing to worry about …

The potential for discussion on life, death and the morals of humanity falls completely flat here, so in a sense the central story doesn’t deliver where it should, and indeed there is an awful lot of slow padding before what we know must eventually happen does – but at this point Singh begins to put together some really well-staged action sequences and the film picks up considerably. Ultimately, Reynolds and Goode manage to anchor what evolves into a fairly enjoyable action film, although further mishaps do arise surrounding the writing of the main female character and alas also her portrayal by Natalie Martinez. A film whose secondary aspects deliver enough to save it from complete annihilation, but don’t expect anything approaching the complete package here.

A brief interview with Singh on what he has learned about the art of directing over the years:

Ant-Man  (2015)    56/100

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Rating :   56/100                                                                     117 Min        12A

Marvel Studios’ worst release since ‘The Incredible Hulk’ (08) and presumably directly suffering from the project’s departure of the person who founded it, Edgar Wright, shortly before production began in earnest. Wright had been working on an Ant-Man screenplay for many, many years (along with his writing partner Joe Cornish) and had finally been given the go-ahead from Marvel but, citing creative differences, he left the project (although given they both worked on the screenplay for ‘Tintin‘ I’m not wholly convinced this was a bad thing). Taking his place to alter and finish the script were Adam McKay (‘Step Brothers’ 08, ‘The Other Guys’ 10) and Paul Rudd, the latter of whom plays the titular superhero himself, and it is the story that really lets the film down. Peyton Reed (‘Yes Man’ 08, ‘The Break-Up’ 06) also filled Wright’s shoes as director.

We can predict exactly what will happen, how it will happen, when it will happen, and what all of the details concerned will be. Even for a superhero film this is remarkably two dimensional, and again for the genre it’s also really difficult to suspend our disbelief enough to get behind it fully. Rudd plays ex-con Scott Lang who is just out of jail and determined to help support his young daughter Cassie (Abby Ryder Fortson), whose stepfather is a cop of course, but finds getting a normal job with his record next to impossible. Opting to do another heist with his mates, played by Michael Peña, T.I. and David Dastmalchian (who seems to have gone to great lengths to disguise his identity as the Joker’s patsy in ‘The Dark Knight’ 08), he enters into the world of tech genius Dr. Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) and his daughter Hope van Dyne (Evangeline Lilly – almost unrecognisable with a new bobbed jet black hair style); all of which sees him don a suit which can shrink a human to the size of an ant and back again at will, but he must use it to steal a competitor’s prototype before they can use it for nefarious purpose (there’s a very dubious ownership element regarding the powers, much like the screenplay, which is part of the movie’s problem).

As such, it is pretty much the same story as ‘Iron Man’ (08) with two pillars of the same company fighting each other for control of the same invention, leading to the inevitable punch-up at the end. An attempt at comedy has been made but it’s all far too simple and usually revolves around the same constantly regurgitated joke. The effects and the acting are fine but it just gets really, really dull, although it should certainly keep a younger audience fully entertained. There is both a mid-credits scene and a post credits one as well, the latter apparently taken from the next Captain America film no less (‘Ant-Man’ marks the end of ‘Phase Two’ in Marvel’s cinematic universe – ‘Captain America : Civil War’ will start ‘Phase Three’ sometime next year). Also with Corey Stoll as the villain (also bald like in Iron Man, coincidence?) as well as Judy Greer and Bobby Cannavale in support.

True Story  (2015)    66/100

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Rating :   66/100                                                                       99 Min        15

The dramatisation of Michael Finkel’s memoir of the same name based on his utterly bizarre experiences with Christian Longo, who was arrested in 2002 whilst falsely using Finkel’s identity in Mexico. At the time, Longo had briefly made the FBI’s ten most wanted list and was subsequently remanded in custody under suspicion of having murdered his wife and three young children. Finkel was, until shortly before these events, a respected New York Times journalist, up until one of his articles was proven to have contained false information, but he is thusly thrust into the strange circumstances and agrees to write his book based on Longo and the interviews he conducts with him in prison.

