Tag: 2016

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

  By

★★★
“Girl with a ray-gun”

When this came out, all the way back in 2016 [so much has happened in the Star Wars universe since then and the way we regard LucasFilms…], it was met with a split reaction. Admittedly, the film never resulted in the kind of angry war that resulted from The Last Jedi the following year. While some praised Rogue One to the skies for being so different, dark and down-to-earth (some even went so far as to rank the film as the best movie of the series since A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back, others – including myself – were more like: “…meh!”

This rather mixed reaction came after the entertaining roller-coaster ride The Force Awakens had provided. The more serious, less “fun” approach of RO made the new movie a much less-liked, some may even say “ignored”, entry in the new cycle of Disney-produced Star Wars movies. As usual, the truth lies somewhere in the middle. Personally, I was left cold by the movie, after having really enjoyed TFA. But, while RO has some real flaws in my humble opinion, and a problem in its basic conception, it is not a bad or mediocre movie. Just a flawed,”okayish” movie, and I’ll explain why I think so in more detail.

The story begins a couple of decades before the events of A New Hope. Scientist Galen Erso (Mads Mikkelsen) is recruited by the Empire through Director Orson Krennic (Ben Mendelsohn) to work on a new super weapon in development – which we all know today as the “Death Star”. Galen can’t refuse: he is abducted, his wife is killed during the kidnapping, and only his young daughter, Jyn, escapes.

Fast-forward to meet the now twenty-something Jyn Erso (Jones) again, as she is freed from prison by the Resistance. Together with spy Cassian Andor (Luna) and a couple of other misfits they meet along the way, they’re tasked to find out about that new deadly weapon in whose construction Jyn’s father was instrumental. That involves either freeing him from the Empire or, it’s implied, killing him so he cannot serve his masters any more. This could potentially pit Jyn against Cassian, though nothing is ever made of that interesting premise. As usual in Star Wars, it all ends in a big battle, this time, on and over the tropical island planet of Scarif. And [spoiler warning] this sees the surprising death of all the main characters, save those who will become main characters in its sequel, ANH, such as Leia, Darth Vader and Grand Moff Tarkin.

It doesn’t sound uninteresting but despite all the good points, there are also some serious flaws. For much of the time, the film is dragged down by expository scenes, flying from place A to B to accomplish this or that, getting another new character onto the ship and so on. It also suffers from the common bane of all prequels: telling a story nobody ever asked for, where we all already know the ending! What saves the film mainly, is the finale. Unlike the duo of Phil Lord and Christopher Miller on Solo, director Gareth Edwards wasn’t fired; his name is still attached to the movie. Yet there were reports about massive reshoots of the ending, by Tony Gilroy who also was responsible (together with Chris Weitz) for the screenplay. Certainly, the surprise introduction of Darth Vader into the plot and many snippets of scenes which were only in the trailers, seem to indicate the movie may have originally had a different direction.

This leads me to the subject of expectations. I recently saw a clip where some celebrity remembered an experience he had years before: “I saw Pulp Fiction in the cinema and in front of me were two teenagers who where definitely displeased by the movie, which I thought was great and original. On the way out, I overheard one of them say: “That must have been the worst Bruce Willis movie, I’ve ever seen!” That shows me, cinema has a lot to do with your expectations and your anticipation!”

That hits the nail right on the head, and I feel the same here. For some people RO was satisfying enough (or even great) because they got their “dark, gritty Star Wars-film”. Every fandom seems to have people who can accept something only if it is “dark and gritty”, which has led to some very unpleasant DC and James Bond movies in the past decade. However, I was disappointed, because I expected not only something very different, but also imagined a movie much better than the one I was served.

It all started with the trailer, that introduced us to Felicity Jones’ Jyn Erso like a hardened criminal in handcuffs with SW-regular Mon Mothma (Genevieve O’Reilly) listing off what seems to be Jyn’s juvenile record. Honestly, I wouldn’t have minded that at all, and would love to see a character like that in a SW movie. But they should have gone full throttle, and made her like Revy from Black Lagoon. Heck, make her the Snake Plissken of SW! But unfortunately, they didn’t do that.

Even her lines in the trailer: “This is a rebellion, isn’t it? So I rebel!” are just pretense: a hardness that is never proven, only claimed. But this line is also never said in the final movie. “Trailer-Jyn” seems to be a tough one, rejecting authority, while “Movie-Jyn” seems toned-down, and therefore quite a bit more bland. This had the potential to be highly interesting, and unfortunate that they never followed it up in the movie. For example, at the beginning we meet Cassian Andor: he shoots another spy who delivers vital information to him, fearing the comrade could endanger him by getting captured by Stormtroopers. You can think of many scenarios how Jyn and Cassian could work together, what kind of uneasy relationship they would establish. Cassian might be ready to kill her father – and potentially also Jyn when she causes trouble.

