Lone Survivor (2013) 30/100

Posted on February 17, 2014 by The Red Dragon

Rating : 30/100 121 Min

A huge opportunity missed here as what could have been a tight, thrilling and quite moving war piece based on a true incident taking place in Afghanistan in 2005, descends into complete farce and jingoism with the main American soldiers each being shot about five hundred times, exclaiming ‘damn it’ with each hit as if they’d merely been stung by some nettles as blood spurts everywhere all leading up to dramatic Boromir style death scenes in slow motion with the sun setting on the picturesque landscape surrounding them. The title itself completely blows much of the story as for anyone who wasn’t aware of the details (the vast majority of viewers one imagines) we know only one of the four man team survives, and the very beginning compacts this gross error by showing it is very clearly going to be Mark Wahlberg’s character Marcus Luttrell, and indeed the film is based on Luttrell’s novel recounting events as they happened on the ground (reputedly his original report put enemy troop numbers at circa 20 -30, then in his book they became more like 200, whilst an alternative novel published about the operation puts them at more like 9 or 10).

The other three combatants are played by Emile Hirsch, Taylor Kitsch and Ben Foster, and, frankly, if I died fighting for my country I’d be pretty pissed off with some of these casting choices, and the film opens, after some decent real army footage, with what seems to be some sort of homosexual soft porno with the focus on the bodies of the men instead of the camaraderie or characters. Without knowing the exact details of the events that actually occurred, their assignment according to the film was to covertly approach an Afghan village and take out a Taliban leader, or ‘the bad guys’ as they put it, thought to be there, but it many ways it seems doomed from the beginning. They quickly find the mountains are making radio communication impossible – how is it they didn’t factor that in? It surely cannot have come as a surprise. Then they encounter their first major obstacle and make a complete dog’s breakfast of it, before failing to properly conceal themselves in what seems pretty good terrain to disappear in, especially if there are only four of you. Not only this, but instead of both hiding themselves and also preparing cover where they would have the advantage, they elect to run at the superior numbers taking very little precaution with cover (but when you can take multiple bullets without even noticing I guess that’s not so much of an issue), and then, when they should once again be trying to disappear, they loudly call out to each other creating a very, very easy duck hunt for the people trying to kill them.

It ends with what is actually a very moving tribute to the real men that lost their lives there, but this is cheating – an emotional punch at the end that people are naturally going to feel and empathise with and yet it cannot make up for the majority of the film being terrible. I say the majority – the last quarter of the story has more of a heart to it, which took me by surprise, and some of the scenes at least successfully begin to set up tension, with at least one of them slightly uncomfortable viewing, as was intended by the clever way it was shot. However, when you are watching the main characters effectively play Cowboys and Indians and pretending to be riddled with lead and hit every bone of their bodies off rocks, still calmly delivering cheesy lines to one another, then the thing is sunk without any real hope of redemption. This is entirely the fault of director Peter Berg as he not only helmed the project but also wrote the screenplay, in fact, and I may be misremembering this, but I think he tells us he is the director twice during the opening credits. His last film was ‘Battleship’ (12) and this is in the same league as that, notwithstanding the real world relevance.

My Perestroika (2010) 63/100

Posted on February 15, 2014 by The Red Dragon

Rating : 63/100 88 Min

A documentary focusing on several Muscovites that lived through the dissolution of the Soviet Union and asking them to compare living now in modern day Russia, with living and going to school under communism. They were all classmates and all experienced the attempted coup in 1991 by party hardliners, with some of them taking part in the demonstrations against it. It’s really interesting listening to their comments on the before and after, with some of them laughing in almost disbelief at some of the things they used to take for granted under the heavy Soviet indoctrination, and yet others pointing out that so long as you turned up for work and were not an alcoholic then you had a job for life and didn’t have to worry about being fired, and so on. The discussion is fascinating, but apart from interviews with the same handful of people and the mixing in of archival footage (a lot of which contains the interviewees, possibly why they were chosen for the project) the film doesn’t really do much else, so it remains nothing more than a social snapshot, albeit still a worthwhile one.

