Lauren Pierce (Noble) is an expert archer, leading her high-school team. However, after she rescues a friend from sexual harassment, she finds herself on the wrong side of justice, and is sent to “Paradise Trails”, an incongruously-named juvenile detention facility, where harsh discipline and indefinitely extended sentences are the order of the day. And wouldn’t you know it, the place is run by a former Olympic archer – Bob Patrice (Sage) and his creepy son, Michael (Terry). It’s not long before Lauren is plotting an unofficial departure, along with new friend Becky (Mason), who knows the truth about what’s going on behind the scenes. When they get evidence proving it during their exit, they become the hunted as Bob and Michael will go to any lengths to stop the truth from getting out.
Opening with a claim about being “inspired by true events,” apparently that means the “kids for cash” scandal from Pennsylvania. While there’s nothing wrong with that as inspiration, it’s probably a mistake for the makers, apparently to want to make a serious statement, while adopting the tropes of the juvenile delinquent and women in prison genres. Brutal wardens; sadistic guards; lesbian subtexts… This all makes it kinda tough to take seriously, whatever statement they’re trying to make. And even that’s kinda muddied, beyond “sending kids to jail for bribes is bad.” Not much to argue with there. Probably more questionable, is the way every man here is an utter bastard. It gets kinda tiresome.
The main problem, however, is simply taking too long to get anywhere. The final 20 minutes or so, have Lauren and Becky trying to get through the wilderness around the facility, with Bob and Michael in pursuit. It’s well-crafted and tense, even if it builds to the inevitable final, bow-powered confrontation between Lauren and Bob, which you can see coming from a long way off. Unfortunately… it’s the final 20 minutes. The first hour are a real slog to get through, particularly the chunk after Lauren’s arrival at Paradise Trails. The script doesn’t have any real idea about where it needs to go or what it wants to do, once the basic concepts are established. As a result, it and the characters simply rotate gently in the wind, as interest evaporates gently.
There’s not even any real logic in the concept. Lauren is supposedly a “straight A’s” student with no previous record. Could have fooled me, going by the hyper-aggressive way she beats up on her pal’s boyfriend. That shows experience in the kicking of ass. Been nice if her ability to defend herself had come into play in the facility a bit more. Except, acknowledging women’s ability to be violent might have gone against the narrative apparently being peddled here. In that light, even the heroine’s use of a bow seems like some kind of liberal cop-out to avoid giving her the far more effective force multiplier of a fire-arm.
Dir: Valerie Weiss Star: Bailey Noble, Bill Sage, Jeanine Mason, Michael Grant Terry
Okay, the above is shamelessly lifted from The Last Action Hero, in which there’s a spoof trailer for Arnold Schwarzenegger as Hamlet. But it applies just as much to this, which is remarkably progressive considering its origins; 1977 Turkey was not exactly in the forefront of women’s liberation. Yet here we are, with a modernized and severely truncated version of Shakespeare’s story. This runs 86 minutes, compared to 242 minutes for, say, Kenneth Branagh’s Hamlet. But it hits the main spots, even if only in passing: for instance, Hamlet’s soliloquy shows up, though “Alas, poor Yorick” gets short shrift.
In case you’d forgotten: Hamlet (Girik) returns home from drama school in America, after the cold-blooded assassination of her father by her uncle (Yurdakul), who has married Hamlet’s mother (Ferdag). After seeing her father’s ghost, Hamlet decides to feign insanity, in order to get to the truth. When she stages a play, The Murder of Gonzago, depicting what she believes to be the true events, and her uncle’s rapid, guilty exit, it’s time for Hamlet to take her bloody revenge, and consign her uncle to the same end to which he sent her father.
It all takes place against a strange soundtrack, which includes both Shostakovich’s score to the 1964 version of Hamlet made in Russia (officially sanctioned or not), and Silver Convention’s disco hit from a couple of years earlier, Fly Robin Fly. It has its share of surreal or even avant-garde imagery too, particularly when Hamlet is playing at being mad, such as conducting an imaginary orchestra – the instruments are there, just not anyone to play them – in the middle of a field. The play, meanwhile, comes over as a bizarre cross between A Clockwork Orange, Manos, Hands of Fate and an early Kate Bush video.