I do remember how my head-cinema went into overdrive when I heard Forest Whitaker’s voice in the trailer proclaiming: “What will you do when they break you? What… will you become…?” That really got my mind going, in combination with Jyn appearing in the trailer in a civil Imperial uniform. What could that mean? Would she go undercover, maybe for years to spy within the Empire? Leave her comrades and everyone she did know for good? Maybe figure as an elder version of herself in a future “Rey”-movie, or even turning out to be Rey’s mother? Remember, at this point I didn’t know anything at all about the upcoming movie. Would she have “Force powers” like Rey? Fall to the “dark side”? Perhaps, having been kicked around her whole life, she would decide that the “rebel scum” had no chance of winning at all, and join the Empire? After all, Telly Savalas was instrumental to the downfall of The Dirty Dozen, and this plot claimed to be cut from the same cloth.

Another ideaarose on hearing that Mads Mikkelsen would be cast as her father. Jyn having to decide between accomplishing her mission, which would mean killing him if he tried to stop her, or joining him because she wanted to be reunited with her father. [In today’s SJW-storytelling environment that kind of plot wouldn’t be very far-fetched anymore…] And when I heard Darth Vader was in the movie it became even more fascinating. Would she maybe fight him, with Force powers? Would Vader threaten to behead her father in front of her, if she didn’t give up? “What… will you become?” indeed!

Or, hearing about martial arts actor Donnie Yen playing Chirrut (whom I thought of as a blind Jedi master at that point), my head-cinema saw the first Kung Fu-based “Force fight” between Darth Vader and Yen (with Yen obviously losing, since we all know Vader is alive in ANH). See how many colourful and fascinating ideas a few trailers, pictures and cast announcements can generate in someone’s mind? And you can also understand how terribly disappointing the movie we were served, proved to be for someone like me.

Understand, that I’m always looking at things from a dramatic standpoint. I want great drama that has an impact on me as an ordinary cinemagoer. I find it deplorable when I see good story material, not living up to its potential. I somehow can’t help feel that in all the original shot material that was indicated in the trailers, a much better, more interesting and dramatic film is hiding. It’s one we are never going to see because it either was never assembled or that edit vanished in Disney’s cupboard. But maybe I’m just as delusional as those DC fans who still call for the “Snyder-cut” of Justice League…

My personal feeling is that, maybe the first version of the movie was too hard and uncompromising for Disney and Kathleen Kennedy. Or higher-ups above her decided they didn’t want to reject the dollars of the 12-year olds, resulting in a much more toned-down version that, frankly, appears tame and comparatively harmless. Remember, this was supposed to be the “war” movie of the SW-franchise. But if you want a “hard, dark and gritty war movie” than for heaven’s sake do it, don’t make something that’s only half-baked!

Even if I don’t look at Rogue One from the perspective of what it could or should have been, just from what could have been objectively expected, the film sits well below the bar. For example: you hire the original “Ghost Dog” as stepdad for Jyn, then don’t have him fight with a laser-sword in the big battle? You only give him a small supporting role, playing “exposition dwarf” for Jyn? Really? Same with Donnie Yen, whom I imagined doing so much more. Why even bother hiring a famous and well-beloved martial artist, then not using his abilities. That hardly makes sense.

But you have to wonder why somebody thought it would be a great idea to make a Star Wars film without the Force in the first place. Isn’t it the kind of wish-fulfillment that makes these movies partly so great? Instead, the approach of this movie makes as much sense for me as a James Bond movie without any gadgets (sorry, Mr. Craig!) or the second Wolverine movie, with the hero robbed of his quick-healing abilities.

I do understand that certain people love to make stories which are more “realistic”. Yet why are these people (screenwriters, directors, whatever) hired at all to make movies that are MEANT to be escapist fantasies? That just doesn’t gel with me. While acknowledging how successful the Nolan Batman movies were, I really think it’s time to return to the FANTASY in big fantastic movies. Embrace those aspects wholeheartedly, instead of always putting a tight leash on the stories, and showing the audience what a “grown-up” storyteller you are.

Then there is Darth Vader. He might be the most “beloved” villain in the SW-universe. But instead of showing what he may have been doing between Episodes 3 and 4, he is terribly underused in all the Kennedy productions. I do understand the character was brought into this at the last minute, and as fan-service goes, he does miracles – as shown by the reactions of SW fans when his involvement was announced. His role here is still too small, merely an after-thought to save a probably not too satisfying movie. If I had been a decision-maker on this movie, believe me, he would have been much more central to the storyline and made a much bigger impact on the heroine. There would definitely have been a face-to-…helmet battle against Whitaker / Yen / Jones in my version.

Then there are conceptual flaws. Another appearance by Peter Cushing might have looked like a great idea on paper. The actual CGI-translation looks quite awkward to me; not directly cringe-worthy, yet definitely “off”. Even more than 20 years after the death of this iconic character actor, his subtle facial expressions are still so deeply ingrained in our memories, that CGI-Tarkin appears almost a cartoon character. The impression is that the artists were so enthusiastic about what they could do, within a short period of time all possible expressions run over the character’s face. Less would have definitely been more here.

