Tag: 2015

Nowhere Girl

  By

★★½
“Slow, slow, slow-slow, quick…”

For the first hour, you may be forgiven for wondering if there has been some kind of mistake, because the poster bears almost no resemblance to what happens in the film. Oh, it’s the same actress, to be sure, and she is a schoolgirl. But it appears, rather than the war story promised, you have strayed into a teenage drama. In it, Ai (Seino) is a talented but troubled student, who seems to be suffering from some kind of post-traumatic stress disorder. The special treatment she receives at school brings her enmity as a result, both from her class-mates and the er homeroom teacher (Kaneko). Though she finds solace in art, including a mysterious major project on which she is working, housed in the school auditorium.

It’s all very subdued. There’s a lot of scenes of people standing around talking. Or, for variety, sitting around talking. The camera is considerably more mobile than the characters, engaging in stately pans and tracking shots around the dialogue, accompanied by classical music that’s positively soporific. Yet, it’s clear there’s something “off” about the whole situation. The school is frequently shaken by earthquakes, and it’s apparent that Ai has a tendency to outbursts of violence, which is bubbling just below the surface. The staff and other students don’t pay attention to the warning signs, and continue to push Ai’s buttons. You’ll understand where I thought this was potentially going to end up, delivering on the image with her going postal on the school.

Not quite.

Trust Oshii to make something which confounds expectations, while still somehow managing to disappoint. See  Avalon or Assault Girls, both films with massive potential, that fall short of realizing it. Here, you have a film which would potentially be a classic, if it started at the hour mark, then built on what follows, for another hour after the credits actually roll. Because what kicks off – at the 67-minute mark if you’re interested in fast-forwarding to that point – is beautifully staged. There’s a spectacular sequence of kung- and gun-fu, whose highlight for me was Ai taking the term “human shield” to a whole new level. Then a revelation to set up a whole new scenario, one that looks very interesting, and… The End.

I do have to mark this down for the film trying to pull off the most clichéd of clichéd twists which, to a significant degree, renders everything previous to that point a waste of everybody’s time. You need to be a supremely confident film-maker to pull it off; while it’s clear Oshii doesn’t lack in confidence, pulling the carpet out from under the viewer really needs to have happened 10-15 minutes in. The longer the conceit is sustained, the more likely the audience’s reaction will be “You’ve got to be kidding me” – and there might well be an epithet dropped in before “kidding”, too. Some day Oshii will deliver on his undeniable talent and imagination. Just not today.

Dir: Mamoru Oshii
Star: Nana Seino, Nobuaki Kaneko, Lily, Hirotaro Honda

The Hit Producer

  By

★½
“This hit is a miss.”

Made on a shoestring in Ireland, the nicest thing you can say is probably, this doesn’t look as cheap as it was. If only you could say the same for the script, which seems to be trying to be Guy Ritchie, only to end up nearer to Guy Fieri. It’s not a terrible idea, if rather stretching belief. Katelin Ballantine (Doherty) is a film producer, trying to raise funds for her latest movie. To that end, she is hanging out, unwillingly, with sleazeball businessman, Felim Shaw. What she doesn’t know, is he is deep in debt to local mob-boss Edmund Murren (Fleming). He kidnaps them both, forces Katelin to kill her potential investor, then threatens her family to make her continue in her new career as his assassin, alongside former friend and now Murren associate, Henry Furey (Kealy).

Two years later, she’s splitting time between that and her ongoing film production work. But her underworld identity becomes known to Murren’s rivals, and she is cut loose as a liability. With Henry her only ally, and the police now also closing in, Katelin has to try and survive, keep her family safe and stay out of the authorities’ hands. Only, none of this manages to mesh into a coherent, or even interesting, whole. For example, the film producer angle seems to exist purely for the purpose of the title, and doesn’t add anything of note to the main story. Given this set-up, it might have made sense had it been filmed in Los Angeles, or better yet, Hong Kong, where the overlap between the movie industry and organized crime is well-known. Dublin? Not so much.