The above makes it sounds rather less interesting than it is, even for someone like me, whose knowledge of Shakespeare is fairly limited. The main thing which it has working in its favor, is Girik, who was the veteran of literally hundreds of Turkish films in the sixties and seventies, before becoming the mayor of a district in Istanbul towards the end of the eighties. Even when the acting required here is nothing more than pulling faces (as quite often), she has sufficient charisma and delivers her (frequently ludicrous) lines with enough intensity to sustain the viewer’s interest.
The other tweaks resulting from the gender reversal have their moments too. For instance, Ophelia’s descent into madness takes on a rather different tone when she’s no longer a loony young girl. The same goes for Hamlet’s relationship with Rezzan and Gul, the female versions of Rosencrantz and Gildenstern, which feels something akin to a Turkish version of Sex and the City. In the end, I’m probably glad Erksan – best known in the West for Seytan, his knock-off of The Exorcist – opted for a brisk adaptation of the bard. While decent at its length, I strongly suspect that 242 minutes of this approach would have seemed considerably less rather than more.
This is one of those films where the making-of is probably more interesting than the movie itself. For this was made for a thousand dollars, with the shoot consisting of two cast and two crew members, filming on property belonging to the director’s parents. This is what micro-budget film-making should be about: knowing your limitation, and working within them, so they don’t appear obvious. On that basis,it is s an impressive achievement, for it looks and sounds thoroughly professional, not least in capturing the scale of the outdoor environment in which it operates. Unfortunately, it’s considerably underwritten, and even at a terse 72 minutes, there just isn’t enough going on here.
Taylor (Santos) and Angie (Boylan) are running a struggling PR firm in Las Vegas – matters not helped by the secrets each woman is keeping. However, there is hope, in the shape of a potential new customer (Schroeder). He is running a high-end adventure business which sends customers into the New Mexico desert on a geocaching treasure hunt. But before giving Taylor and Angie the contest, he wants them to go through the process as if they were customers, in order to understand it better. They agree, and head into the wilderness. However, the further they go, the clearer it becomes that not everything about this “experience” is what it seems.
The problem is that for the great bulk of the film you only have the heroines wandering around the desert, from Point A to B… to C… to D… They chat, and the secrets mentioned earlier are revealed. However, we already know about one from the opening scene, and the other is severely lacking in impact. Meanwhile, there’s not enough of an antagonist. It’s clear that they are being watched, yet the observer is thoroughly passive, and all you really have as a result, is a very mild “women vs. nature” story, without sufficient threat to make you genuinely concerned for the safety of the lead characters. Throw in a broken leg, for example, and that might have helped generate the drama and tension which, as is, the film desperately needs.
. I didn’t mind the lead performances. Both portrayals manage to feel like real people, and I wasn’t left hoping a pack of hungry coyotes showed up and ate them. Given they’re on screen for almost every scene in the movie, that’s something of a feat in itself. We eventually reach a final reveal, explaining the reasons behind what has happened, though this provoked not much more than a shrug and a “Huh,” than any shock or awe. Indeed, it’s dragged out to such a point, it feels almost as if the footage was tacked on, purely in order that the film reached feature length. While there’s enough talent here I wouldn’t be averse to seeing what the makers create in future, this remains something I wouldn’t watch on a regular basis – even if condensed to an hour less commercial breaks.
Dir: John K.D. Graham Star: Helenna Santos, Alexandra Boylan, Jeff Schroeder
Coincidentally, this one-man production was watched immediately after another, also put together toward the north-west corner, around the USA/Canadian border. But Carter Johnson is relatively restrained compared to Shadow of the Lotus‘s Jeff L’Heureux, Johnson’s name only appearing ten times in the end credits. While not dissimilar in low-budget approach, Agent 5 likely comes out just on top of the two, due to better pacing and sleeker look.
The titular heroine is Jada (Lemos), an assassin for a shadowy group which brought her up and trained her to kill, after the death of her parents. However, her programming is broken after she’s assigned the target of a whistleblowing doctor, whose elimination has been ordered by the pharmaceutical company which employed him. He convinces her to spare his life: although nearby colleagues still complete the job, before his death, he gives her the folder of incriminating data, information which could save thousands of lives. When Agent 5 goes public with it, her own employer decides she must be eliminated for her treachery, and the call goes out that she is to be located and killed. Easier said than done, though, especially when the target has decided to take the battle to her boss.
