Tag: 2016

Wolf Creek: season one

  By

★★★★
“The dark side of Crocodile Dundee.”

Here is a confession: I have never seen the acclaimed two Wolf Creek movies (2005 and 2013 – a third movie is planned). The reason was simple: I just didn’t care for ultra-cruel slashers from Australia. After watching this TV-spin off I might revise my opinion and catch up with them; if they are as good as this TV series I definitely want to see them!

So, what’s the story? The American Thorogood family is on holiday in Australia. Unfortunately for them, their young son is swimming in a crocodile-infested lake (who goes swimming in Australia? Don’t we all know their waters are full of deadly animals?). Fortunately for them, Australian animal hunter Mick Taylor (John Jarratt) arrives, right on time, to shoot the crocodile before it can attack the boy. Unfortunately for them, Mick is a psychopathic sadistic serial killer who kills them all before the evening is over, including daughter Eve (Lucy Fry). Or so he thinks, because Eve survives. As she is slowly nursed back to health, and answers the questions of the police, she comes to the realization that the authorities won’t be able or willing to catch the killer.

She decides to hunt Mick herself and take revenge for the death of her family. Eve is originally innocent, and carries feelings of guilt, since her family was only in Australia because she was recovering from drug addiction – she used to be an athlete. She has to learn to get along in a hard, merciless country by herself, and avoid or defeat the criminals, thieves and would-be-rapists there who pose a threat during her journey. Eve is pursued by the police, as she herself has broken the law, and also by a well-meaning policeman who wants to help her. Not to mention Mick who – happily slashing his way through unpopulated areas – has realized that someone is pursuing him and starts to play a cat-and-mouse-game with Eve…

I have to say that this series really surprised me. I had bought it based solely due to the cool cover photo and didn’t expect much more than a probably over-gruesome third-rate slasher, I mean, is Australia really famous for great serial killer psycho thrillers? Though there is the very good Stacy Keach and Jamie Lee Curtis thriller from 1981, Road Games. As a matter of fact, this short (six episodes) series blew me away with its astounding quality. When you read the above, you might be forgiven for getting the impression the whole thing will come across as a bit cheap in its storytelling, or the motivation of its characters – a bit schlocky in general.

But… it isn’t.

The best way I can describe the show is with the word “unpretentious”. That might sound strange. Yes, it is, at its core, a revenge story. And, yes, people are tortured and killed in cruel ways: when someone has an infected hand, you see him cut it off with a saw. But I never got the feeling these scenes were gratuitous or to make the blood-thirsty gorehounds happy. Quite the opposite: things like this are carefully integrated into the narrative of the story, and have a meaning that goes above mere shock value. I would almost call this story, about a serial killer tracking his prey across desert hunting grounds, decent and yes, even tasteful – considering how different this narrative could have been presented.

Most surprising for me was, though big game hunter Mick is always looming in the background, it’s mainly Eve’s story. In the beginning I wasn’t too impressed with her. She seemed like a bland, pale character, just a victim who survived a catastrophe. I was half expecting her to become the usual superwoman, who knows it all and can do everything better than every male – thanks, mister! But the filmmakers were smarter than your average Hollywood screenwriter and producer, who nowadays seem only to be able to create one-dimensional, flawless, conveyor-belt manufactured heroines. Eve does not know it all, she can not do it all alone, and makes mistakes – some really terrible. She fails and learns from it. She falls and has to stand up again. It alone makes the character better than almost 95% of today’s female protagonists in American movies or shows. Kudos for that!

Also, there is a second season, which I have not seen yet (it isn’t available in my home country). Given it has everyone’s favourite killer from Down Under again, but not Eve, I began seriously to worry about her fate. You really start to sympathize with her. Running away from the police in the beginning might be anything but rational, but as the series develops, so does she. You start to understand who she is, and she gets a backstory: she is not a random female character out for revenge anymore. She has these understandable feelings and more than once I thought: “Gosh, this could be going different, girl. You should be working together with the police. There could be common ground if you were not so stuck on the idea that you’ve got to do this all on your own!”

Then there are moments when she realizes herself she is way over her head, fighting insurmountable odds. She gets better at it, slowly, and the point in a way is about self-discovery. It becomes an odyssey for oneself, where the protagonist has to question when reaching the nadir of life: What am I standing for? Why do I do what I do? Is it really worth all that? Could I choose a different life? There are moments that indicate that Eve might give up her hunt. The series repeatedly contrasts her persona with other characters who have lost themselves, who may have been destroyed by this vast open country where you seem to be far from civilization or God.