As mentioned, I didn’t hate the idea. We used to know someone who… let’s just say, had a not dissimilar, sharp divergence between their day job and main source of income. But the execution here is just terrible, with the makers unable to decide what kind of tone they are aiming for, and even less ability to deliver it. It crams too many characters in, leaving none of them able to make an impact; I simply did not care what happened to anybody. Even Katelin is a botched heroine, in part because the movie skips entirely over the two years where she goes from sniveling wreck, whimpering by the side of the grave she has just dug, to a hard-nosed killer.

I suspect it either needed to give us that transition, or begin with the latter and perhaps fill in the back-story down the pipe. Instead, the film basically ignores what is arguably the most interesting element, in favour of murky betrayal and shenanigans among the Irish underworld. There’s little or nothing here we haven’t seen before, and almost always done better to boot. The action is nothing to write home about either, leaving my attention and interest to peak, more or less at an admittedly stylish opening credit sequence.

Dir: Kevin de la Isla O’Neill
Star: Michelle Doherty, Neill Fleming, Fergus Kealy, Susan Barrett

Desert Redemption

  By

★½
“Hell on earth.”

I’ve no problem per se with faith-based cinema. My main issue is that they tend to be, literally, preaching to the converted, and if you’re not already on board, they tend not to work, purely from a cinematic perspective. There are exceptions: The Furnace is a solid enough tale of struggle against adversity. This, however, is not. It is instead a woefully dull entity, whose religious coating seems more like a layer of gold plate on a tin bauble, and about as honest.

It focuses on a family of three: father Bill (Way), mother Rebecca (Roberts) and teenage daughter Katie (McMahon), who go on a hike in the desert for Mom’s birthday. Question #1: what was wrong with a nice dinner at Olive Garden? For a more inept group of explorers it’s hard to imagine. Rebecca falls off a cliff; Bill breaks his ankle going for help, also losing both their map and the car keys; and Katie gets bitten by a rattlesnake. Personally, I’d take these as messages from God that they should have gone to Olive Garden. It’s up to Katie, as the least injured of the trio, to try and make it out to get help. She’d better hope some divine entity is on her side, because the family’s desert survival skills are negligible.

I mean, if you’re going to try and hike out, even I (who does not hike), know to set out as soon as it’s light enough to see, rather than wait until the sun is blazing down.  I could forgive the idiocy, if it led to exciting predicaments. Nope. If you want to watch first Bill, then Katie, staggering around the desert in scenes that seem to last forever, you’ll love this. There’s no sense of Katie having admirable resilience or any talent that she uses, instead relying on blind luck and prayer to get out of her predicament. There is a failed example of Chekhov’s Gun – or, in this case, Chekhov’s Coyote. The family encounter said animal near the beginning of their trek, and given the cover (above), I kept waiting for it to show relevance in some way. Let me spoil this for you: it never happens.

We do get Bill suffering severe religious guilt over being tempted by an invitation from the office harlot (Sample), and vowing to be a better man if only God would spare him and his family. Here’s an idea: just be a better man? Mind you, he goes off such a creepy vibe, I would not be surprised if he has a hooker tied up in the basement. Positives in this are hard to find. The photography isn’t bad, with some nice desert locations. The presence of cameoing saguaro cactii makes me wonder if it was filmed here in Arizona. However, I can’t say for sure, since the credits consist of nothing except the cast. It’s as if no-one behind the camera wanted to accept responsibility for this, and I can’t say I blame them.

Dir: Auturo Gavino
Star: Savanah D. McMahon, Bill Way, Gloria Jean Roberts, Brooke Sample

Senora Acero: Season two

  By

★★★½
“Sex ‘n’ drugs ‘n’ cartels rule.”

There are more famous narconovelas, such as La Reina Del Sur, but you can’t argue with the success of Senora Acero. Surviving for five seasons and a startling 387 episodes in the cut-throat world of Mexican television is no mean feat. Admittedly, there were hardly any characters who lasted the entirety of the show. But such is the nature of organized crime, especially in a show like this. Compared to the first season, it seems like the second helping significantly ramps up the action quotient. It feels like a single episode could not pass, without a car-chase, shoot-out, or at least guns being pointed at each other.