(The title translates as ‘My Reconstruction’ or ‘My Rebuilding’)

The Wolf of Wall Street (2013) 81/100

Posted on February 13, 2014 by The Red Dragon

Rating : 81/100 180 Min

Martin Scorsese’s latest film once again features Leonardo DiCaprio (after very successful collaborations on ‘Gangs of New York’ 02, ‘The Aviator’ 04, The Departed’ 06 and ‘Shutter Island’ 10) and, as with The Aviator, it has garnered DiCaprio a very well deserved Academy Award nomination. He plays Jordan Belfort, who would later be heralded by the titular moniker after taking Wall Street by storm, starting out with vicious, remorseless and extremely successful penny stock profiteering. The film follows his exploits from his days as a mild mannered and slightly idealistic greenhorn in the industry under the tutelage of a, once more, very on form Matthew McConaughey, through starting a family and his ever surging success along with its associated excess, and I do mean excess.

The film has a very similar to feel to Oliver Stone’s ‘Wall Street’ (87), reason being that in real life Belfort was inspired by that very film, which probably makes DiCaprio the only person to be Oscar nominated for a role based on someone who was inspired by another Oscar winning role – namely Michael Douglas in Wall Street. It has caused lots of controversy by showing just how careless and ready to completely rip people off Belfort and his employees were – the argument being it sets a bad precedent when they seem to be having such a good time doing it, and given another high profile movie effectively inspired the whole thing it is a fair point. However, the film is simply retelling a true story and really all this venom should be directed at the failings in the justice system and the finance sector that it accurately highlights, and in terms of the filmmaking it is a sterling, engrossing, reflective and highly entertaining piece of work. It would not have been amiss to see more of the effects for the people losing all their savings, but the film is still a lot of fun and features good turns from all the cast, including Jonah Hill and a career launching performance from Margot Robbie (pictured above).

This is the first major feature film to be released to cinemas only in digital form, and currently it also holds the record for the most uses of the word ‘fuck’ in any non-documentary film, although the exact number used varies, perhaps due to the news that the DVD will include a longer and more explicit cut of the film. Unusually for Scorsese, The Rolling Stones cannot be heard playing at any point, though this does not detract from a very good and fitting soundtrack.

The Railway Man (2013) 65/100

Posted on February 11, 2014 by The Red Dragon

Rating : 65/100 116 Min

This is based on the true story of Eric Lomax, a Scottish soldier who, after his unit were captured by the Japanese when they took Singapore (one of the biggest military defeats the British ever suffered, who were in charge of the eighty thousand or so allied troops seized that day – many of whom would perish at the hands of their captors), was forced to work on the Burma railway by the Japanese, wherein he experienced severe torture to the point that it all but ruined the rest of his life, one day compelling him to return to Japan with the aim of murdering one of his still living tormentors (this is a major departure from Lomax’s book, where he returned to Japan in order to face his demons and try and find peace, rather than setting out for cold blooded vengeance). Colin Firth plays Eric in his middle age, with Jeremy Irvine doing a good job of portraying him in the flashbacks of his youth (the picture above features Irvine on Calton Hill in Edinburgh, truly one of the few cities on the world where you can get a picture like that without the need for any digital alteration, as it looks just as historic, and just as beautiful, today).

The catalyst for this need for confrontation comes in the form of his marriage to Patricia Wallace (Nicole Kidman), as well as the intervention of his friend Finlay (Stellan Skaarsgard), when she comes to realise with some shock the mental scars that the various assaults have left him with. In terms of the film’s treatment of the war and the attempts by the Japanese to link Bangkok to Rangoon via the railway, there are much better versions out there – most notably David Lean’s ‘The Bridge on the River Kwai’ which won several Oscars for 1957. The historical context is only part of the story though, with the focus on Eric’s mental torment and his final one on one dance with the devil, as he returns to the scene of the crimes to find one of his captors, played by Hiroyuki Sanada (who also appeared in ‘The Wolverine‘ and ‘47 Ronin‘), now running guided tours of the facilities for profit.

The acting from all the leads is good throughout, though the film was deliberately taken out of the awards race for 2013 due to the heavy saturation of key categories. It’s good to see a treatment of the long term effects of abuse but the dramatic changes they’ve made to the original true story just feel very lazy, and somewhat misguided.