The action is competent. Nothing especially memorable, yet those involved are wise enough to know their limitations, and operate within them, rather than pushing the envelope and coming up short. Plotwise, there are some wobbly aspects: as with Lotus, the director being the writer probably hampers seeing such deficiencies. Jada exerts no effort to make things difficult for her ex-employer. If I was the subject of a brigade of assassins, I’d have moved to another country (or at least another state), drastically changed my appearance and gone as far off the grid as possible. Agent 5 does none of this, and keeps driving around town – likely for the prosaic reason that it would have posed production difficulties. Her “defection” also needed additional work: as it stands, she goes from apparently dedicated killer to rebel on the strength of a thirty-second conversation. Showing her as already disgruntled and with thoughts of quitting, would have made this much more plausible.
Originally developed as a short web series back in 2012, the main strength for the feature-length version is on the visual side. The technical quality of the footage here is so slick, it’s all but indistinguishable from a fully professional production (from what I can gather, it’s more of a high-end hobby effort for most involved). If only the same could be said about the performances, which are the biggest problem. Not so much Lemos – I’m not the only person to think she could perhaps be mistaken for Kate Beckinsale under certain lighting conditions. But the rest of the cast are all over the place, things likely reaching their nadir in the male “newscaster,” whose acting is so spectacularly awkward, I rewound it, purely for amusement purposes.
Dir: Carter Johnson Star: Cindy Lemos, Ben Andrews, Andrew Tribolini, Roy Stanton
Is it possible for a homage to be too accurate? This could be the problem here. It’s clear that Bickert has a deep affection for the “women in prison” genre – yet, again, possibly too much so. For this is less a parody or a pastiche than a loving re-creation, and doesn’t understand that a lot of these movies… well, to be honest, they suck. Badly acted, poorly plotted, thinly-disguised excuses for porn. And that’s the good ones. If you’re going to make a homage to them, you can’t do so with the knowing winks to the camera that we get here. Because the best examples – from Ilsa, She-Wolf of the SS through to the glorious Reform School Girls – played it entirely straight. You may not take them seriously: but, make no mistake, they took themselves very seriously indeed, or at least gave that impression, and played it totally straight-faced. Here, it’s more like watching WiP cosplay.
Penny (Carlisle) is arrested while on an ecological mission in the fictional “South American” country of Rattica [quotes used, since the state of Georgia is a thoroughly unconvincing stand-in for anywhere Latin] and dispatched to the prison run by evil warden Inga Von Krupp (Church, sporting an accent considerably more Russian than German, though I suspect #ThatsTheJoke). There’s the the similarly evil inmate Val (Risk), and somehow, Rattica’s newly-instituted President, Jett Bryant (Bryant), is also involved. As is Agent Six (Jordan Phipps), a secret agent sent into Rattica to… Well, I’m not quite sure what her purpose is, because it’s one of the film’s numerous, largely uninteresting threads, which Bickert fails to weave into an interesting cinematic carpet.
Part of the problem is, the film needs to figure out where it wants to focus. Initially, it seems to be on Penny, but it seems to get bored quickly of her – I can’t blame it, to be honest, she’s blandly uninteresting – and drift onto Inga and her mad scientist collaborator for a bit. Then we get zombies thrown in, because…? Inga does at least have a midget sidekick, but like most of the cast, Church desperately needs to up her energy and intensity. All the bits lifted from elsewhere, e.g. the inmate standing on an ice-block in the middle of the dinner table, can’t conceal that this is largely bereft of its own ideas, and the execution is generally too limp to succeed. Even the gratuitous female nudity is severely limited. So what’s the point?
Oh, I know what they were trying to do. I’ve seen more than my fair share of these movies, to the point it’s a running joke in our household. So it isn’t a question of not getting it. I get it. I just don’t get it, in the sense of not seeing what the aim is here. For this plays like a third-generation, washed-out VHS copy of the movies it’s emulating. Why bother with this rather lame, tame wannabe, instead of the real thing?
Before getting to the film, we probably have to address the elephant in the room: the rape accusations against Luc Besson. Though police investigations have finished, with the allegations unproven, they definitely have damaged Besson’s reputation. While in Europe, the basic rule remains “Innocent until proven guilty”, in Hollywood a mere accusation in a newspaper headline or online can potentially destroy a man’s career these days. And while some people are guilty of the crimes of which they were accused, I personally strongly doubt that the small, overweight, apparently introverted Frenchman is a serial rapist.