Another justified complaint is that the whole movie undermines the importance of Princess Leia (here, also played by CGI) in ANH. While we never did know exactly how Leia got the plans of the Death Star, the feeling was always that she put herself on the line and retrieved the important data despite much personal danger. RO kind of retcons this: Leia’s contribution to the whole operation is being handed over the disc, safely on her ship after it felt like hundreds of people had died to get it. That’s suboptimal, as a friend of mine would say.

That all sounds probably very negative. And yes, it is. But the above focuses only on what I thought were the shortcomings and flaws of the movie. It also has moments one can appreciate. I like Mads Mikkelsen who gave a surprisingly emotional performance. I find it always surprising how good some actors can be when cast against their usual image e.g. Christoph Waltz in Alita. Mikkelsen comes across as both a loving, caring father and a scientist with principles. It would have been so easy to make him the stereotypical villain of the piece, and the decision not to do that pays off greatly, especially compared to his terribly uninspired and bland performance in Doctor Strange.

Also, Ben Mendelsohn as Director Orson Krennic is a great casting choice. Looking like a younger Ian McKellen, Mendelsohn plays Krennic as an over-ambitious employee who is instrumental to the Empire’s power. But he never gets what he wants: neither Darth Vader nor Grand Moff Tarkin (changed here characterwise to accommodate the story), both higher in command, ever respect him or feel the need to grant his wishes. That makes the character actually more human. Sometimes even Empire officials have bad days.

I didn’t think much of Felicity Jones or her “brothers-in-arms”. While Jones is probably not a bad actress, there’s little to chew on acting-wise: a couple of moments here and there, such as when she meets her father again, and I like the way she moves. But Jyn Erso is under-served by the script; we needed to see more of her past in order to connect with her on an emotional level. As this didn’t happen, neither her death – as surprising it was to see in a Disney movie – nor those of the other combatants, had the emotional impact they should have.

Thinking back to other movies that dealt with a group of diverse misfits in an extreme situation, despite being over 130 minutes long, the big problem here is time. If you watch The Dirty Dozen, you see plenty of the protagonists preparing and bonding for their great mission, establishing a sense of who they are. A classic like The Magnificent Seven constantly gives you little snippets of how these characters react, telling enough to the audience about the characters that you care for them. Heck, even epic war movies of the past like The Longest Day or The Great Escape did better, despite it seeming half of all the actors in the world appeared in them. You could still make them out as characters, and care about their success or death.

In Rogue One… not much, unfortunately. The characters stay ciphers, almost interchangeable. What do we know much about Chirrut or Baze or Bodhi Rook? Nothing really. I’ve heard there’s a “Cassian Andor” TV series in the making; so that may change for him in the future. That’s too late, and should have happened in the movie. But while the movie underwhelms in so many respects, I say again: It’s not a bad movie, just one that for numerous reasons didn’t live up to its potential. Here are some of the moments I liked:

  • Forest Whitaker in his small role
  • comic relief robot K-2SO who is so much different from someone like C-3P0
  • the scene with Jyn and her father
  • Krennic facing Vader
  • the scene where Jyn and Cassian have to retrieve the disc “manually”
  • the fight above Scarif with the protection shield that makes it other spaceships impossible to gain entry
  • the last confrontation with Krennic
  • Darth Vader slicing and dicing his way through a tube full of unfortunate rebel soldiers
  • and of course the consequential ending, saving the film from a far worse fate.

I like it shows that sometimes, protagonists just die and don’t “get better” like Superman in his tomb. or their death is not real like “Agent Coulson” of the Marvel movies. Sometimes the price for success is to give your all; that can mean death and sacrifice. May I refer you to the much darker TV-pilot of the Battlestar Galactica reboot from 2004? And it is almost Solomonic that they all die, the Rogue One crew as well as Krennic, leaving the future fights to all the other characters. somewhere in the stars. That’s a fine storytelling attitude, though my Shakespeare-approved sensibilities are used to more impactful, dramatic storytelling than this could provide. Which may say more about me than the movie!

What is my final verdict? Despite definite flaws the movie has its qualities. It may be a “low-key” entry in the series but that’s fine. It doesn’t have to be “the big story” every time. Yes, thinking what it could potentially have been, makes me a bit sad. But all said and done, it’s watchable. Maybe you should see it separately, rather than together with all the other movies of the series. Ranking-wise it is less enjoyable than The Force Awakens but much much better than that terrible mess of The Last Jedi. You can easily watch Rogue One when you feel like watching a big SF movie. And it doesn’t even have to be on a rainy Saturday afternoon!

Dir: Gareth Edwards
Star:  Felicity Jones, Diego Luna, Ben Mendelsohn, Donnie Yen

Hollywood Warrioress

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★
“Just because you can make a film…”

The IMDb says this is a 2016 movie. The copyright in the end credits says 2014. But shooting was apparently going on for this at least as far back as 2011, according to Internet reports. I suspect a lengthy production, shot on weekends, when the participants have some spare time, which may well explain the presence of five credited directors and eight cinematographers. Which in turns helps explains the wretched awfulness of this. Clearly a passion project for Dutch, who is its star, (one-fifth) director, (one-third) writer and executive producer, this proves that passion by itself is not sufficient.