12 Years a Slave (2013) 75/100

Posted on February 8, 2014 by The Red Dragon

Rating : 75/100 134 Min

Everyone knew about this film long before it ever went on general release. Partly due to its true story – that of Solomon Northup, a free man and a family man living in relative prosperity in New York state in 1841 who was betrayed and sold into slavery in Louisiana, and party due to the acclaim attached to its director Steve McQueen (whose two feature films to date so far, Hunger (08) and Shame (11), were both snubbed at the Oscars and yet commonly appear in ‘best films of the year’ lists) as well as the star studded cast including Chiwetel Ejiofor as Northup himself, Lupita Nyong’o as the female slave he tries to help, Benedict Cumberbatch, Michael Fassbender, Paul Dano and Paul Giamatti as southern plantation owners, and Brad Pitt as the travelling voice of reason.

For me, the first forty or so minutes of the film don’t really work, they don’t feel genuine, more like a sort of enforced darkness as Northup is sent southward and first experiences the brutality of his situation, like the heavy handed deliberate stamp of the director even though it is indeed a very dark tale he is portraying. Then, after this period, as Paul Dano vents his hatred on the protagonist we see him fight back and release some of the tension that’s been built up, in him and the audience, and this feels very real indeed. It’s a powerful scene, and from that point onward the film becomes increasingly enthralling.

McQueen has given himself a difficult job – telling this story over the period of more than a decade and yet attempting to make it quite intimate, and he has largely succeeded even if we are missing a lot of the political backdrop with the differing laws of North and South responsible for much of what we see happening, as well as little mention of the repercussions of Northup’s particular experiences as this was once upon a time a very well known story, as it is about to become again. Really throwing fuel on the fire is the director’s weapon of choice, Michael Fassbender, who absolutely revels in playing a composite villain that brutally tortures and sexually abuses his slaves. He really ignites the film, and introduces one of the most tricky aspects – sexual fetishism. A palpable sense of this is created for a small section of the film, with the air of perpetual fear and the excitement and adrenaline that that must bring, as well as the infusion of power within the abuser, an abuser that comes to love his slaves – but love them as mere toys to be played with for entertainment and the associated thrill of control.

Thus this film, whilst it focuses on the story of Northup and does not delve into the wider issues, is of a standard high enough to ask the audience to probe deeper into the mindset at work and the historical context, and yet also be careful not to simply label it a relic of the past. It does make sacrifices which take it away from a deeper examination of the human condition in order to tell its story, but it is successful in its exploration of darkness, albeit a slightly self-aware darkness, nonetheless.

McQueen has said he considers slavery in the American south to be somewhat missing from cinema in general, like a dirty secret no one is willing to talk about. I don’t think that’s really fair, but he has certainly brought it to the forefront of everyone’s attention in a way that is not going to be forgotten in a hurry, and it deservedly sits as one of the leading contenders in this year’s Oscars race.

Mandela : Long Walk to Freedom (2013) 70/100

Posted on February 1, 2014 by The Red Dragon

Rating : 70/100 141 Min

This is a very, very powerful and commanding turn from Idris Elba as Nelson Mandela, replete with a convincing accent, as we watch his life story unfold before us from lawyer to civil rights activist, then rebel, to the long imprisoned leader who would eventually become one of the most influential men of the 20th century and lead South Africa away from racial violence toward forgiveness and a way forward. There is a lot to fit in, and the film does a good job with both the pace and what to put emphasis on, and as well as Nelson in the limelight we also see the changes over time that his wife Winnie Madikizela-Mandela goes through, played onscreen by Naomie Harris. Overall quite an emotive and important film, if perhaps a little straight forward – it doesn’t invite the audience to explore the issues at hand in quite the same way that ’12 Years a Slave’ does, for example.

This seems to be a very faithful adaptation of Mandela’s autobiography and sadly shortly after its release the man himself passed away, aged 95. Indeed, the news broke as the film was having its London premier, and a special announcement was made at the end of the film. Elba could very well have earned himself an Academy Award nomination for this, and probably the only reason he hasn’t is simply the large abundance of really great performances in the male lead category for 2013, but this role, and being able to say “Today, we are cancelling the apocalypse!” in ‘Pacific Rim’, as well as reprising his enigmatic part of Heimdall in ‘Thor : The Dark World’ marked an especially awesome year for him.