Honestly, if I go by what I heard about countless actors and directors working in Hollywood today, I probably wouldn’t be able to watch any movie. The logical thing for me is to separate a creator and what you know about them (or perhaps, think you know) from their work. Beethoven is said to have been a terrible, unsympathetic misogynist but his music is great. Klaus Kinski was one of the most controversial actors of the 20th century, with a reputation for unpleasantness at best; yet there is no doubt of his acting genius that shines through almost any movie he made in his life.
Right now though, a whiff of suspicion, and you are already dead to Hollywood. Besson might be slightly safer, as he is not part of the business there, and lives in Europe. But I wonder if the allegations may have led to some kind of semi-sabotage by his distributor in the US. For hardly any cinemagoer seemed to have known about his new movie, Anna. Even though I was told the film got some TV spots on cable channels and a trailer in cinemas, it seemed marketing was seriously toned down, and the movie rushed out of cinemas shortly after release.
[Note from Jim. I can confirm this. We were on holiday in Scotland when it came out. By the time we returned to Arizona and got over the jet-lag, it was basically gone. Anna opened in 2,114 screens. Three weeks later, it was on… 92. I still haven’t seen it, which is why I was glad Dieter stepped in with a review]
There seems almost to be some kind of unspoken agreement just to bury this movie quietly. Heck, even here in Germany the film wasn’t advertised apart, from the online trailer. I definitely didn’t see a trailer for it at the cinema, or big posters for it anywhere. If I had not consciously looked out for this movie, due to being a fan of Luc Bessons work over the last 36 years, I probably wouldn’t even have known about it.
But to put things in a more objective perspective: over his entire career Besson has had only two real successes in the US: One was Leon (1994), which made Jean Reno a big star and started the career of Nathalie Portman; the other was Lucy (2014), the break-through film for Scarlett Johannson, now the highest-paid actress in Hollywood. Heck, even now-loved cult movie The Fifth Element (1997) (originally supposed to be a two-parter!) was considered a flop in America at the time of release. What has always been Besson’s bread and butter is the rest of the world. Though in the beginning he had some detractors in his own country for a style which was seen as “Americanized” and “not really French enough”.
Nevertheless, it seems kind of strange when looking at the box-office numbers of Besson’s movies in the last few years. Lucy was an international success, that in the US alone made $126 million, while Anna closed with takings of under $8 million. It’s easy to create conspiracy theories looking at these numbers. But in between came Valerian and the City of the 1000 Planets (2017). Despite being the most expensive European movie ever, with a budget of about $178 million, took a disappointing $41 million in the US (though made its costs back in the rest of the world). And yes, some of his movies never were commercial successes – regardless of their quality – such as Adele Blanc-Sec (2010), The Lady (2011) or the sequels to his Arthur and the Invisibles animated movie.
Why do I mention all of the above? I guess, because I think that Anna may be a turning point in Besson’s career – perhaps more than you may think. Valerian seemed to have cost his French Eurocorp studio money, despite pre-sales and – according to Besson – only a small financial investment by Eurocorp itself. It seems that about two-thirds of the company are now in the hands of foreign investors, and they don’t want Besson to continue in the chairman’s seat of his own company. With Valerian under-performing, and Anna a theatrical flop despite a modest budget (reportedly around $35 million), we could be looking at the last big movie of Luc Besson.
Sure, he has always shown that he can make effective and very good movies with small budgets such as his debut movie, The Last Battle (1983) or Angel-A (2005). Indeed, maybe the quality of his movies increases, as his budget decreases. But the big question is if the 60-year old director really wants to start again from the ground up, especially given his age. He’s not the youthful punk he started as. In Europe (or at least France) he is what Spielberg might have been in mid-90s Hollywood. But then Spielberg grew up and matured; can Besson do that? Does he even want to? I also think you can compare him with contemporary James Cameron, a famous director who now mostly has others direct his productions. Certainly, I don’t think Besson has to prove anything to anyone, anymore.