She pulls double duty, playing both the goddess Athena, and Deborah, her chosen vessel on earth. Deb is tasked with stopping the evil machinations of multimedia mogul Girard Devereau (Young), who is kidnapping teens around Los Angeles for some malevolent purpose [a news broadcast early on puts the number of victims at 500; at the end, the number Debbie actually releases, can be counted on the fingers of one hand]. To this end, the Deborator is given ill-defined special powers, which she largely fails to use, while traipsing around Hollywood, looking for her niece, wannabe singer Anna (Andrews). She has been kidnapped by Morgana (D), one of Devereau’s minions who moonlights as a therapist. Or maybe it’s just to stop Anna from singing – in which case, we’re firmly on Team Morgana.

The best thing which can be said, is that Dutch looks good in her battle bikini. About the only genuine laugh I got from this, was when she was hit on by a pimp, who thought she might “appeal to the ‘warrior princess’ crowd”. Otherwise… Well, I initially thought it was an interesting stylistic choice to have all the fights in slow-motion. Then I realized that was actually the speed at which the “combatants” were moving. Welp. Right from the start, the digital effects are similarly inadequate. It would be charitable to say that they might have passed muster 25 years ago. At this point, you’d probably be able to match them on a mid-level iPhone.

Maybe we should nickname her Deborah “One Take” Dutch, given the occasion on which an actor obviously flubbed their line, yet the take was still used? More damning than all the technical flaws, are a storyline which has no sense of escalation or urgency to it at all. I’m not even certain I could state with confidence what Devereau’s end-game is supposed to be here. Rule #1 of movie villains: Have a clear purpose. Actually, it goes for heroes, too, and the Deb-meister is no better. Sure, she’s trying to recover her niece. Yet for someone supposedly blessed by Athena with special powers… her methods are largely indistinguishable from those of any normal person, worried about a missing relative: contact known associates and the cops. By all accounts, Dutch seems really nice, so it pains me to be so harsh, but there’s unfortunately very little of merit – or even acceptable quality – to be found here by a neutral observer.

Dir: Christine Dupree, Deborah Dutch, Chad Hawks, James Panetta and Rusty Pietrzak
Star: Deborah Dutch, Edward X. Young, Angelica Drum Andrews, Debbie D

Pitbull: Tough Women

  By

★★★
“Still Poles apart.”

Having enjoyed the same director’s Women of Mafia, I thought I’d check out this earlier film, part of his Pitbull series, also about Polish cops ‘n’ criminals. Unashamedly populist, in its home country the featire set a record for opening weekend admissions by a local movie, and topped the overall box-office there for 2016. More surprisingly, it was also a hit when released in Britain, reaching fifth place at the box-office in its first week, due almost entirely to the Polish expat community there. ‘

It’s a similarly sprawling tale to Mafia – perhaps even more so – which covers a range of characters, on both sides of the law. Despite the title, disappointingly, the focus is not particularly on the women. While there are certainly no shortage of interesting female characters, as we’ll see, the central one is ‘Sugar’ (Fabijanski), a member of a biker gang who is tasked with a revenge hit on ‘Majami’ (Stramowski), a cop who shot and killed a fellow gang-member. However, Sugar ends up diverting into a convoluted scam involving smuggling fuel oil. I can only presume this scheme made sense to the Polish audience, because I had no real clue what was going on.

On the “tough woman” front, the focus is on two new recruits to the police force, Zuza (Kulig) and Jadźka (Dereszowska). It doesn’t take long after completing their training,. for the shine to come off, as they realize the harsh realities of law-enforcement work, and the inevitable moral compromise beneath the surface. These are exemplified in Izabela (Magdalena Cielecka), a cop who is more than prepared to bend the law in order to protect it, to put it mildly. Both rookie officers have their issues, in particular Zuza, who eventually ends up having an affair with Sugar, while his girlfriend ‘Drabina’ (Alicja Bachleda) is in jail.

Elements of all this work very well. The characters are strong, performances solid, I loved the purely pragmatic approach of the cops (needed to deal with criminals who hardly obey the niceties of polite convention either), and there are some fine moments of pitch-black humour. I was especially amused by the scene involving stepping in a half-dissolved corpse, and the subsequent discussion over protocol, whether or not the poor policewoman should keep her footwear, and forensic pathology:
   “There’s the liver.”
   “A liver’s that small?”
   “It’s normal, but half is on your shoes.”

The problem is largely Vega’s failure to tell a coherent story. I wondered if this might be down to my lack of local knowledge e.g. the fuel scam, perhaps enhanced by not having seen the previous entries in the Pitbull franchise. However, reading some local reviews [all hail, Google Translate!] suggests it’s not just me, with this being a common complaint. I can’t help wishing the writer/director had actually delivered on the potential of his premise: while certainly an equal-opportunity piece, this still falls short of what I wanted. Perhaps Vega knew he had half-assed it, and that’s why he circled back around so quickly for the not-dissimilar Women of Mafia.