Eve is repeatedly confronted by these criminals, or wanna-be-rapists who see a normal dressed woman as an offer, and experiences family tragedies that actually form the core of the narrative. She is not without help though. As well as the policeman on her trail who reluctantly starts to cover-up for her, there is a criminal whom she meets in the desert, an old Aborigine who fits into the classic mentor role, a colleague in a bar and she even gets a canine companion. Though the question always lingers while watching the show: Will she get her revenge? What will she do when meeting the man who killed her family? Does she even have a chance against an experienced, sadistic killer like Mick?

So, yes, I applaud Lucy Fry’s performance in the role. Thanks to an excellent script, it made me believe she – albeit slowly- becomes a potential threat to the seasoned serial killer. But also John Jarrat, playing this role for a third time, is incredibly good. Mick Taylor is a nightmare of a character, superficially charming, but essentially a disgusting sleazebag. Though it’s great even he has been given a backstory. While he kills the way other people drink their morning coffee, we get to know enough about him to deduce how he became that way. An episode tells us in flashback about a key event in his childhood that may have been the catalyst for his murderous doings. If this is believable is up to the viewer, I think. I like it they gave him more than the “Well, he’s insane” explanation so many movies and shows tend to give their killers nowadays.

Having Eve faced with what can only be labelled as a devil in human form, touches an even more ambitious question. It’s a theme that classic The Hitcher (C. Thomas Howell and Rutger Hauer) dared to ask. How much of your own humanity do you have to leave behind, to be able to fight the devil? I think it refers to the age-old Nietzsche-ism “If you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.” I’m not saying how this “psycho thriller” ends, but I really, really recommend this show. Every episode had me glued to my TV, and I got much more enjoyment out of this short Australian TV show than I imagined. Also, I think it’s far superior to your average American product playing in the same genre pool.

I really feel I should get my hands on season 2, even though the main actress won’t be back. Also, I look forward to the third movie – and I wish you happy hunting! 😉

Creator: Greg McLean
Star: Lucy Fry, John Jarratt, Dustin Clare, Jessica Tovey 

Perfect

  By

★★★½
“All in, all out!”

When I reviewed Russian fencing film On the Edge, I said, “I just need to find a synchronized swimming movie.” While this is a documentary, with all the positives and negatives of that genre, this fits the bill until Hollywood produces something more narrative. It follows the efforts of the Canadian team to get into the 2016 Rio Olympics. While normally, they’d be in as Pan-American champions, hosts Brazil got the spot reserved for the Americas. This forces Canada to go through the qualification tournament, battling their nemeses, Spain and Italy. The doc covers the arrival of new Chinese coach Meng Chen, efforts to get the most from her swimmers, and when this initially falls short, a radical re-invention of the team’s routine. 

You may be wondering what one of the most mocked Olympic sports is doing on the site. But beneath the fixed grins, penguin walks and stripper make-up, lies one of the most intense, demanding and gruelling sports, for men or women. To quote one team member, it’s like “running an Olympic-level 400-metre sprint while holding your breath”. She’s not wrong. The most memorable sequence here is when a series of team members list the injuries suffered for their sport. Broken bones. Torn muscles. And concussions. So many concussions, an inevitable result of rapidly-moving limbs in close proximity to skulls. I wrote elsewhere about the sport, now called “artistic swimming”; read that if you want the full case for why it belongs here.

Alternatively, just watch the film, because you’ll likely leave giving the athletes the respect they deserve. It’s the result of throwaway lines like one saying she spends 7-12 hours a day in the pool. Or the relentless pressure of Chen, pushing to unlock their potential. Or team captain Morin succumbing to an eating disorder, this sport being as much about how you look as how you perform. However, I’d have liked to have seen more technical background, rather than another scene of Chen yelling at the team. Even simple things, like explaining they aren’t allowed to touch the bottom of the pool, would have enhanced the footage of them throwing team-mates into the air. Though there are still some staggeringly beautiful shots, using reflections, tilted cameras, etc. it is a shame they couldn’t use the performance music – presumably for rights reasons. 