With all that said, how is Anna? Answer: surprisingly good. I went into this movie not expecting much at all (going from the quasi non-existent marketing). Yes, it’s true, it’s not one of the “greats” of Besson, and he also doesn’t re-invent the genre wheel with this. If you have seen his classic Nikita (1990) which has been exploited by Hollywood ad infinitum, and her spiritual successors Atomic Blonde (2017) and Red Sparrow (2018), you know the story. And knowing these kind of movies, you’ll be familiar with a story arc, you can figure out from the very beginning.
But then, I don’t hear anyone complaining about the 1000th Marvel movie following the same paths of its superhero predecessors. In the end, the question is how the cook combines the ingredients to bake his cake. And this cake tastes good – but definitely not great. While the DNA of Nikita is everywhere, it never reaches the fine and poetic quality of that movie. It feels like a modernized remake, with Besson obviously having seen Sparrow and Blonde too, and saying to himself: “I can do better!”
And I think, subjectively, he mainly succeeds. Red Sparrow was a very heavy, slow-burning spy movie without what I would really call action scenes. Atomic Blonde had impressive action choreography, which Besson definitely tried to top here – up to the individual viewer, whether or not he succeeded. But Blonde also had, at least for me, a strange, difficult to figure-out ending, and characters which were all cool, to the point of emotionless. My feeling is that Besson took the best elements of all these movies – the intrigue of Sparrow; the action of Blonde – and combined it with his own style.
What I always notice when watching one of his movies, is that Besson can be an incredibly visual director if he wants. He knows how to do great mise-en-scéne, how to give his movies a lot of kinetic energy. The scenes are not too long, but also not so short you can’t invest yourself into them emotionally. He inserts moments of genuinely funny humor and sometimes almost kitschy emotional scenes, that are a component of his own unique style – and, unfortunately, usually not to be found in American action movies. And when he gets playful, the editing and the music of his “house composer”, Eric Serra (Nikita, Leon, The Fifth Element, and many others), join each other in a perfect marriage that’s just incredible fun to watch.
Do I sound too enthusiastic? I don’t think so. Besson is an excellent director. This doesn’t exclude him from creating flawed movies or average scripts; yet even his failures are – at least for me – still more satisfying and interesting than an average “successful” conveyor-belt Hollywood movie. He is an almost classic storyteller, telling his very own stories, depending on what he focuses his current interest on in the moment. One quality I think I haven’t seen mentioned anywhere, is his ability to lead actors. All of the performances here, including Evans, Murphy and Mirren are very good. But the one that really impressed me is supermodel-turned-actress Sasha Luss, who previously played a smaller role as an alien in Valerian.
She’s not perfect: Luss playing a poor Moscow-wife selling “matroshkas” on the market, can’t disguise what a beauty she is. Compare that to Anne Parillaud’s ugly punk-girl-duckling in Nikita who only turns into a beautiful swan later in the movie. Still, Luss comes across as very charismatic, believable as a model (not a stretch!) and seductress, as well as a murderous killer for the KGB. Honestly, I was really impressed: for me, she gives a better performance than the enigmatic but also somewhat bland Jennifer Lawrence in Red Sparrow.
But then a talent of Besson is being able to insert some “emotionality” into his characters. This adds just enough to make them appear more believable than many similar characters in Hollywood movies. Here, he even manages to make Helen Mirren’s role, playing a cold-hearted merciless KGB trainer and mentor of Anna, comparable to Lotte Lenya in From Russia with Love and Charlotte Rampling in Red Sparrow, into an oddly likable character.
What seemed a problem for some cinema-goers was the non-linear storytelling of the movie. The film jumps a couple of years ahead, a few months back, another year forward and so on, allowing it to surprise the audience with some unexpected revelations. I personally had no problems with that – but some people don’t like to use their brains at all when watching a movie. Their loss. :) Where I’d say Besson fails is in what I call the “model photo shooting scenes”. Here, he overdoes it so much, to the point you wonder if he intended to make a satire about haute couture. These scenes come across as exaggerated and almost cringe-worthy. Fortunately, they don’t occupy too much of the film’s running-time.
The basic story is of a trained secret agent who works for one side, becomes a double agent, then is essentially only working to get back their personal liberty, and isn’t a new one. This plot goes back at least as far as Triple Cross (1966), a WWII-spy movie from Bond director Terence Young, with Christopher Plummer, Romy Schneider, Gert Fröbe and many others. The comparisons to Nikita really write themselves. There are many similarities to the movie that, 29 years ago, more or less signified Besson’s breakthrough out of arthouse cineaste circles. Despite this, they are different, probably due to a different contemporary zeitgeist, which made the movie an interesting viewing experience for me.
