I reeeeally wanted to like this more than I did. It suffers from over familiarity with the gag before the audience even goes in, and there is a pretty significant drag factor in the middle, but it does satisfy enough to justify the proposed sequel – ‘Machete Kills Again … In Space!’.
This is of course a comedy exploitation film from director Robert Rodriguez, the third of a trilogy starring Danny Trejo as the titular Machete (so called for his skill with his favourite weapon), a franchise which began as a fake trailer shown during Rodriquez and Tarantino’s ‘Grindhouse’ (07), much like ‘Hobo with a Shotgun’. Here the president of the United States (Charlie Sheen) asks Machete to tackle a credible threat to the safety of the entire nation. You can expect an overindulgence of blood soaked tongue in cheek violence and black humour as well as a raft of familiar faces and dazzling dames – including Mel Gibson, Antonio Banderas, Lady Gaga, Amber Heard, Michelle Rodriguez, Demian Bichir and Jessica Alba.
Best watched with your mates and combined with a drinking game.
If you’re just in the mood to sit and watch a meaningless film, then this might be just the ticket, but if you’re looking for intrigue, originality or good acting then it is a ‘safe bet’ this will only disappoint. Justin Timberlake, who is once again entirely unconvincing as anything other than an irritating childlike upstart, plays Richie Furst, who finds himself in the unlikely employ of Ivan Block (played by Ben Affleck, who’s actually not too bad here – he is always much better when he is playing the bad guy), the mysterious head of an online gambling outfit being run from Costa Rica. It is painfully obvious where things are headed and how they will ultimately turn out, although credit should be given to the director Brad Furman (‘The Lincoln Lawyer’ 11) for managing to maintain at least minimal interest in seeing it through to the end despite it’s inevitability. Gemma Arterton turns up to pay the bills (and, presumably, to have a nice trip to Puerto Rico where it was mostly filmed) along with Anthony Mackie (who has more onscreen charisma than Timberlake and Affleck combined, and has also appeared in two films that won best picture at the Oscars incidentally – ‘Million Dollar Baby’ 04 and ‘The Hurt Locker’ 08 {although to be fair so has Affleck with his ‘Argo‘ 12 and ‘Shakespeare in Love’ 98}) as an FBI agent with an interest in Block’s activities. With both ‘Filth’ and ‘Prisoners’ on at the big-screen right now, one would be well advised not to waste their time on this.
Brutal, but brilliant. Without doubt a genuinely disturbing film, centred around the disappearance of two small children and the ensuing police investigation, but with great performances all round it proves enthralling from start to finish. In particular, Hugh Jackman as the father of one of the missing girls and Jake Gyllenhaal as the police detective assigned the case are darkly compelling in their roles. They’re joined by Maria Bello, Terrence Howard and Viola Davis as the other parents involved, and Paul Dano as suspect numero uno. It has a similar feel to David Fincher’s ‘Zodiac’ (07), also with Gyllenhaal, and although it’s certainly not light entertainment, it is a very good, gripping film. From Canadian director Denis Villeneuve, three time winner of the best director Genie award (Canada’s highest filmmaking honour) for ‘Maelstrom’ (2000), ‘Polytechnique’ (09) and ‘Incendies’ (10).
Great film. James McAvoy gives a commanding turn, arguably his finest performance to date, as Bruce Robertson the Edinburgh copper with ‘issues’ in Jon S. Baird’s interpretation of Irvine Welsh’s novel. Filmed in Scotland’s capital this is replete with all the drugs, violence, corruption and black humour/foul language one expects from Welsh’s writing, as we become engaged in Bruce’s struggle to obtain, by any means possible, the promotion at work against his rival colleagues, amongst them Jamie Bell and Imogen Poots, whilst also wondering exactly what is going on regarding his relationship with his wife (Shauna Macdonald). Eddie Marsan, Jim Broadbent, Kate Dickie and Martin Compston round out the more familiar faces in the cast, and everyone is good in this throughout as the story keeps us guessing, and often laughing, from start to finish. Oscar nod for McAvoy? For The Red Dragon, he and Michael Douglas, in ‘Behind the Candelabra‘, have given the two most memorable male performances of the year so far …
Haley Berry stars as an emergency call centre operator who one day makes a mistake that results in the brutal execution of a young teenage girl at the hands of a sadistic serial killer (Michael Eklund). As she has questions of faith about herself the killer remains at large, just waiting to strike again….Of course, casually chatting with people on the phones and just as casually taking self appointed breaks in the beginning never really boded well for her career. Brad Anderson of ‘The Machinist’ (04) fame directs, and despite an iffy start this becomes an engaging thriller with moments of both genuine excitement and revulsion. I’m not convinced by the ending, but Eklund and Abigail Breslin as a young victim in particular give very good performances.