Dir: Patryk Vega
Star: Sebastian Fabijanski, Joanna Kulig, Anna Dereszowska, Piotr Stramowski

La querida del Centauro

  By

★★★
“This land is Yolanda…”

A sold enough entry, this benefits from a well-written script, but gets marks taken off for having a heroine who is rather too passive. Yolanda Acosta (Paleta) is sent to a higher security facility when she is recaptured, following an escape from her previous prison. It’s a mixed-gender facility (common in Mexico), and she comes to the attention of Benedictino Suárez (Zurita), a.k.a. “Centaur”, a  local crime boss who is also incarcerated. He falls hard for Yolanda – the title translates as “Centaur’s Woman” – and when his escape plan comes to fruition, offers to bring her along with him, to the ranch on which he’s hiding out. And that’s where the problems really start for Yolanda.

Firstly, her teenage daughter, Cristina, is on the outside, being taken care of by Yolanda’s sleazy step-mom., who is trying to sell off Cristina’s virginity. Second, is the ensuing power struggle between Centaur and a rival; using Cristina as leverage, Yolanda is coerced into going undercover at a local gym where they operate. Third? Local cop Gerardo Duarte (Brown) who wants to use Yolanda to arrest Centaur. Initially, he offers immunity to her, but eventually their relationship becomes more… personal. Finally, and by no means least: did I forget to mention Centaur is married? And his wife, Julia (de la Mora) does not take kindly to rivals; on her orders, one of Yolanda’s cellmates has an eye gouged out.

You have to feel for the heroine, whose chief concern is simply wanting the best for her daughter. But every time Yolanda tries to do the right thing, circumstances conspire to foil her, and she inevitably ends up mired in deeper trouble. It reaches almost Shakespearean level of tragedy, with death following in her wake, from prison to the ranch. Even Duarte ends up believed by most to be dead, though this is mostly for the benefit of his health. since there’s a mole inside the police department who is funneling information to the cartel. He’s left to carry on his investigation as a “ghost”, with the help of allies on the force, which complicates his efforts to help Yolanda and Cristina extricate themselves.

The performances are solid enough, and the characters here almost all occupy a morally grey middle-area. You may not endorse their actions, yet you can see why they decided there was a need for them. I was particularly impressed by de la Mora, whose portrayal of Julia puts her over as both smart and brutal. She knows her position as Centaur’s “legitimate” woman leads to both power and risk, and wields the former to mitigate the latter. She also keeps incriminating evidence about Centaur elsewhere, with a “dead woman’s switch” of regular text messages, and instructions to release it in the event the messages stop. That’s genius.

I’d like to have seen Yolanda be rather more active. Admittedly, her options are limited, especially once her daughter comes under the control of Centaur as well. However, she is set up in the prison as a character with no qualms about getting tough when necessary. Once she’s back on the outside, that physicality seems almost to evaporate for 30-odd episodes. When she goes undercover in the gym, she ends up having to face Lola, a relation of Centaur’s rival who has taken a dislike to Yolanda, in an unsanctioned match. Otherwise, she seems curiously reluctant to get her hands dirty, even in defense of Cristina, and with no shortage of firearms around, of which she could take advantage.

The rest of the show, however, is quite savage for a TV series; one death in particular is by head-shot of impressive nature, more befitting The Walking Dead. It ticks along quite nicely, though it’s never less than obvious whereabout we’re going to end up, more or less from the point Yolanda arrives on the ranch. We eventually get there, and the table is set for a second season. Not sure the sequel will exactly become a priority, yet I’ll leave this show on my Netflix watch-list for potential viewing.

Created by : Lina Uribe and Darío Vanegas
Star: Ludwika Paleta, Humberto Zurita, Michel Brown, Alexandra de la Mora

Sheborg Massacre

  By

★★★½
“Australiens”

From the director of From Parts Unknown, and offering a similar pastiche of cult elements – in this case, alien invasion films rather than combining wrestling and zombies. It works rather better: Armstrong seems to have better restraint here, letting the entertainment value flow more naturally, rather than feeling the need to force his hip credentials on the viewer. Dylan (Duff) is a self-proclaimed anarchist, a rebel whose father is running for mayor. She and her pal, Emma (Masterman) get involved in a plot to liberate the inhabitants of a puppy mill, only to find themselves embedded in the middle of an alien invasion. It’s up them, along with geek Velma (Monnington) to save the day and prevent the cyborg queen (Wilson) leading the invaders from powering up.