Interestingly, and perhaps pointedly, the team realizes its greatest results, after Chen adopts a more collaborative approach with them, and brings in external help. They even get an acting coach, to help improve their ability to convey emotions through movement. It’s nice too, to get a bit of insight into the aspiring Olympians, such as Holzner, for whom this has been an ambition since she was eight. We see the scrapbook she made when she was young (to help cope with a concussion!), and it helps foster an understanding of why people are willing to put themselves through this kind of ordeal. It all ends a bit messily: we don’t even see their final routine. But the journey is the thing here, not the destination, and you should be left with a new appreciation for the sport and its participants. 

Dir: Jérémie Battaglia
Star: Claudia Holzner, Marie-Lou Morin, Meng Chen, Karine Thomas

Barbie Spy Squad

  By

★★
“Imagination, life is your creation”

Ah, the things I watch for you people. Safe to say, this probably hit new heights of “I am not the target demographic”, but it’s hard to argue it is outside the remit of the site. To the film’s credit, this is not as bad as I feared it might be. If I had an eight-year-old daughter – such a shame this turned up about 25 years too late! – there would be far worse things to have inflicted on me. Not that I’ll exactly be chasing down any of the other thirty-nine entries in the franchise, mind you. There will be no Barbie & Her Sisters in The Great Puppy Adventure review here. But as lightly amusing, just about tolerable to an adult spy pastiches go… this was lightly amusing and just about tolerable.

Unsurprisingly, the heroine is Barbie (Lindbeck) and her two friends, who are so blandly forgettable I can’t even remember their names. The trip spend all their spare time doing gymnastics, until recruited by Aunt Zoe (Weseluck) to become agents in a covert organization, accessed through a secret door in the HOLLYWOOD sign. They are to put their acrobatic skills to use, catching a cat-burglar who is accumulating gems that will be used in an electromagnetic pulse weapon by the villains. [If you have not figured out the real identity of the cat-burglar inside the first five minutes, I am concerned for you.] There will be training missions! Adorable robo-sidekicks! Many, many gadgets! Valuable life lessons!

In other words, this is absolutely what you would expect: entirely safe, wholesome entertainment for those to whom Barbie is an aspirational role-model (albeit one radically toned down in physique from the original’s 36-18-33 figure). It plays mostly like a G-rated version of Charlie’s Angels, with the trio getting into and out of scrapes, while exchanging witty banter. There are moments where it appears to teeter on the edge of genuine satire, such as Aunt Zoe sternly warning the trio that this is a covert mission… while they roar through the city streets on their lurid trio of super-powered motorcycles. However, I’m not convinced this was intentional, with most of this apparently taking itself seriously. Well, as seriously as a movie about secret agent Barbie ever could be.

The sheer predictability of this does become grinding, to the extent you barely need to watch this to follow the plot. The morality on view is rarely subtle, though there are certainly worse concepts to promote than believing in yourself and supporting your friends. The animation is mid-tier: there’s not much in the way of facial expression here, though since this is replicating plastic dolls, I guess that makes sense. However, the action is reasonably well-done, even if I did find myself thinking a live-action version would have been preferable. On the other hand, I saw the live-action Kim Possible movie, which started from a much stronger foundation, yet still came up well short. Best leave Barbie in the world of imagination, I suspect.

Dir: Michael Goguen, Conrad Helten
Star (voice): Erica Lindbeck, Stephanie Sheh, Jenny Pellicer, Cathy Weseluck

Mistress Killer

  By

★★★
“Mistresses cannot be exterminated!”

To my surprise, when I begin researching this film, it appears actually to be based – at least, somewhat – in reality. I give you this story from 2016. “Zhang Yufen, 58, is known in Henan province, as the “Mistress Killer” for her unusual hobby, which involves spying on her clients’ partners before confronting their lovers in public with vicious and humiliating attacks. She set up her agency, the Alliance Against Mistresses, in 2003 after her own husband admitted to having to having an affair in the 90s and left her and her son for his lover, clearing their joint bank account after 16 years of marriage… She receives around 100 calls a week in her mission to “ruthlessly exterminate those men” — and says police turn a blind eye to her assaulting other women in public.”

Unsurprisingly, the local film industry pounded on the idea, quickly popping out the Chinese equivalent of a quota quickie, running a brisk 67 minutes before the credits roll. Naturally, the film version of the vigilante, Lv Xia (Li Mengmeng), is considerably more photogenic, but the concept is the same – she busts in on men having extra-marital affairs and humiliates them and their lovers, for the benefit of their wives. The story here has the “Scandal Chaser” being seen and photographed by journalist Chen Dong (Qi). But after discovering her mission, he agrees to withhold the proof of her identity, and work with her instead. However, Liu, a businessman who had been one of Lv’s targets, doesn’t take kindly to her actions, and sends his assassin (Chen) to put a stop to her brand of justice.