It’s never really a good sign when one of your principal leads, in this case Jeff Bridges, comes out and publicly puts their own film down – here saying the final cut left him feeling ‘underwhelmed’. Going by its critical drubbing, that was putting it mildly for most people, and although it is true the whole movie constantly has an air of ‘this could have been much better’ and there’s a definite feeling of flatness throughout, especially in the first half, I’ll throw the gauntlet down and say it’s actually still quite fun.
Bridges buddies up with Ryan Reynolds to play two dead cops, in the case of Reynolds one very recently deceased, who have been unwittingly selected by the celestial forces of heaven to join the R.I.P.D. (Rest In Peace Department) and hunt down the dead souls (or deados as they’re called, a word which I certainly hope enters into the common vernacular. It’s a hell of a lot better than recent lexical addition ‘double denim’, in fact maybe the two could be switched…) who have by hook or crook escaped judgement from the almighty and are currently hiding in human form on Earth. It is a pretty cool premise and it’s based on the graphic novel of the same name by Peter M. Lenkov, although it does come across as a little too similar to ‘Men in Black’ (97), especially in the beginning, but despite this one of the film’s biggest pluses is that it doesn’t waste any time – the story continues to unfold at a good pace, and so the similarities are quickly forgotten.
Gags feature prominently, and like everything else they usually work to at least some degree. Used time and again is the fact that the two main characters are given disguises, or ‘avatars’, once they’re returned to the land of the living – for Reynolds, an old Chinese man (James Hong), and Bridges, a tall hot blonde (Marisa Miller). It’s a nice touch. Kevin Bacon has another good turn as the bad guy (see 2010’s ‘Super’) but one of the film’s strengths is the commitment of Bridges, who was murdered way back in the old west and sports a pretty unique cowboy accent. It’s unique to the point of not being able to understand what he’s saying all the time (apparently the sound department had issues with this) but it still works well and adds a lot of flavour to both his character and the film. Mary-Louise Parker is also good in support.
Personally I hope they make another one – here’s a glimpse behind the scenes …
A film that has its moments, but overall feels largely pointless, not to mention derivative of the work of Terrence Malick. Casey Affleck and Rooney Mara play Bob and Ruth respectively – young lovers involved in a gang of thieves that we don’t really learn too much about, as very early on the police put an end to their career of choice by sending Bob to jail and leaving a now pregnant Ruth in the care of their adopted father Skerritt (Keith Carradine). Years further on, one of the local sheriffs, played by Ben Foster (who normally plays a total creep, and here looks completely out of his element, and frankly unbelievable, trying to be the ‘nice guy’), decides he rather fancies his chances of looking after Ruth and her young girl, which just so happens to coincide with the jail break of a certain ardent and desperate young father …
Overall the entire film feels like it’s trying too hard to be ‘arty’ and heavy with ‘depth’, and it reminds The Red Dragon a lot of ‘To The Wonder’ – there we seen Olga Kurylenko frolic in the fields with the sun low in the sky behind her, here we see Rooney Mara frolic in the fields with the sun low in the sky behind her. The music and the way it’s used feels similar, and although there is a lot more dialogue here, it still retains attempts at wanky poetry – especially issuing forth from Bob, and Affleck rarely convinces in any scene here. Indeed, one in particular is downright annoying as he delivers some vain rambling monologue in front of the mirror whilst chewing on something, slurring his words and talking in an unnatural affected way, ironically perhaps an attempt at ‘realism’. Given Casey’s brother, Ben Affleck, also starred in ‘To The Wonder’, these things do not seem like coincidence at all. Mara and Carradine are good, but with the pretentious title heralding a particularly hollow drama, it was wishful thinking indeed for director David Lowery if he thought this would touch base with such outlaw classics as ‘Bonnie and Clyde’ (67) and ‘Badlands’ (73) – the latter of which was also directed by Malick. Coincidence?