Gone is the girl who never had a choice, as Anna originally applied to work for the KGB by herself – though ends in a situation where she can’t quit. This makes for a different dynamic to Parillaud in Nikita, although I also don’t really buy the emotional and psychological interest in being a killer for the state here. Nikita was a desperate girl, slowly breaking apart through having to follow the orders of her handler while wanting a normal life with her boyfriend. Anna comes across as a hard professional: she is not just Nikita but also “Victor, nettoyeur” in one person, andcomes off as remarkably cold-blooded.
In one scene, a not unsympathetic, shy Russian who is an illegal arms trader confesses his love for her; she kills him in the moment she has the relevant information. Then there is that scene in a restaurant, which makes the similar scene in Nikita look like a Disney movie in comparison. Anna leaves a room full of bloody corpses behind her; the word “overkill” sprang immediately into my mind! A normal “relationship” with her girlfriend seems possible; but Anna hardly seems to care for her, since said friend is mainly a cover. At the same time she has passionate sex with Evans and Murphy, and calls them her family. But is this just another deception? You never know if she cares for anyone at all, or if she is just manipulating everyone around her emotionally and sexually, for use later in her intricate plan.
That may be the weakest point in Anna’s character. She is just bigger than life, out-fighting, out-manipulating, out-smarting and out-sexing anyone. Somehow, Nikita seemed much more grounded in reality, and more believable because of that human character. Anna is purely professional, always ahead of the game, even when you think: “Well, now she is done!” You wonder why she needs all these complicated components of her plan, when she seems quite capable off killing off half an army of KGB-employees [And you definitely don’t want to play chess with her!]
Other aspects: It’s nice to have actual Russians speaking real Russian in a movie. I had a hard time when watching Red Sparrow with all these Hollywood actors speaking English with Russian accents. It just sounded fake. The solution here is much better: You have Russian actors speaking Russian, maybe the main actors say a thing or two in Russian, then you change to the “normal” language. I didn’t feel that it broke the illusion, since it was well enough established that the characters were Russian. Kudos also to Alexander Petrov, who plays Anna’s original Russian criminal “boy-friend”, Piotr, an especially unsympathetic human being. It’s an important and effective role, letting the film establish a feeling of reality before it shifts into the more fantastic spy genre we know and love. John le Carré it ain’t!
Some production credits stood out for me. Shanna Besson, one of Luc’s daughters did the stills photography for the movie, and his wife Virginie Besson-Silla seems to have been involved in some capacity. Responsible for the car stunts is David Julienne, who has worked for some Besson productions already in the past. I suspect he is related to Remy Julienne, the famous driver responsible for all the great car chases in the Bond movies of the 80s and also some Jean-Paul Belmondo films. [There was a major issue between Remy and Europacorp, after a stunt went wrong during the filming of Taxi 2] As mentioned, the music of Eric Serra, is as remarkable as ever, and I had a big smile on my face when in one specific scene he directly referenced a melody from his own Nikita soundtrack. I notice and appreciate little things like that.
Visually the film is – as can be expected from a Besson movie – stunning and top-notch. There are some beautiful shots of cities and once again Besson reminds us why people love Paris so much. Unlike so many modern secret agent and action movies, Anna leaves you with a real sense Besson and crew jetted around half the world to capture as many beautiful images as possible for this movie. The end titles included thank-yous to the cities of Moscow, Belgrade, Guadalupe, Milan and – of course – the studios of Paris.
Unfortunately, Anna is a commercial flop right now. Sure, the film is less than subtle, and Nikita stays unchallenged as a genre icon. We might have seen this kind of story a bit too often recently – and probably will again next year when Marvel’s Black Widow comes out. But among the modern entries in the genre, it is easily one of the best. Besson doesn’t quite reach the quality of his formative years as a director, and I doubt he ever will. But as typical genre fare, even if exaggerated in the depiction of its female main character, this is solid entertainment, and should be enjoyed as such.
I just hope this isn’t Besson’s last movie, since he is still better than most of those trying to walk in his footsteps. We’ll see!