It’s not a bad idea, though the way it’s developed is largely predictable, such as how Lv and Chen fall for each other. The fighting is mid-tier at best – and not often at that – but there are some quirky moments which helped sustain my interest above the Lifetime movie to which this largely aspires. I liked how Lv wears a V for Vendetta mask while in action, and was amused to hear Liu berating his minion, “Do you really think you are Leon in that movie?” The businessman has a point: “Leon” is indeed a bit crap, as company hitmen go, Lv typically disposing of him with ease.

Things did perk up in the final twenty minutes, when someone formulates a plan to capture Lv and take revenge. At first, I thought this was the humiliated mistresses getting together; it turns out to be for rather more prosaic, capitalist reasons, involving the hostile takeover of a corporation by female tycoon, Wu Yan-Mei (Li Man-Yi). She’s good as the evil villainess: she has a great laugh a slew of henchwomen, and some details of her scheme to turn the tables on Lv, are elegantly malicious. If only she’d shown up sooner. The tables end up turning, albeit in a somewhat clunky fashion and a slo-mo mass cat-fight, before one final twist. Still, I’d not be averse to a sequel, or a remake with more punch.

Dir: Geng Lei
Star: Li Mengmeng, Qi Ling, Li Man-Yi, Chen Xing-Yu,

Senora Acero: Season three

  By

★★
“Third time’s the harm”

Halfway through the final installment, Chris came in. She paused, watching for a moment, then said, “They spend far too much time talking, and not enough time killing.” Just a shame she waited 93 episodes to express so succinctly one of the main problems with the series. For, even if the final arc had its share of bloodshed, if you average it out per show, it’s about the level of a mid-strength nosebleed. It certainly put the novela into narconovela. Though the problems began at the start – or, rather, the end of the second series where heroine Sara Aguilar was apparently gunned down. This being a show where escape from death was common, I spent the first 20 episodes waiting for her to return. Spoiler: she doesn’t.

Instead, attention turns to Vicenta “La Coyote” Rigores (Miranda), who turns out to be part of the Acero family. This brings her into conflict with all the Acero enemies, including Indio (Zárate), and Governor of Chihuahua, Chucho Casares (Goyri), who also runs an arms trafficking group. But she has allies on her side, including ICE agent Daniel Phillips (Franco), and some familiar faces from the first two seasons. That’s a very high overview. As you can imagine, with about 62 hours of episodes in this season to fill, there are a lot of threads being weaved (So. Many, Pregnancies) and chit-chat necessary to explain them all, as loyalties shift with the breeze.

Part of the problem is, how little of it has any impact. Another part is, as a legal immigrant to America, I am fiercely resistant to a heroine who smuggles people across the border – and that was even before the not-so veiled references to American politics. The two main ICE characters, Phillips and his boss Indio Cardena, are both depicted as corrupt – even if, in the former’s case, it’s a “good” kind of corruption, becoming sympathetic to migrants and their plight. Though on the evidence of this show, based on who’s crossing the border illegally, Trump may have had a point when he said Mexico weren’t sending their best… Say what you like about Sara Aguilar, she at least largely operated in her own country.

Another problem. Writing about the second series, I described supporting character Tuti as “our most “love to hate” character. Not just in the show, or narconovelas generally, but perhaps the history of our TV viewing.” Guess who gets an expanded role in season three? Nails on glass, people. There are some new characters I liked – hell, Cardena, until she went rogue – but it wasn’t enough. I was amused by how narconovela weddings go wrong with about the inevitability of pro wrestling weddings. Whether raided by ICE or the bride getting gunned down in her dress, while her groom is involved in a fist-fight, they never take place as intended.

With about 20 episodes to go, I came to the conclusion this would be the last season I would watch. While the action component did ramp up somewhat down the stretch, it wasn’t enough to make me second-guess my decision. With a further two seasons, totalling 146 more episodes, I was hard-pushed to see the show coming back, and so am content to draw a line under the Acero dynasty after this series.

Creator: Roberto Stopello
Star: Carolina Miranda, Luis Ernesto Franco, Jorge Zárate, Sergio Goyri

American Zealot

  By

★★★
“Constitutional wrongs.”