It begins with Sara Aguilar (Soto), a.k.a. “Senora Acero”, the woman of steel, sitting in prison, where she has been stuck for five years, awaiting formal sentencing [Mexican justice moves slowly, it would appear]. After her son is attacked, she escapes prison in order to help him, but gets caught and ends up back in jail, having been sentenced to a punitive 25 years. This is in part due to the interference of her estranged sister, Berta, who is now the private secretary to the Mexican President, and wields her influence maliciously to punish her sibling. But her best friend, Aracely (Litzy), finds the key to getting Sara’s sentence revoked, and her out of jail.

Life doesn’t exactly become much easier thereafter, as there’s still a state of near-war between the two main drug gangs. There’s the Jalisco cartel, led by Miguel Quintanilla, and Acasio “El Teca” Martínez, of the Tijuana cartel. Sara ends up taking the Jalisco side, stoked largely by her hatred of El Teca, and his chief henchman, “El Indio”, with whom Sara crossed paths in season one.  However, that only fuels the fire as Martinez has long held a burning obsession with Sara. His guiding principal appears to be that if he can’t have Sara, nobody can. Sara has no problems using that obsession against him, but it’s a very dangerous game, especially when El Teca realizes he is being manipulated by her.

It also seems to delve significantly deeper into the relationship between the cartels and ‘legitimate’ business and political interests; quotes used advisedly. In this case, the corruption goes right up to the top, with the Mexican president very much in bed with the leader of one group of drug traffickers. Evidence of this connection is a powerful tool, though for obvious reasons, highly dangerous to anyone who possesses it. There is also the head of a major pharmaceutical company, who is using his company’s resources for less legal product; he thinks he can come up with a new drug that will give the high without the dangerous side effects.

The international aspect is well represented too, with another strong female character in Colombian drug lord (drug lady?) Briceida Montero, who seems fairly obviously inspired by Griselda Blanco, about whom we have written previously. There is an effort to involve Chinese traffickers at one point, though this doesn’t go far. On the other side, the DEA are involved. Though their gringo boss is most notable for Chris turning to me and expressing a fervent hope that, as I continue to learn Spanish, I do not sound like him when I speak the language. Mind you, she’s not exactly impressed with the gangster slang used by the likes of El Teca either. I’m clearly going to have to find posher series from which to pick up my diction…

The show does have one particularly memorable supporting character – though not in a good way. Marta Mónica Restrepo, a.k.a. ‘La Tuti’, is a sometime small scale drug dealer, sometime psychic, and always a slut, who also collects dolls. She ends up getting involved with… just about every male character who crosses her path, which makes her subsequent pregnancy resemble a daytime talk-show episode. Manipulative and fickle, she is easily our most “love to hate” character. Not just in the show, or narconovelas generally, but perhaps the history of our TV viewing. I suspect it’s entirely deliberate, so much credit to the writers, and actress Ana Lucía Domínguez, for making it so.

There’s another aspect we found more genuinely enjoyable. El Teca finds himself a doppelganger, in the form of an immigrant worker from Colombia. Also kidnapping the man’s wife and daughter for leverage, his double is used to fool both the authorities in the Jalisco cartel. While the technical aspects for the depiction of El Teca and his twin are primitive – it’s mostly shooting from behind the shoulder, with an obvious stand-in – the characters are so utterly different, it’s often difficult to believe the same actor is playing both parts. Again, credit where it’s due, to José Luis Reséndez, for bringing both men to life with his performance.

It is, however, Sara Aguilar’s show, and she is the Sun around which all the other bodies revolve, in their elliptical subplots (some of which I could have done without, such as that about one character’s dreams of musical stardom). Much like Teresa Mendoza in Queen of the South, it’s Sara’s fierce loyalty to those on her side which is her most defining characteristic. She’ll got through hell for them, including her son, even after he has been turned into a junkie by her enemies. Needless to say, that’s an act which will not go unpunished. The ending proves quite satisfactory in this area, although also has the kind of cliffhanger, with Sara apparently badly wounded, that will only be resolved in series three.