This feels a bit like the very early works of Peter Jackson – Bad Taste in particular – with a spirit that sits somewhere between “can do” and “screw you.” The nods to other movies are copious, not least the poster (right), which is straight retro fire: Emma is an almost shameless clone of Dianne from Shaun of the Dead, while Velma, equally obviously given her name, is right out of Scooby-Doo. But the film takes these elements, and meshes them together into something a bit more than that. Not least, you’ll rarely find a B-movie with quite as many strong female characters on both sides of the script. I’d like to have seen more of the queen – she spends most of the film off-screen, operating through her minions. Yet those minions are no less bad-ass than the heroic trio of women fighting them, particularly the former puppy farm overseer, up against whom Dylan has to go on a number of occasions.

There’s a certain sweet spot which a film of this kind needs to find, located between taking itself too seriously and not seriously enough. You need to be aware of your own limitations, acknowledge them and work around these, and generally, this does a good job. For instance, what the film may lack in quality for its special effects (the mask on the queen is particularly half-assed), it makes up for in the sheer volume of blood, goo and alien slime which ends up hurled everywhere – not least over its characters! The action style is also interesting, with editing used well to enhance the impact of the fights, when it’s clear the skills of some participants are… limited.

It’s not perfect, certainly: you’ll still need a tolerance for low-budget cinema, and ideally a love for and knowledge of, the kind of content which is its inspiration. You may find the pacing uneven, especially in the second half, and certain elements just don’t work, such as the shoehorning in of a punk band whom, I can only assume, are present because they are mates with the director. It’s certainly not because they have any acting skills. However, it remains the kind of film which I’m prepared to cut significant slack, and after the underwhelming nature of Parts, I’m now highly interested to see what genre Armstrong mines for his next “neo-pulp” effort.

Dir: Daniel Armstrong
Star: Whitney Duff, Daisy Masterman, Louise Monnington, Emma-Louise Wilson

Saala Khadoos

  By

★★★
“A maniac training a rebel.”

Despite thrashing virtually every sports cliché under the sun into the ground, this just about manages to skate by on the energy of its two central performances. Adi Tomar (Madhavan) is a boxing coach who gets hit with a trumped-up #MeToo charge by the head of the boxing association Dev Khatri (Hussain), and punted off to the backwoods of Chennai. There, however, he finds a raw jewel in Madhi (Singh), a fish-seller whose sister, Lakshmi (Sorcar), has been training as boxer with an eye to joining the police. But it’s Madhi’s aggression which attracts Adi’s attention, and he eventually convinces her to strap on the gloves.

From here unfolds, pretty much, exactly everything you would expect. Parental disapproval. Sibling rivalry. Madhi mistaking Adi’s devotion to her for something romantic. And, especially inevitably, Dev seeking to sabotage Adi’s hard work and claim the credit of Madhi’s success for himself. It all builds to the finals of the world championships – apparently a team sport – where Madhi goes up against Russian nemesis Natalia Riker, who battered her to a pulp in an earlier match [albeit with various extenuating circumstances]. If the Russki doesn’t quite snarl, “I must break you” before the contest, she might as well do. And if at least avoiding full-blown musical numbers, the songs all but required by Bollywood show up in the form of so many montages, they could form the basis for a drinking game.

I suspect this was inspired by the success of Mary Kom, and has much the same strengths and weaknesses. The makers seem to think that making a woman the central character is enough to offset the hackneyed story. Do not, however, take this as meaning the film is devoid of entertainment. For as mentioned, both leads crackle, and the tag-line on top accurately sums their relationship; it’s a lot of fun to watch develop, as they spar, both verbally and physically. Madhavan certainly looks the part of a former boxer, and although Singh could do with some more definition on her arms, makes up for in pure, undiluted Attitood (spelling and capital letter entirely deliberate) what she may lack in musculature.

That said, the boxing scenes are effectively enough staged that I could overlook the heroine’s wispiness, and this is considerably slicker all-round than the last Bollywood film I stumbled across on Netflix, Warrior Savitri. The cinematography is particularly effective, helping to generate a good volume of raw emotion, and this in turn helps distract from the thoroughly generic “underdog makes good” level of the story. It may even manage to catch an unwary viewer with the occasionally effective shot, such as when Madhi says to her coach, after he has just had to make a very difficult, personal decision: “You gave up everything, just for me. If that isn’t love, what is?” Ouch. If perhaps a low blow, it’s still a line that packs a wallop.

Dir: Sudha Kongara
Star: Ritika Singh, R. Madhavan, Zakir Hussain, Mumtaz Sorcar
a.k.a. Irudhi Suttru

Warrior Savitri

  By

★★½
“BollyNotVeryGood”

This is a modern update of the story of Savitri and Satyavan, originally found in Indian epic saga the Mahabharata [and when I say, “epic saga”, it’s 1.8 million words long!]. The tale has been an immensely popular topic for Bollywood, Wikipedia saying there have been thirty-four different film versions, dating back over a century to 1914’s Satyavan Savitri. The basic story is of a woman, Savitri, who defies a prediction that her chosen husband, Satyavan, will die in a year, and marries him anyway. She then has to talk the god of death out of collecting him.