As I write this, in December 2021, abortion is again a bit of a hot topic on the American political scene. I am, personally, fairly neutral on the topic. Or, at least, to the point that I’d need to spend the entire review outlining my position. Such nuance tends not to fly on the Internet, where you are either a baby-killer or want to turn America into The Handmaid’s Tale, and moderation is for pussies. On that basis, this film is a bit of a losing proposition, likely destined to satisfy no-one with its relative fair-handedness. These days, it feels like everyone just wants their echo chamber reinforced, rather than challenged, even in the mild way this offers.

It is, certainly, a fringe entry here. Lucy (Mackenzie, the director’s fiancée at the time, now wife) is a girl. Who uses a gun. So there’s that. An action heroine though? Not so much, at least in the genuinely understood definition. Like the topic of abortion, it’s complex. For Lucy is in her final year at a Christian high school, and is shocked to discover that her classmate and best friend, Rachel (Marie), has terminated her pregnancy, in defiance of everything Lucy holds dear. After a moral conundrum (basically, the trolley problem) is posed by a teacher, Lucy decides to save future lives by shooting the doctor (Carey) at the women’s clinic, using a gun belonging to the parents of a classmate, Ralph (Miller). However, does Lucy have the moral fortitude necessary to buttress her actions, or will her qualms about the act lead her down a different path?

Though Mackenzie is too old to make a convincing high-school girl (per the IMDB, she was 28 when this came out), it’s a good performance. You can see the way in which her beliefs lead Lucy down the path, to a point where her actions do not just make sense, they are almost required as a result of those beliefs. Less successful is the “de-programming” element, which largely consists of her teacher blustering, “You can’t sacrifice the minority to save the majority. That’s just not how good society functions.” Well, about that… Seems more like a problem with society, to be honest. It’s an angle which needed more effort applied to it, in order to be convincing.

It is also perhaps a little too understated for its own good. The shooting of the doctor is so low-key, you could blink and miss it, when in many ways, it’s the most important moment in the movie, and should have been weighted in accordance with it. Still, given the budget here was just $11,000, this is no small accomplishment. It looks and sounds like a far bigger budget production, and credit is also due to both of the Mackenzies, for being prepared to take on a challenging topic in a way that tries (largely successfully) to avoid being judgmental. While many independent film-makers go the commercially easy route of genre movies, this is something more challenging. If not without flaws, it should succeed in provoking thought.

Dir: James Mackenzie
Star: Ana Mackenzie, Kendall Miller, Keana Marie, Kristin Carey

Streets of Vengeance

  By

★½
“Porn stars vs. Incels”

This poorly-conceived and even less effectively executed cheapo, starts off looking like a home-video recording of a movie, taken off late night TV. There’s a bikini-clad hostess, who introduces the film, and it might not have been a bad idea, had they actually run with it. Cut into the movie for spoof adverts, bad infomercials, further host segments, etc. Yeah, could have been fun. Instead, it’s completely forgotten until almost the end, when she pops back up… purely to showcase a trailer for the directors’ next film, Slash-lorette Party. Verily, the level of cringe is strong in this one. If it had even embraced the eighties aesthetic for which it is clearly aiming, that would have been a credible substitute. But outside of the synthwave score by the very wonderfully named “Vestron Vulture,” there’s hardly any effort put in there either.

Instead, what you get is porn star Mila Lynn  (McKinney), who is about to quit the profession. Her boss, disgruntled by the news, delivers her up to a member of The Sword, a “men’s rights” group who have been abducting and torturing other adult entertainment stars, blaming them for causing addiction to porn. Mila manages to escape, beating her captor to death with a baseball bat, and sets up a vigilante squad, who will take the fight to the members of The Sword, and show them the error of their ways.

The above sounds considerably more interesting than the reality. I will say, that most of the actresses make thoroughly convincing porn stars – unfortunately, this is mostly in the way they can’t act their way out of a paper-bag. The pacing is also terrible. At 101 minutes, it’s at least twenty too long, and takes far too long to get to the meat of the matter. As a result, it commits the cardinal sin of grindhouse cinema: being boring. This is in part because it insists on being didactic, pushing its moral viewpoint to an obvious and rather painful degree. That’s another sin in which you never see good grindhouse flix indulge. I Spit on Your Grave didn’t need to spell out any obvious messages.