Despite the tease at the end of the opening credits, with Sara wielding a large, automatic weapon, and quite a lot of heavily-armed arguments, she isn’t quite as personally involved as I might have hoped. Still, I guess delegation is a significant part of being a good leader, isn’t it? This was certainly enjoyed, and became a staple of morning entertainment for me, over several months. I think Chris was even getting into it more than she’d admit, as she drifted through and got ready for work. It may be a while before I have the stamina to start the next season, however. For there’s ninety-three episodes in that…

Creator: Roberto Stopello
Star:  Blanca Soto, Litzy, José Luis Reséndez, Lincoln Palomeque

Knock Knock

  By

★★★½
“I can only apologize, darling…”

This is the kind of film which makes for very uncomfortable date night viewing, simply because the situation presented is likely to lead to awkward conversations. Happily married architect Evan Webber (Reeves) has the house to himself for the weekend, his wife having gone with their two kids to the seaside, leaving him free to work on a project. A stormy night ensues, until a knock at the door, and he finds two lost young women, Genesis (Izzo) and Bel (de Armas), shivering on the doorstep. He can hardly make them stay there, so lets them in. Almost immediately, something is wrong, though initially this falls into the “Too good to be true” category. For they are nymphomaniac flight attendants, and inevitably – though after a credible struggle – Evan succumbs to their relentless charms.

The next morning, however, the reality proves less pleasant, and it’s all downhill from there. For the pair are avenging angels, honey-trapping married men, then savagely punishing them for their infidelity, and Evan is not their first victim. This development should be no real surprise if you’ve seen Roth’s other films, where bad things almost inevitably tend to result from good. A nice trip to Europe became kidnapping, torture and murder in Hostel. Social activism turned into cannibalistic dismemberment in Green Inferno. So the first half of this was largely an exercise in waiting for things to go wrong, along with strenuously assuring Chris that, in similar circumstances, my assistance would strictly be limited to passing them towels through the letter-box. I highly recommend not deviating from this answer, under any circumstances. For she was firmly convinced, whatever happened to Evan in the second half was well-deserved.

The resulting punishment is certainly not pleasant, with his home-life wrecked, both literally and figuratively. Though there were a couple of ways it could have been improved. Firstly, even with some straggly facial hair, he’s still Keanu Reeves, not exactly your average guy. He likely has to beat off real nymphomaniac flight attendants with a stick, on an everyday basis. It’d have been more effective with a more homely leading man, to whom the audience could relate. And I’d rather have seen Genesis and Bel evaporate like smoke in the night, leaving no evidence of their presence, save their impact on Evan. A little more subtlety, and less scrawling of “DADDY’S LITTLE WHORE” on the family portraits would have gone a long way here, I feel.

Still, Roth is not exactly known for his delicate approach to cinema, and as a blunt instrument illustrating in female form the perils of infidelity, this works well enough. It’s also a rare entry in the “home invasion” field where the invaders are entirely women. À l’interieur (Inside) is one of the few predecessors there, and it’s no shame this doesn’t quite reach the same heights of sheer insanity – very few movies do. It’s still a cautionary tale which had me shifting uncomfortably in my seat often enough to justify its existence, as well as casting wary glances over at Chris.

Dir: Eli Roth
Star: Keanu Reeves, Ana de Armas, Lorenza Izzo, Aaron Burns

Wrecker

  By

★★
“Runs out of road.”

This falls victim to the Spielberg Effect. By that, I mean, that any movie directed by Steven Spielberg will inevitably become the yardstick by which future entries of that kind are judged – typically, unfavourably. Killer shark films will be compared to Jaws. Holocaust epics to Schindler’s List. And the genre of movies in which drivers are menaced by unseen truck drivers? Expect comparisons to Duel. And in this case, they are entirely warranted. I guess if you’ve never heard of Duel, this might just pass muster. But you would still be better off watching it, than this lame imitation, which has a nice car (a Mustang) and some lovely scenery (I’m guessing Canadian). That’s all it can offer though.