Dir: Luc Besson Star: Sasha Luss, Luke Evans, Cillian Murphy, Helen Mirren
I don’t often get political here. Really, I watch movies to escape from that kind of thing. But in this case, since the movie itself is basically a cinematic manifesto, I’m going to wade a little bit out into the cesspool of contemporary politics. You have been warned. :)
There’s something called “The paradox of tolerance” which I’ve been hearing about a lot over the past couple of years. This says that if a society is tolerant without limit, its ability to be tolerant will eventually be destroyed by the intolerant. This is frequently used by the left, for example, to justify punching Nazis (or those they say are Nazis): if you don’t stand up to the intolerant, it will destroy you. However, there’s a reason it’s called a paradox – because it makes no logical sense. To me, it is hypocrisy in action, demanding tolerance for the people you say deserve it, while refusing it to those you consider unworthy.
That’s what you have here. One cast member called it, “A war on toxic masculinity, at all costs.” The moral problem is, the cost shown here is little if any better: toxic feminism, if you like. The heroines are four teenage girls: Lily (Young), Sarah (Waterhouse), Bex (Nef) and Em (Abra), living in the town of Salem. Someone starts leaking the private data of citizens, beginning with the homophobic Mayor, who turns out to be thoroughly gay himself. He ends up committing suicide at a press conference, Budd Dwyer-style. That’s just the first case: half the townspeople are similarly exposed, and when the evidence points at Lily as the culprit, the witch-hunt goes into top gear, in a style more reminiscent of The Purge. If the girls are going to survive the night, they’ll need to fight fire with (gun)fire.
There are moments where the style overwhelms the substance. Sometimes, this isn’t a bad thing. A single take of a home invasion, shot from outside the house, and swooping around, up and down, is quite amazing and incredibly effective – it reminded me of Dario Argento at his best. On the other hand, a party where Levinson uses split-screen implodes into incoherent confusion. Truth be told, most of the scenes with the girls interacting with each other or their contemporaries, are a bit of a mess. This is far more on point when it offers a scathing critique of social media, and there are moments when it is refreshingly incorrect. For example, the introduction features a litany of “trigger warnings”, for everything from transphobia to the male gaze.
Of course, it isn’t as smart as it thinks it is, being a one-sided argument, apparently largely formed in a bubble of Occupy Democrat Facebook posts and /r/politics. I’ll admit, I rolled my eyes at things such as it taking place in Salem – ‘cos witch-hunts, y’get it? – and that’s often the level of subtlety you get here. Still, this complete lack of nuance can only be admired, especially when it results in heroines who watch Delinquent Girl Boss: Worthless to Confess for fashion inspiration, as shown above. Politically, it may be highly problematic – though it had its moments, such as a trans character who is not used as a banner of the film-maker’s progressive attitudes. And it’s not so overbearing that I couldn’t appreciate its merits. Even from the point of view of my impeccably “male gaze”, it remained entertaining trash, though if you take any of it seriously, you’re probably making a huge mistake.
Dir: Sam Levinson Star: Odessa Young, Suki Waterhouse, Hari Nef, Abra
This is a sequel to Angel With The Iron Fists, and again sees Ho playing Agent 009 – though this time, the character is named Ai Si, different from its predecessor. Whatever… Here, she’s on the trail of the unimaginatively named Bomb Gang, who do exactly what you’d expect. They threaten companies, extorting them for large sums of money, and if they don’t pay up… things go boom, courtesy of their new, highly concentrated explosives. It’s led by Xiang Xiang, a.k.a. the Specialist (Shen), who has taken over a nightclub run by her twin sister, to act as a front for the group. Though, as in Fists, the true lair of evil villainy is a delightful excess in unnecessary over-production, resembling a game-show set on acid, with bonus trap-doors.
Unfortunately, it has much the same weaknesses as its predecessor (and without even the sublime glory of that moment). There’s a good chunk of time where 009 all but vanishes from her own movie, with the spotlight instead being given over to her ally in the investigation, Deng Lei (Tang). There are certainly far too many scenes of people sitting around in night-clubs, or of one set of suits chasing another set of suits around the streets of Hong Kong. Deng ends up captured by Xiang Xiang, who attempts to seduce him into joining the gang, and after he spurns her, Deng is thrown into a cell conveniently next to the twin sister. Fortunately, Ai Si is able to locate the facility, leading to a very Bond-esque climax, in which the forces of law and order storm the complex, resulting in a massive gun-battle. Throw in some gadgetry plus a Barry-esque soundtrack (in some places, actual Barry), and it’s a surprise Eon Productions weren’t consulting their lawyers.