There’s a certain hypocrisy here, given the female nudity on view, frequently combined with things like the owners having their throat slit, New York Ripper style. None of the main actresses indulge, implying they are in some way “better” than that. It also fails to make a coherent argument against The Sword’s proposition – basically that, without porn, there’d be no porn addiction, and those who profit are no better than pushers. It’s just taken as “bad,” m’kay? Of course, the brutality with Mila and her pals react, is morally little if any different from The Sword: an uncomfortable truth the film never dares address. All of which I could probably tolerate, if this was anything like fun to watch. It isn’t, and I couldn’t.

Dir: Paul Ragsdale, Angelica De Alba
Star: Delawna McKinney, Anthony Iava To’omata, Paige Le Ney, Daniel James Moody

3 Heroines

  By

★★½
“Largely misses the target”

As the Olympics get under way in Tokyo (COVID permitting – this is a pre-scheduled post!), it seems an appropriate point to review this, which tells the story of the 1988 Indonesian women’s archery team. They became the first ever from their country to win a non-exhibition medal at the Olympics. This was quite a big deal, considering at the time, the population of the country was 175 million, and they had been competing in the games for 36 years without any success. However, the resulting movie manages to be more like a soap-opera with arrows than the thrilling sports movie it should be, considering they clinched their medal with a sudden-death shoot-out against the might of Team USA.

They do get that aspect right, but I’m less certain about the veracity of some other elements. For example, much is made of coach Donald Pandiangan (Rahadian), “the Indonesian Robin Hood,” seeking redemption for having missed the 1980 Olympics due to a boycott. Omitted is the awkward fact he did get to take part in the 1984 Olympics… and came 43rd. Anyway, he has the task of licking into shape the trio of potential candidates: Lilies Handayani (Islan), Nurfitriyana Saiman (Lestari) and Kusuma Wardhani (Basro). The archers have their own range of issues to deal with as well, such as an unsupportive family, who just want them to settle down, marry (their choice, naturally), and get a good job. It’s basically a class in Sports Movie Cliches 1.0.1, with the stern, disciplinarian coach butting heads with his young charges, who just want to sneak out. [I was amused to see the local cinema playing Arnie classic, Commando!]

It does have a certain naive charm, and is so sincere about itself that you can’t complain too much. I think the pseudo-musical number into which the three heroines break, complete with singing at their hairbrushes, demonstrate the good natured and non-threatening approach here. But it’s more than two hours long, and the ratio of drama to sport is far too heavily tilted towards the former. Even when we get to Korea, it doesn’t help that in those days, Olympic archery wasn’t the dramatic, head-to-head knockout contest it later became. That would have been way more exciting to watch, than all teams shooting simultaneously, as depicted here.

The director does his best, and the shoot-off is likely the film’s most effective sequence. Though if I was American, I might be offended by its portrayal of one of their athletes shoving an Indonesian rival to the ground during the competition. I am fairly sure this did not happen, instead being fabricated for dramatic effect. But since I’m British, I don’t care. Our gals finished a plucky fifth. Mind you, I can imagine the South Korean women’s team who actually won the event – as they have every single Olympics where it has taken place – are probably wondering, “Where’s our movie?” I guess it goes to show, being a plucky underdog is just more cinematic. Sorry, Korea.

Dir: Iman Brotoseno
Star: Bunga Citra Lestari, Chelsea Islan, Tara Basro, Reza Rahadian
a.k.a. 3 Srikandi

Dangal

  By

★★★½
“Wrestling with the truth.”

Mahavir Singh Phogat (Khan) is a former Indian national wrestling champion, who dearly wants to pass his skills on to a son, and make him an even more renowned sportsman. Fate, however, has different plans and deals him nothing but daughters as his children. After two of them, Geeta (Shaikh) and Babita (Malhotra) beat up a local kid who was taunting them, Mahavir takes it upon himself to coach the girls in wrestling – despite the doubts of many, including his wife and, not least, the daughters. Geeta, in particular, proves to have the talent necessary to become, first a local and then a national champion. However, success at international level proves elusive, and her father butts heads with national coach, Pramod Kadam (Kulkarni), over training methods. Geeta has to decide who to believe, as she faces her greatest challenge ever, representing the hopes of her nation at the 2010 Commonwealth Games, held in Delhi, in front of a partisan home crowd.

