Total Recall (2012)
In yet another case of the unnecessary
remakes, Colin Farrell stars in the Arnie role of this reworking of the
adaptation of the Philip K. Dick story.
The bare bones of the plot are the same,
with factory worker Doug Quaid yearning for something missing, opting to visit
the Rekall company who implant exciting false memories into you, and uncovering
his status as an undercover agent.
However, rather than the previous set up of
rebellion on the Mars colony, this time around Mars is a single reference,
instead Earth has been devastated by chemical warfare leaving only the United
Federation of Britain and the Colony (Australia) habitable, built up into
2000AD style Mega Cities. Connecting the two is the Fall, a drilled hole
straight through the Earth’s core, with a transport that runs in between,
altering its gravity half way through.
The set up is the familiar dystopia of the
oppressed and oppressors, with the Colony here supplying hard labour to the UFB
though the set design doesn’t distinguish a great deal between which is which.
Blade Runner-esque is the order of the day with lots of rainy, neon-lit night
and thousands of levels of buildings connected by hover car motorways.
This set confusion runs through most of the
movie, as despite the mash up of languages and culture there are anomalies with
accent where American seems universal and English rare, despite the UFB status
as world leaders.
As well as this the whole idea of political
upheaval doesn’t make sense. In the original there are defined differences
between Mars and Earth, being different planets, but here the difference is
ambiguous. Usually the richer part would live of the work or resources of the
rest, but in this world of advanced technology encompassing a traversable bore hole
through the Earth’s crust, a large automated robot police force/army and
ubiquitous hover-cars, it’s hard to understand how resources are limited.
Still, Colin’s Quaid finds himself going
through Arnie’s paces, fighting with what he thought was his wife (Kate
Beckinsale in Sharon Stone’s role) and trying to reach the resistance to find
out who he really is.
There’s lots of chase and fight related action,
and neat little snippets of tech such as mobile phones implanted into the hand
and bringing up a vid screen on any glass surface, but on the whole the film
feels like empty flash, lacking the coherence of the original, let alone
building on it.
Initially I thought Farrell would be okay
compared to Arnie’s bug-eyed, gurning attempt at acting, but in retrospect
Arnie’s cartoon character persona suits the ideas much better than Farrell’s
anonymous, muted angst.
Beckinsale’s UFB agent and Jennifer Beale
as Quade’s anchor to his old self do well in roles that require more fighting
than looking pretty, but can’t elevate the film any more than Farrell, and
Brian Cranston hasn’t chosen well for his post-Breaking Bad film debut as the
evil leader of the UFB.
It will be interesting to see when
Hollywood will decide to stop cannibalising itself, or are we stuck in this
blockbuster & sequel cycle for another 30 years?
Killing Them Softly
Killing Them Softly yearns so hard to be a
70s film it hurts.
The wasteland sets of old crumbling
buildings, sweaty card dens and battered cars along with the timeless wardrobe
really give it a sense of place, with only the odd instance of a mobile phone or
somesuch to pull you back to the future.
That and the constant glimpses of the
Obama/McCain election campaign via TV and radio broadcasts and mentions of the
‘recession’ and ‘current economic climate’. Whilst many films attempt at a
subtle introduction of subtext, KTS pretty much bludgeons the viewer with its
references.
However, despite the bungled message, this
is a beautifully shot film using lots of stylistic tricks to elevate the grubby
setting of the story, concerning useless losers sticking up a card game and
getting whacked - moments such as one of the junkies lost in a high, or a slow
motion drive-by/car crash at night, seen from multiple angles.
Scoot McNairy and Ben Mendelsohn are
brilliant as the losers, Ray Liotta is a slightly more vulnerable version of
his usual roles, Gandolfini’s good as the repulsive hitman brought in by Brad
Pitt’s fixer and Richard Jenkins is great casting as the administrative middle
man for a corporate mob.
Pitt is as charismatic as ever but this
isn’t his best performance, instead offering a nastier version of Ocean 11’s
Rusty along with his usual schtick - the knowledgeable, worldly type. His own
get-up hints at an even earlier time in cinema with his leather jacket and
slicked back hair, a hangover of the 60s in a 70s film set in 2008.