Kill Your Darlings (2013) 69/100

Posted on December 24, 2013 by The Red Dragon

Rating : 69/100 104 Min

A film hot on the heels of Walter Salles’ perspective on the Beat Generation of Jack Kerouac and co released earlier this year. Here, the story focuses on the coming of age of budding poet in the making Allen Ginsberg (Daniel Radcliffe) and his erotic fascination with Lucien Carr (Dane DeHaan) whilst the two of them studied together at Columbia university in 1940’s New York City. I wasn’t expecting to get anything out of this, and was simply envisaging more pretentious glorification of just how self absorbed they all were, as they continue to drag their lives into ever increasing circles of depravity, a vicious symbiosis with their writing careers (misery and poetry do often go hand in hand) all whilst the audience ask themselves who exactly would want anything to do with these people?

This sort of egotistical masturbation does exist, and it is annoying, but as the film progresses the story and in no small measure the good central performances begin to make it quite interesting – Radcliffe in particular has a very good turn, with a convincing accent to boot. The film opens with Carr in jail for murder, and the rest primarily fills in the blanks as to what led to it. The murder in question is a matter of historical record which inevitably most of the Beat Generation wrote about at one point or another – here the details have been shifted around a little, but the essence of events seems to be well captured. An interesting and impressive directorial debut from John Krokidas and, ahem, miles better than ‘On the Road‘.

Saving Mr. Banks (2013) 79/100

Posted on December 10, 2013 by The Red Dragon

Rating : 79/100 125 Min

There was nary a dry eye in the house by the time this biographical tearjerker ended, and despite slightly over egging the pudding at times, it has set itself up nicely for multiple award nominations over the coming months. The plot focuses on the behind the scenes storyboarding and scriptwriting of ‘Mary Poppins’ (64), or, to be more exact, Walt Disney’s (Tom Hanks) invitation to P.L.Travers (Emma Thompson) to come work with his team in California to oversee that her Marry Poppins novel was being treated respectfully, in order to gain her signature on the rights to make the film – which Disney had been seeking for two whole decades. This task, however, would not prove to be easy.

Initially, Thompson’s Travers is far too ruthlessly curt and acidic to be likeable in any emotionally tangible way, but over time we warm to her and to the heart of the story as we learn that the titular Mr Banks (the father of the family in Mary Poppins) is in fact based upon Travers’ memories of her own father and her childhood in Australia – and we relive those memories via flashbacks, and great performances from Colin Farrell as her father and Annie Rose Buckley as her younger self.

Hanks is good as always (he grew his moustache to meticulously mirror Disney’s) but it is really Thompson that gives both a transformative and genuinely evocative performance – and so far she and Cate Blanchett for ‘Blue Jasmine’ are The Red Dragon’s top two contenders to take home the coveted best actress award at the Oscars next year …

One Chance (2013) 35/100

Posted on October 31, 2013 by The Red Dragon

Rating : 35/100 103 Min

I’m very tempted to say James Corden has already had his one chance with ‘Lesbian Vampire Killers’ (09) which was one of the direst films I have ever seen in my life – no hyperbole, but he at least has the saving grace of not having been involved with its screenplay. Here, he embodies the opera singer Paul Potts who rose to international prominence by winning the first ever ‘Britain’s Got Talent’ TV competition in 2007. Now, given that it is painfully (perhaps even disturbingly) obvious here that it is not him singing and that he equally cannot do the accent required (all the more emphasized by the fact he is surrounded by actors who either can or for whom it is their natural accent anyway. Bizarrely Potts is depicted as growing up in Port Talbot in Wales here and Corden’s lack of anything approaching a decent Welsh accent is astounding – and yet Potts is actually a Bristolian and not only didn’t move to Wales until later on in life, but also does not have a Welsh accent, so if they hadn’t butchered his real life story Corden’s accent would have been fine. Crazy) the reasons for his casting would seem to be whittled down to naught more than the extra layer of insulation he has lovingly nurtured (notwithstanding the Tony award he won in the States last year, minor detail). Something which we are visually treated to in all its fleshy glory on more than one occasion.