This is basically Sports Movie 1.0.1, with tons of training montages (a way of getting in those musical numbers required by Bollywood), and Geeta overcoming obstacle after obstacle on her way to winning the gold medal in dramatic, last-second fashion. That’s not really a spoiler, since this is based on a true story, Geeta having been the first Indian women to win a wrestling medal in international competition. However, that’s about the extent of the truth here. Rather than having to mount comeback wins in all her bouts, as depicted here, she actually outscored her opponents over the course of the contest by a 15-1 margin. When the facts and the drama are incompatible, the former must be disposed of, clearly. I’m also not quite so sure her father actually was locked in a closet by the Indian wrestling board during her gold medal bout…

Still, it’s impressive that this own the biggest worldwide box-office of any Indian movie ever, mostly due to it becoming an unexpected breakout hit in China. I can see why though, since it’s the kind of plucky underdog story which has almost universal appeal, and despite qualms about its accuracy (to put it mildly), director Tiwari does it justice. While you can certainly argue this is a well-worn path, it’s done with enough energy to make it seem fresh, and the performances are all very solid [additional credit to Zaira Wasim and Suhani Bhatnagar, who play the younger versions of Geeta and Babita. Shaikh, in particular, really seems to get to grips (hohoho!) with the wrestling sequences, where she is shot in a way that’s clean, rather than hyper-edited.

The results prove reliably dramatic and do as good a job of selling events as they unfold – in addition to amateur wrestling as a spectator sport. If it’s as exciting as here, I’m in [this is, clearly, not to be confused with professional wrestling]. At a whopping 161 minutes in length, there may well have been room to trim some of the extraneous details, or even some of the bouts; we probably don’t need to see every minute of every round of every match in her journey towards the podium. However, I was never bored, and the moments that resonate across cultures more than make up for any slack.

Dir: Nitesh Tiwari
Star: Fatima Sana Shaikh, Aamir Khan, Sanya Malhotra, Girish Kulkarni 

The Sun At Midnight

  By

★★★½
“Nothing here but mosquitoes and bear shit.”

While certainly more relaxed that many of the films we cover here, this makes it in on the strength of its heroine’s character arc. That belongs to Lia (Jacobs), a teenage girl in the Northwest Territories of Canada, who is being raised by her father. When he has to go off for work, she gets sent north of the Arctic Circle to live with her grandmother (Jerome) for the nightless summer. She hates the rural life, and runs away, stealing a boat in the hope of reaching Dawson City, the nearest big town – not realizing it would be four weeks journey. She falls overboard after her boat breaks down, and is lucky to be rescued by Alfred (Howard), a hunter from the local Gwich’in tribe. As they cross the remote wilderness, she begins to appreciate it, bonding with the thoroughly down-to-earth Alfred and learning from him – wolves hate the smell of tobacco, apparently. But when an accident befalls her guide, Lia is going to have to dig into her own resources.

I’m about as much of a city mouse at Lia, whose initial opinion of the countryside is largely summed up by her line at the top. Early on, she just seems like another annoying teenager, whose attitude sits permanently between surly and self-obsessed. Admittedly, it doesn’t help that the locals don’t take to her, and she’s the subject of bullying by them, but until she meets up with Alfred, she’s not very likeable. To her credit, Lia is prepared to learn from someone who has forgotten more about the wilderness than we’ll ever know. As she grows to embrace the untamed landscape (and her hair returns to a more natural shade!), so does the viewer. Alfred clearly doesn’t stand for her city-slicker ways, yet generally disarms them with patience rather than anger, though his dispatch of an injured animal reminds us that nature can sometimes be brutal. They also bond through the shared experience of losing someone close to them – his wife and her mother respectively.

It has to be said, the drama which eventually appears toward the end is rather lacking on the dramatic front. Initially, it appears it will involve Lia in a race against time, to bring help to Alfred. However, that’s never fulfilled and it’s almost as if the director got bored of the idea and decided not to bother, instead looking around for a way to close things out in the least exciting way she could find. Similarly, Lia’s encounter with some less-friendly hunters feels an obligatory incident, unnecessary to proceedings. And, yet… It doesn’t particularly matter, in terms of my enjoyment. This is one of those movies which is considerably more about the journey than the destination, as well as (at the risk of sounding trite) the people you meet along the way. It’s undeniably low-key and understated, yet if you are in the right mood, it hits the spot, particular in its dialogue, which fits those delivering it perfectly.

Dir: Kirsten Carthew
Star: Devery Jacobs, Duane Howard, Sarah Jerome