The director’s day job is as a California dentist, which may explain why a good chunk of this is set in Vegas, and this was his first foray into Bollywood. It was a bit of a jarring introduction, since Gill apparently received death threats as a result of this film and was burned in effigy. Hey, everyone’s a critic… But it was actually religious fundamentalists who were responsible, sending him an email which said, “Self ban your film Warrior Savitri. It shows Goddess Savitri in poor light. If this film is released, you will be beheaded in public.” He still appears to have his head: perhaps the fundamentalists saw the film and realized it wasn’t worth a fuss. While I can see what it’s trying to do, the bulk of it doesn’t work.

That’s largely down to poor execution, though the plot has enough of its own problems. For example, the scene setting has Savitri (Raizada) learning martial arts after nearly being abducted as a child. However, this is then all but forgotten in the particularly tedious middle portion, as she meets Satya (Barmecha) and elopes with him to Vegas after a poor astrological prognosis of imminent doom causes her father to nix the marriage. After some more messing around – and, of course, the inevitable (and not very good) musical numbers – the predicted doom occurs, with Satya critically injured in a poorly-staged car-crash. Savitri gets involved with the evil Money John (Smoorenburg) and his sidekick, Candy (British page 3 girl, Lucy Pinder), to whom Satya owes money, while also having to bargain with Yama (Puri) for her husband’s soul.

Raizada isn’t actually the issue here; indeed, most of the performances are fairly serviceable and occasionally good. Puri is particularly impressive, his portrayal of the Grim Reaper as a world-weary, avuncular type being both against the obvious approach, and almost endearing. The scenes with the god of death chatting to Savitri are the best in the movie. The problems are more technical: most notable are some really bad digital effects, from green screen work to CGI explosions, and horrendously awful foley work during the martial arts fights. Really, when you’ve got a lengthy cat-fight between two women like Savitri and Candy, and all that sticks in your mind is how bad the sound effects were… something has clearly gone horribly wrong somewhere.

Dir: Param Gill
Star: Niharica Raizada, Rajat Barmecha, Om Puri, Ron Smoorenburg
a.k.a. Waarrior Savitri [yes, with two a’s!]

The Last Dragonslayer

  By

★★★½
“Here be dragons. Well, a dragon, anyway…”

This slice of British televisual fantasy was offered up on Christmas Day, and provides a pleasant, warm and unchallenging slice of family fare. It takes place in a world where magic has ruled, but is gradually fading from consciousness and being replaced by technology. The magic appears connected to the dragons with which humanity shared the planet, uneasily. After previous battles, a kind of apartheid was set up, with the world divided into dragon and human areas. Overseeing the peace is the Dragonslayer, who is charged with killing any dragons who violate the treaty and attack humans or their territory. But some members of mankind are casting envious eyes on the unspoiled territory of the dragons, and would love an excuse to take it over.

Into this comes Jennifer Strange (Chappell), an orphan who was adopted as an apprentice by the magician Zambini (Buchan). A decade or so later, he vanishes suddenly, and while Jennifer is still coming to terms with that, a bigger shock occurs. Fate has decreed she is to become the Dragonslayer, the one prophesied to kill the final dragon. Having grown to love magic in all its forms, she’s extremely reluctant to do so. But how is a teenage girl supposed to escape what the apparently immutable finger of fate has written? And never mind, having to cope with all the other unwanted attention, from interview requests to merchandising deals, that comes to Jennifer along with the unexpected position.

It’s a nicely constructed alternate world, part steampunk, part modern and a declining part magical – wizards, for example, are now reduced to doing rewiring work for employment, such is the low demand for their skills. This offers scope for satirical elements, such as the Dragonslayer having to do adverts for a soft drink to pay off an unexpected tax debt. There are also any number of faces you’ll recognize if you watch much British TV: Buchan is familiar from Broadchurch; Bradley, who plays Jennifer’s sidekick Gordon, is best-known as Jon Snow’s wingman Samwell Tarly in Game of Thrones; and King Snodd is Matt Berry, who played a similarly mad boss in The I.T. Crowd. Richard E. Grant voices the final fire-breather, though is largely wasted in the role.

Chappell makes for a good, plucky heroine, even if her willingness to accept the hand dealt to her is a little fatalistic. Why not just walk away? Can’t kill the last dragon if you don’t pick up the sword – even if it does have your name engraved on it. While light in tone, this does have its action beats, not least when Jennifer has to fend off an assassination attempt, and an occasional moment of surprising poignancy. The finale perhaps asks more questions than it answers, and it’s clear the aim is an ongoing saga of films to follow the books (there are three volumes in the series by Jasper Fforde with a fourth in preparation). Yet if this does become a Christmas Day media tradition in Britain, it’s one to which I’d not object at all,

Dir: Jamie Magnus Stone
Star: Ellise Chappell, Anna Chancellor, Andrew Buchan, John Bradley

Mommy’s Secret

  By

★★½
“Mother by day. Bank-robber… also by day.”