Michael Bay brings his adrenaline fuelled style of filmmaking to somewhat new and uncharted territory for the director, with this ‘based on a true story’ (published in 1999 as a series of articles in the ‘Miami New Times’) crime drama. Mark Wahlberg, Dwayne Johnson and Anthony Mackie are all weight lifters working in the Sun Gym in California who decide, largely at the instigation of Wahlberg’s ringleader Daniel Lugo, to kidnap a local entrepreneur and try to extort all of his money and belongings from him. The three are each the very epitome of the term ‘meathead’ and what ensues is a classic crime caper, with the three leads delivering entirely believable and often amusing performances. Bay still hasn’t quite mastered the craft of truncating his movies so that they run at a reasonable length, but this was still a lot of fun from start to finish, and marks another great turn by Johnson, ranking alongside his appearance in ‘Southland Tales’ (06) and as the lead in ‘Faster’ (10). The characters have been made a lot more palatable than their real life counterparts, and in reality the gang was a lot bigger than just three people, but the story in general follows real life events.
Surprising enjoyable. As this is a light hearted comedy film we know exactly where it’s heading – its success is that we are quite happy for it to do so. Jason Sudeikis is a small time drug dealer who falls into debt with a bigger fish in his regional pond. To make amends he agrees to drive down to Mexico and collect a new shipment of Marijuana, and to facilitate the operation he decides to bring along a collection of people to pose as his family ‘The Millers’, people who are, for a variety of reasons, all at loose ends. The fake family are rounded out by Jennifer Aniston as the mom, and Emma Roberts and Will Poulter as the two kids.
Drawing quite a bit of attention from the trailers, something which they cunningly focused on, is Aniston’s character’s occupation, that of a nightclub stripper, suggesting her acting career may be continuing along the path begun with her more sexualised role in ‘Horrible Boses’ (11), and here the film lives up to expectations, with a lithe and salacious Aniston brazenly giving a show in itself more erotic than the whole of ‘Showgirls’ (95) taken together, and yet it never feels overtly gratuitous, in a sort of Megan Fox ‘Transformers : Revenge of the Fallen’ (09) kind of way, and she simultaneously maintains the spirit of most of her romcom characters as well.
The film provides a few genuine laughs, but scores highest with it’s enjoyable character dynamic, with some obvious improv and in the case of Will Poulter it features a rare cinematic moment when you are not only happy for the character, but also very much for the actor playing them too (you’ll see what I mean).
This film has been critically annihilated by just about every journalistic source I’ve seen it mentioned in, but I really don’t think the poor reviews are merited, it’s just a nice, easy to watch film. Diane Keaton, Queen Latifah and Katie Holmes star in a crime caper about three women working in menial jobs at the federal reserve, who decide (largely at the instigation of debt ridden Keaton, whose husband Ted Danson has been forced out of work) they could really do with some of the money they see being moved around every day, surely no one would miss it …It’s based on an earlier British film, ‘Hot Money’ (01), which in turn loosely depicted real life events (no details here in the interests of avoiding spoilers). The film is directed by Callie Khouri, winner of the best original screenplay Oscar for ‘Thelma and Louise’ (91), and this was her second feature film behind the camera.
It opens with the three women frantically trying to dispose of their ill gotten gains with the feds waiting outside their homes, so we know it goes pear shaped eventually, but it still manages to be interesting, and the three leads are fun to watch. The Red Dragon had a splitting headache after eating something that disagreed with him (a couple of Tory campaigners) and this, together with a cup of tea, was a perfect remedy, requiring little brain power and yet I didn’t want to leave the room for too long during the break for fear of missing some of the dialogue (always the sign of a good film). It’s the sort of light hearted film your mother would enjoy, but to be honest, I quite liked it too.