Was it not possible to find a vocally gifted actor that could just shove a pillow up his jumper? Or a young opera talent who could passably pull off the dialogue? Actually, just the pillow singing by itself would be more believable – unfortunately the leading man leads this film straight down the pan, and it is only due to the supporting cast that it manages to deliver any sort of reward or emotional engagement whatsoever, with most of the first half just cringe worthy. Alexandra Roach (pictured above) is wonderful, and it is her that’s largely responsible for saving the movie from complete incineration, together with a bit of help from Colm Meaney, Julie Walters and Mackenzie Crook. The fact that the film also takes enormous liberties with the actual life of Potts, including not mentioning previous employment with local government in Bristol for seven years and multiple opera tours before appearing on television, together with the knowledge that the movie is partly produced by the man behind the talent show Mr Simon Cowell himself, just drives the final nails into its coffin.

One of the other producers for the film – big Hollywood player Harvey Weinstein, aka ‘The Punisher’, was actually responsible for pitching the role to Corden, but then in rehearsals immediately called his main actor ‘tone deaf’ before hiring Potts himself to do the voice over (he should really have just played himself) and then, astoundingly, having this to say to the MailOnline about the final product – “James is definitely up for a Golden Globe or Oscar: it’s that kind of performance.” Is he deliberately trying to sabotage his career? Corden is actually due to appear in two upcoming big budget films where he will be singing, so this slight debacle will probably be forgotten about soon enough …

When I began writing this review, it became apparent whoever care takes the imdb page for the film was also not a fan of it, with any clicks around the top of the page directing to different lesbian films. Sadly, these links have been removed now – but to save the affront to your patience that watching this film would entail, you can find the clip below of the actual performance from Potts that got him his place in the ‘Britain’s Got Talent’ show (apparently it’s one of the most watched clips on YouTube) thus extracting the best bit from the movie, and another more recent clip from the same show which is also worth a gander …

James Corden is definitely up for a Golden Globe or Oscar it’s that kind of performance.”
Read more at http://www.entertainmentwise.com/photos/129884/1/James-Corden-Labelled-Tone-Deaf-By-Producer-On-Set-Of-One-Chance-Film-#6SuteRmTRPUS3Jyd.99

Walesa – Man of Hope / Czlowiek z nadziei (2013) 69/100

Posted on October 30, 2013 by The Red Dragon

Rating : 69/100 127 Min

A very interesting film that charts the rise of electrician Lech Walesa, from dockland worker in Gdansk in the early seventies to the co-founder and leader of the first independent trade union movement in Poland (and indeed the Soviet bloc) over the next two decades, and eventually the winner of the Nobel peace prize and the presidency of the Polish nation. Internationally respected director Andrzej Wajda had in mind to simply relate a factual account of events, without the traditional sort of narrative that we might expect from a Hollywood biography – and the result is a fascinating story, albeit one that does lack a certain emotional connection at times.

Mixed in with the relation of events chronologically is an interview with Walesa that seems to try and provide insights into his character not given elsewhere, but here the film is at its weakest, with the meaning a little too ambiguous and unclear (anyone under the microscope in an interview is already giving us an out of context glimpse of their personality, likely with an agenda behind their answers) and the heavy stylised use of cigarettes – smoking certainly fits into the historical context here, but with the interview it serves no real purpose, and for a film decrying the corruption of big business it seems markedly odd to be kowtowing to one of the most pervasive, corrupt and destructive businesses there has ever been.

Notwithstanding the occasional drifting of one’s attention, the tale is a fascinating and important one, promoting the rights of the common man as well as the power of self belief and determination to accomplish truly great deeds, as we watch Walesa battle against severe, and at times deadly, political forces. Robert Wieckiewicz as Walesa is believable throughout and seems perfect for the role, with Agnieszka Grochowska as his beautiful but constantly stressed out wife just as good. Real archive footage was used throughout – sometimes with Wieckiewicz’s face digitally imposed on top, and the style of the film very much mirrors one shot in the seventies.

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