Gal pals Emily (Hutchinson) and Leslie (Whitburn) are on a road-trip, when they go off-route – never a good idea to take a road labelled “Devil’s Pass”, but that may just be me having seen too many horror movies. On the resulting stretch of road, entirely deserted except when conveniently necessary for the plot, they become increasingly concerned about the repeated presence of a tow-truck, pulling a car, which appears to be stalking them. After a number of alarming incidents, they are driven off the road by the truck, and Emily gets knocked unconscious. She awakens, to find Leslie gone. Driving to find help, she is stopped by a police-car, only for the officer to fall victim to the truck. But at least Emily now has a weapon, in the shape of the cop’s gun.

This kind of thing can work. Spielberg’s not the only one to prove it; The Hitcher (the original version) also occupied similar territory, with an almost supernatural figure menacing a driver, for no real reason. That succeeded, however, based on Rutger Hauer’s villainous charisma. There’s nothing like that here, with the villain entirely unseen; the closest we get to any personality are glimpses of Satanic regalia dangling in the truck. That’s not exactly a lot on which to hang your movie.

The main problem, however, is a script which is ludicrous when it isn’t being entirely contrived. The notion that a Mustang – which we are shown can reach over 120 mph – could not simply zoom away from a diesel tow-truck if necessary, is the most obvious, yet perhaps not the most idiotic element. The ways in which the two women, and indeed, their pursuer, behave, are the kind of actions which would only be carried out by characters in a horror movie. Anyone sensible would seek sanctuary in the nearest busy area, and stay there until help arrives. Our couple do visit such a spot, in the shape of a diner, only to leave it after lunch and resume their journey, because… because the film demands they do. If you’re not able to tolerate such things, you’ll have to hope that the Rockies and an American classic sports car provide enough entertainment. For the plot and characters aren’t going to offer much.

Dir: Micheal Bafaro
Star: Anna Hutchison, Drea Whitburn, Jennifer Koenig, Michael Dickson

The Dawns Here are Quiet (2015)

  By

★★★
“Back to war”

While initially released as a film, what’s reviewed here is the extended cut, screened as four 45-minute episodes on Russia’s Channel One in May 2016. This is easily available, on both Amazon Prime and YouTube with English subtitles, so seemed more appropriate. However, it’s likely the case that your reaction will be determined largely by how familiar you are with the 1972 version. Having seen and reviewed that recently, this felt solid, but almost entirely superfluous, offering not enough in the way of a new spin on proceedings. But if you haven’t seen its predecessor, then this is potentially a little more accessible. Stemming from the post-Soviet era means it can be more cynical, and does play slightly less obviously as propaganda.

The story is almost identical. War-weary soldier Fedot Vaskov (Fyodorov) is invalided out to an anti-aircraft battery well behind the front lines. After complaining about the drunken and ill-disciplined soldiers under his command, he gets replacements – an all-female platoon. After being initially shocked, he realizes that they, under their leader Junior Sergeant Rita Osyanina (Mikulchina), are actually competent at their job. When one of them spots a couple of Nazi paratroopers in the enormous forest nearby, Vaskov takes Osyanina and four other soldiers into the woods to hunt the Germans down. Only, they discover there were actually considerably more than two, and the hopelessly outnumbered and outgunned Russians have to try and prevent the enemy from reaching their saboteurial objective.

If you’ve seen the earlier adaptation of Boris Vasilyev’s novel, there will be absolutely no surprises here. In terms of plot, this is almost point-for-point identical, and for me, that did rob the film of much tension, since I knew exactly where it was going to go, and who was going to survive. Again, though: that shouldn’t particularly be taken as a knock on this version, and the performances, especially from the two leads are equally as good. The differences are mostly stylistic: while both do use flashbacks in order to tell us about the women’s lives before the war, the ones here feel considerably more grounded, compared to the dream-like sequences in the seventies version. They are also notably harsher about life in Stalin’s Russia, such as one woman’s family being ruthlessly exiled to Siberia.

There are a couple of sequences of gratuitous, albeit entirely innocent, nudity, which I didn’t expect in a TV series. I’ll leave it up to you to decide, whether this is a recommendation or a warning. Personally, I had no complaints. However, I would definitely have preferred it if the makers had been a little more inventive in their adaptation. While going down the same path as the earlier, well-loved movie was probably the safer approach, it renders the entire thing largely pointless. Well-made and still entertaining, don’t get me wrong. But carbon copies [Kids! Ask your parents!] are always going to feel inferior, to the source which they are imitating.