Director Andrew Dominik’s previous feature
was The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, and it seems
he’s learning with Killing Them Softly, keeping an element of the more
ponderous, painterly moments of the former, but upping the pace and keeping to
a genre running time.
Pitt’s last line is obviously meant to be
the summary to the whole thing “America isn’t a country, it’s a business…” but
the film yearns to be more important than it is - and yet, despite not being as
good as it hopes to be, it’s still a decent film that doesn’t outstay its
welcome and classier version than the usual mob/hitman flicks that are
regularly turned out, with some great performances and lovely camerawork.
5 Broken Cameras
In 2005, Palestinian farmer Emad Burnat
bought his first video camera to film his fourth son. He then ended up
recording the conflict between his home, the West Bank village of Bil’In, and
the encroaching Israeli settlements, taking over much of the village’s land and
the villagers’ livelihood.
The 5 broken cameras of the title are the
cameras broken during the course of recording the village’s protest at the
settlements, cameras which record the beating, tear-gassing and shooting of
peaceful protestors by Israeli forces, of olive trees burnt by settlers in the
night and of raids on the village to arrest children.
Throughout the course of this documentary
it’s clear that there will have been some editing decisions made to highlight
certain events in a certain way, but increasingly as the film unfolds it’s hard
to imagine any context that would allow the Israeli army’s actions to make
sense, culminating in the death of one of the village’s key protestors and
Emad’s friend, a man you come to know in a small way during the film and then
who you watch shot dead.
It’s hard to watch the film without feeling
outrage, and it’s hard to imagine being in the same position without
retaliating with violence, so it’s a testament to the patience of the villagers
and their supporters that they manage to keep it relatively peaceful.
Silver Lining Playbook
Both Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper
are brilliant in bringing their characters to life, unpredictable and
inappropriate, a strain on their families but ultimately trying to get better.
Even with the trite plot tropes of the gambling all-or-nothing ultimatum and
the challenge/competition finale, Silver Lining Playbook still manages to feel
fresh.
Not only the leads but DeNiro as Cooper’s father
turns in a brilliant role, the first for a long time that feels more about the
performance than the pay, and Jacki Weaver, excellent in Animal Kingdom,
matches him for the quality of performance. Even Chris Tucker manages to
channel his usual screechy offering into a part that plays to all of his
strengths, the fast talking energy and good-natured face that doesn’t seem
capable of threat.
Excellent camerawork, jittery camera full
of quick edits, but the framing gives you the feel of the shambolic inner world
of the bipolar sufferer rather than the usual quick cutting of an action-packed
blockbuster.
After the excellent The Fighter, it seems
that director David O. Russell is excelling at coaxing spectacular performances
from his cast.
The Monster Squad
Another of the video-shop tempters, I never
got round to watching the Monster Squad in the 80s.
Perfectly aimed at it’s demographic, it
focuses on a group of pre-teen outsiders who gang together as the Monster Squad,
and hone their knowledge of the classic monsters - how to defeat werewolves and
vampires for example.
It just so happens that after a failed
attempt by Van Helsing to stop Dracula decades earlier, Drac gets himself and
Frankenstein’s monster flown out in crates, only to be dropped over small town
America after being discovered by the pilot.
In town a man turns into a werewolf, a
swamp creature appears and a mummy escapes from the museum, leading to a
perfect storm of 80s updated Universal classic monsters for the kids to face
off against.
The squad consists of all the key skill
sets - horror film geeks, a fat boy, a cool leather jacketed boy, a little girl - and the tone of
the film is very light and fun-loving, a little at odds with the 15 rating
earned by scenes like the werewolf being blown apart by a grenade, only to
messily form together as it wasn’t a silver weapon. If the film were made today
it would likely be a 12A, with its euphemisms such as ‘dork’ replacing any more grown up swearing.
Tom Noonan as Frankenstein's monster is the stand-out performance here, portraying the monster as a gentle giant in the vein of the James Whale adaptation, with less of the accidental killing.
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