This low-key Lifetime movie stars Carpenter as a literal soccer mom, Anne Harding, right down to the minivan she drives, taking daughter Denise (Grey) to her practice. Denise is a hot prospect, with college scholarships beckoning. However, life for the rest of the family is not so smooth. Anne lost her husband and is in financial difficulties, mostly because of the never-ending gambling debts run up by her other child, Kyle (DiMarco) to local thug Quinlan (Mitchell). Anne has tried to help, only to find herself robbing banks on behalf of the boss. It helps that she wears a fake beard and mustache, so the police are looking for completely the wrong gender. But it takes its toll on an increasingly-twitchy Anne, with Denise eventually putting together the pieces to realize her mother is responsible for the recent crime spree.

It is all, of course, moderately ludicrous, although the movie seems to be aware of this and plays it slightly tongue-in-cheek, e.g. focusing on the PTA sticker on Anne’s getaway minivan. I also have to say, for a family supposedly in dire financial straits, they have a lovely and extremely large house. Downsize, pay off Kyle’s debts and there’s no need for any of this felonious larceny. Even the robberies are… well, polite to the point of being positively Canadian, with everyone just believing Anne when she hands over the note saying she has a gun. And do not even get me started on Denise’s football games, which are the least convincing bits of sport I’ve seen committed to film in quite a while. No wonder Team USA didn’t qualify for the World Cup [that joke will firmly date this review!]

However… it’s all still just about adequately entertaining, helped by Carpenter’s winning performance. She’ll always have a bit of a spot in our heart, thanks to her work on Buffy, and here she gets to play the most screwed up soccer mom since Orphan Black. There’s a good twist to turn things around as we head into the third act, which I did not see coming. And Anne has to demonstrate an admirable degree of bravery after Quinlan decides to “encourage” her ongoing participation by snatching Denise. This helps it skate just this side of entirely laughable, even if Charisma pretending to be a man will always be no more credible than those martial arts films where Michelle Yeoh does the same.

In the film’s defense, there do appear to have been a number of not entirely dissimilar cases in real life,  where women at the end of their financial tether turned to robbery. Though I strongly suspect the final outcomes of those cases, were nowhere near as heart-warming as what is portrayed here [and this being Lifetime, saying so doesn’t exactly count as a spoiler]. The moral here is less don’t rob banks, and more, don’t play so much poker in shady local bars to the extent that you need to take a loan out from the owner. Truly a lesson we can all take to heart.

Dir: Terry Miles
Star: Charisma Carpenter, Sarah Grey, Amos Mitchell, Adam DiMarco

Vampariah

  By

★★★½
“Not half bad.”

I should start by explaining the above tagline. The main monster here is the aswang, a female vampiric creature from Philippines folklore. Its main distinguishing feature, is that after passing for human during the day, at night it splits its body in two, and the top half then flies around, killing people and eating their entrails, using a super-long tongue. There is a secret group, tasked with keeping mankind both safe and unaware of these, as well as any other creatures that go bump in the night. One of its top agents is Mahal (Dennis), who has a particular interests in aswangs (aswangii?), since she blames them for the death of her father.

When word of one operating in San Francisco reaches her organization, she begs its head, Michele Kilman (Deleon) for the chance to track down and kill it. However, when Mahal locates Bampinay (Almario), the aswang in question, she’s in for a shock, and her entire worldview is turned upside down. Mahal learns the disturbing truth, both about her own heritage and the group for whom she operates. Maybe she isn’t working for the good guys, after all, and the aswang are just… misunderstood?

To be honest, the budget here is some way short of being capable of pulling off the level of effects necessary to do the ideas justice. This is particularly obvious in the aerial battles, which would be okay, if only this were a mid-priced Xbox game and not a feature film. However, the invention and energy present make it relatively easy to set aside the frequently ropey technical aspects, and embrace the well-considered world and its characters. To build things, Abaya adopts a slew of different styles from silhouettes to mockumentary. The latter is used for one of those monster shows, in which an American goes to the Philippines in search of the aswang (he perpetually mispronounces it as “ass wang” – it’s actually more like “ah-SWANG”), only for it to find him first…

The film is continually inventive like this, with another new facet appearing every few minutes, such as the hopping vampires, familiar from Hong Kong movies of the eighties (brief pause to pour one out for the late Lam Ching-Ying, the doyen of that genre!). It is possible you might get more out of it if you are familiar with the culture already, and there are plenty of digs at the West, in particular Western men. Bampinay has no trouble feeding entirely on sleazeballs and politicians who deserve to have their guts gobbled down by a flying half-woman. If you’re so inclined, there are some interesting subtexts about cultural identity and gender to unpack as well.

Yet it remains highly accessible, with characters who are universal and fun to be with. In particular, there’s Mahal, who is probably the closest thing to a female version of Blade I’ve seen, with buckets of attitude, and them some to spare. At one point she spits at a misogynistic colleague, “Why don’t you go find yourself a chupacabra to fuck?” This was likely the moment at which I let go of my doubts and climbed on board for the ride. Do the same, and you’ll have fun.

Dir: Matthew Abaya
Star: Kelly Lou Dennis, Aureen Almario, Arlene Joie Deleon, Roberto Divina.