Dir: Renat Davletyarov
Star: Pyotr Fyodorov, Anastasia Mikulchina, Evgenia Malakhova, Agniya Kuznetsova

Rudhramadevi

  By

★★½
“A two and a half-hour gender reveal party.”

Not unlike the saga of Manakarnika and its various adaptations, this is based on a figure from Indian history: Rani Rudrama Devi, who ruled over the southern Indian area called Kakatiya in the second half of the 13th century. Her father had no genuine male heirs, so to ensure succession, declared her legally to be his son. When the king passed away, some nobles attempted to rebel against being ruled by a woman, but she and her army prevailed, and she subsequently sat on the throne for 30 years. That’s very loosely echoed in the story here. However, King Ganapatideva (Raju) carries out the pretense from the birth of Rudrama Devi (Shetty), with only a few aware of her true gender.

It is successfully hidden for 25 years, until mounting pressure forces Ganapatideva to get his “son” married off. Probably inevitably, this leads to the secret becoming discovered by his enemies. Murari Devudu (Adithya Menon) and Hari Hara Devudu, nobles long opposed to Ganapatideva’s rule, attempt to use it to force the king out. He tries to gets ahead of them by revealing it first, but a disgruntled population allows Murari and Hari to stage a coup. Their harsh rule allows Rudrama, with the help of childhood friend and long-term rebel, Gona Ganna Reddy (Arjun), to gather her own army. She prepares an assault on the heavily-fortified capital where her enemies lie in wait.

At 158 minutes, including a clunky wrap-around sequence involving… uh, Marco Polo, this certainly takes its time to get going, and only redeems itself with a somewhat impressive finale. Beyond the problems of the pacing, there are a bevy of issues on the technical side. This was made in 3-D, and it’s often painfully obvious, in a House of Wax way. There are also a lot of digital effects, most of which are second-tier in quality. They’re the sort which work fine off in the distance, such as the finale where army formations take the shape of snakes and eagles. But these are much less effective close-up, such as the CGI elephant which Rudrama has to tame. Overall, it’s severely jarring, and much less successful than Manakarnika, due to the obviously digital nature of many of the elements here.

Shetty doesn’t really have the presence necessary to command the screen. Arjun does a much better job, though it was nice that Reddy steps aside at the end, allowing the title character to take center stage. Her sidekick even explicitly explains himself: “If I killed him it is not a big deal. The Kakatiya people who dreamt a male royal heir will protect them, their expectations should be met by a woman. In no way is a woman
any less brave… So Rudrama must kill him.” It’s a shame the rest of the players, and indeed the film-makers, didn’t realize this over the first 145 minuts of the film, and give their heroine room. Instead, I’m left with no real explanation of why she is still remembered, 650 years after she took the throne.

Dir: Gunasekhar
Star: Anushka Shetty, Allu Arjun, Adithya Menon, Krishnam Raju

Lady Psycho Killer

  By

★★½
“Teenage angst with a body-count.”

Ella (Daly) is a shy college student, whose psychology lecturer gives the class an unusual project: break a sexual norm. Unfortunately, Ella is rather confused about the intersection between sex and violence, in part because of genetics, for her father was a serial killer, before abandoning her pregnant mother (Heinrich). As a result, Ella’s attempt to carry out the assignment by auditioning at a strip-club, ends with her slitting the throat of the owner (Ron Jeremy, being appropriately grubby). This awakens the serial killer dormant inside her, and she starts taking out the sleazy men around her. The problem is nice guy Daniel (Andres), whose unwillingness to match her stereotypical opinions of masculinity, triggers further conflicting feelings in Ella, as her acts of murder become increasingly more blatant.

A lack of subtlety is also a problem when it comes to the film’s social commentary, though some credit is due for being a couple of years ahead of the #MeToo movement. Still, the almost constant use of voice-over as a narrative tool is lazily problematic, even if you can get past the ludicrous nature of the plot, or that Michael Madsen plays the least convincing college professor in movie history [Malcolm McDowell fares better as Ella’s creepy next-door neighbour]. The most interesting thing is perhaps the heroine’s relationship with her mother, which plays a little like a suburban version of Carrie, without the religious angle to the over-protective mom. I’d like to have seen this explored further.