The film stars James Franco as Longo, with Jonah Hill as Finkel and Felicity Jones as his girlfriend. The central performances are both very good, and the progression in the dynamic of their relationship and the corresponding variations in their acting are spot on – Jones is predominantly in the background although her character plays an important role in terms of the screenplay; interesting to know if this element was true to real life or not. Where the film is let down, however, is with the relative inexperience of director Rupert Goold who fails to create any lasting tension and punctuates the narrative with lulls in momentum. We can see what he was trying to do, much like in a scene staged at dusk such that sunlight streams in diffuse bands from just behind a hut in the background and at moments it looks very nice, but equally the rays cut in and out of shot which is really distracting to the viewer.

The actors just manage to hold interest up until Longo’s trial, and there the actual story kicks in and the real impact of events can be felt. Ultimately memorable despite never reaching the levels of drama that it perhaps ought to have done.

The Gallows  (2015)    35/100

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Rating :   35/100                                                                       81 Min        15

Buddies Travis Cluff and Chris Lofing both wrote and directed this and one hopes they had a good time in the process as it’s highly unlikely anyone else is going to whilst watching their final product – a handheld horror film that couldn’t be any less artful if it tried. All set in a high school where a school play, ‘The Gallows’, went tragically awry in the nineties and one of the performers ended up actually being hung. Seeming to forget this incident, the school decide to put on the same play again in the present day, and when four of the kids get stuck inside the building late at night, three of them having been intent on sabotaging the sets because they’re little shits, questions of supernatural evil and the spirit of the deceased haunting the school begin to arise …

It doesn’t bode well for a handheld film when the person mostly behind the camera is incredibly annoying, and here he is joined by the obligatory couple of girls with sweaty uplifted cleavages and scares no more original than a camera looking one way before turning around and back again to reveal something new in view of the lens – at one point the camera sits by itself at rest for a moment and then one of the main characters purposefully jumps in front of it to surprise the audience. That’s the level of entertainment you’re looking at here. The story and concept aren’t completely terrible but what they’ve done with it, simply put, is. Starring Reese Mishler, Pfeifer Brown, Ryan Shoos and Cassidy Gifford as the central four that get mired in bad acting and screenwriting.

This song isn’t in the film, but I’ve had it in my head since watching it nonetheless. And now you can too ….

Love and Mercy  (2014)    74/100

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Rating :   74/100                                                                     121 Min        12A

Biopic of the life of Beach Boys member and key song writer Brian Wilson, told as a dramatic interpretation in two different time frames – the first with Paul Dano as a youthful Wilson in the sixties just beginning to establish himself creatively and struggling to convince the others of the need to outgrow their initial pop hits, and the second with John Cusack portraying him as a deeply troubled adult who’s life is dominated by the attentions of his almost live-in psychologist Dr. Eugene Landy (Paul Giamatti) whilst he tries to embark on a romantic relationship with serendipitous car sales rep Melinda Ledbetter (Elizabeth Banks).

Both performers have done a really great job of identifying with that period of Wilson’s life – especially true for Cusack who throws in a number of clever nuances here and there, with Banks and Giamatti predictably good in their supporting roles too. As you might imagine, Beach Boys tracks feature heavily throughout (though composer Atticus Ross has often rearranged the wealth of original material they had access to, using their music to subtly create something unique for the film), including their enduring ‘God Only Knows’ and it’s fascinating seeing the negative and damaging reaction that Wilson gets from his father, and one time manager, regarding the song which would go on to become significant to so many people. Indeed, I used to have a young lass tied up in my dungeon for whom the song was the most important in her life. She likely has a different interpretation of it now, but nevertheless the film manages to take a lot of these music industry clichés: familial opposition, drugs, not appreciated in own time etc., and put them into a narrative that not only neatly absorbs them but also makes you appreciate them anew with a compelling story and a sympathetic main character.

The balance between each timeline is perfect and it really tells that director Bill Pohlad (more usually known as a producer on such films as ‘12 Years a Slave‘ and ‘Into the Wild’ 07) was determined to tell a real, accurate story with precious little in the way of embellishment. Indeed, the film has been heralded by all as remarkably true to events and if anything it seems to make the villainous characters seem nicer than they were in real life. All of which makes ‘Love and Mercy’ (the title coming from the opening track of Wilson’s debut solo album) not only a great film, but a sterling example of what biographies and historical films should be trying to achieve.