Daly’s performance isn’t bad, having to cover a lot of emotional range from naively innocent to stone-cold killer, while also portraying the confusion of transforming from a girl into a woman. It’s a role that would challenge any actress, and hardly a surprise that Daly can’t quite convince across all the necessary aspects. She does fare better than the men in the script, who are given almost nothing to work with beyond “be creepy.” Perhaps this is intended as a sly commentary on the shallow depiction of female victims in many horror films? Let’s charitably assume that is indeed the case, though this could equally well just be more lazy writing.

For it is the script which hampers the film most of all, with almost every development triggering a roll of my eyes. What college professor would really hand out such an assignment? What cop would just let a confessed killer go, without any interrogation or further investigation, simply because a similar murder took place? What mother would affect little more than mild concern – especially, knowing her familial history- when her daughter comes home from a date, covered in blood? By coincidence, the day after seeing this, we re-watched American Psycho, a film which is clearly a significant influence on Oliver, in more than just its title (especially the original one, which omitted the word “Lady”). Its superiority is equally undeniable: he’d have benefited by learning a bit more from the source, especially in the area of writing.

Dir: Nathan Oliver
Star: Kate Daly, Dennis Andres, Meredith Heinrich, Josh Dolphin

Mission NinetyTwo

  By

★★★
“Tree’s company”

The German-Canadian co-production is split into two feature-length parts – “Dragonfly” and “Energy” – but is absolutely a single entity, so that’s how it’ll be covered here. I was braced for something truly dreadful, after reading some particularly scathing reviews, and seeing no less than four directors listed in the credits for part one. In reality, it’s not bad. Not great, admittedly, but the three hours passed without my losing consciousness, which puts it ahead of certain recent genre entries I could mention.

The heroine is Sonia Engelhardt (Dordel), a scientist specializing in trees, who is carrying out research funded by a lumber company. She is on the verge of a major breakthrough when they suddenly yank her funding away. Sonia decides to proceed regardless, and in the forest, stumbles across something which puts her life in danger, along with those of local cops Bill Jones (Breker) and Analena Tempest (Reimer). They’re looking into shady ties between the lumber company, and other groups, not least a biker gang. Helping the good guys out in the subsequent investigation, with cryptic phone calls, are a shadowy, apparently governmental organization called “Libelle” (German for dragonfly, not that this is ever explained or relevant).

Part 1 ends with our trio having to high-tail it to Germany. Part 2 is much more of a solo story. Sonia gets thrown back onto her own resources – which includes, as the poster suggests, dying her originally blonde hair dark. She’s forced to become rather less of a pacifist, going all Katniss Everdeen on the baddies instead, as she eventually finds out what was going on, back in the forests of Canada. To be honest, I’d figured that revelation out quite a bit earlier (there’s a clue in the title). But as a cheerful gallop around rural Canadian and urban German landscapes, it’s not bad, and between Sonia and Analena, as well as villainess Jasmine Chang, there’s a decent quota of action heroines.

Digging into the background a bit, it appears this was originally a web series of 16 episodes, which explains both the rather odd 2-part structure, and probably also the multiple directors. It appears to have been a passion project for Dordel, who actually does hold a PhD in forest science from the University of British Columbia: she’s not just playing a scientist. As such, I can cut it some slack, and forgive the occasional rough edges. However, there are still problems too large to ignore with the script, which doesn’t flow at all, jerking abruptly from one plot point to the next, and with rather too many things happening without credible explanation, e.g. the ‘Libelle’ calls.

It’s a shame, as I like the underlying idea. A bad-ass ecologist, wielding a (very environmentally conscious!) bow and arrow against those who are destroying the planet – preferably involving the giant fireball depicted on the cover? Where do I sign up? Shame there’s a bit too much of a gap between that concept, and the execution which is delivered here.

Dir: Brent Crowell, Neil Every, Kryshan Randel, Guido Tölke
Star: Julia Dordel, Eric Breker, Anita Reimer, Michael Teigen