There are some parts here which certainly will stick in memory. The sequence where Deng upstages a strong-man in his night-club act, and is rewarded by having a poisonous spider slapped on his shoulder. Fortunately, Agent 009 is prepared with (I mentioned the gadgets) her incendiary aerosol. And so begins their relationship, albeit at the cost of his jacket being reduced to ashes. Or the bit where Ai Si disguises herself as a man, because… because a bit of cross-dressing seemed required for every Hong Kong action heroine of the late sixties. It’s about as convincing here, as it is everywhere else i.e. not very. Ho’s talents on the action front are little improved from Fists, and leave Tang to take up the slack in this department
The elements here could have been an entertaining pastiche of spy movies – though I am just not certain that was the aim. When you’re unsure how seriously a movie is supposed to be taken, the viewer is likely to be left in cinematic limbo. In the end though, it doesn’t work well enough to be a good imitation of the Bond franchise, and nor is it sufficiently lampooning to be considered a parody of it.
I mention the above for two reasons. Firstly, because Chris wondered why the film was called “At One”. Secondly, because when it finished, I turned to her and said those four little words which mean so much: “I can only apologize…” Yes, to use it in a sentence, I’ll be atoning for picking to watch this low-rent “Die Hard in a church” offering, for some time to come. [Though the following night, I had to sit through her choice of Justice League: paid back in full, I’d say…] There were a couple of aspects here that weren’t terrible; unfortunately, the overall execution was painfully close to… well, god awful seems the appropriate term here.
Laura Bishop (Fleming) is a former soldier, struggling to adapt back to civilian life. Through her father, she gets a job as a security guard in a local megachurch which is about to open. And what are the odds, she hasn’t even been able to complete new employee orientation before a group of terrorists, led by White (Short) storm into the building and take the employees, in particular Reverend Mark Shaw (Rusler), hostage. Worse still, Laura’s little daughter is also in the building, so she has to find and take care of the moppet, as well as fending off the terrorists.
This seems to be teetering on the edge of being a faith-based action-heroine pic, which is a rate, although not quite unique entity – The Trail comes to mind. These aspects are not too badly-handled: despite the setting, they’re mostly played fairly light, and I actually found the motivation of the chief villain quite refreshing. I say this to make it clear that I’m not slagging this off for its beliefs. Especially not when there are plenty of other, perfectly credible reasons to slag it off. The entire subplot involving her daughter, for example, makes no sense, and she just kinda wanders out of an emergency exit, largely forgotten thereafter. There’s also the bizarre “street fight club” of which Laura is a member, which forms the opening scene, and is never mentioned again.
It feels as if, for every step forward this takes, there are two back. Farrelly, better known as WWE’s Sheamus, shows up as one of the bad guys, and crosses himself every time he kills someone, which is the kind of endearing quirk that works. He and the heroine have a decent bathroom brawl. But then there are amateur digital effects, poor continuity and no sense at all of escalation, as well as villains who fall astonishingly short of even basic competence. The explanation about why Lauren has her PTSD, is held back until the very end, far too late for the viewer to care one whit. It’s all a jumbled, and worse, largely boring mess. They say the devil has all the best tunes. On the basis of this, he can likely also lay claim to the best girls-with-guns films as well.
Dir: Wes Miller Star: Jaqueline Fleming, Robert Rusler, Columbus Short, Stephen Farrelly
I should probably have learned from my first experience with Ms. Hu: the thoroughly mediocre jungle ensemble piece which was Angel Warriors. For her latest film, she moves from being merely one of a number of interchangeable pieces into the lead, and proves singularly underwhelming for that role. Though in her defense, this could have starred someone with far more charisma, martial arts ability and acting talent, and it would still not have been very good. For all its flaws, Warriors did at least have a fairly coherent plot. This, not so much. For example, it’s a full hour and ten minutes in before we discover what the villain’s Big Plan actually entails. To that point, we know it’s called Operation Hurricane, and little else. Why, pray tell, should we care about the bad guys achieving their goal, when we have no idea what it is?
Things aren’t much better on the heroine’s side. We first meet Ameera (Hu) as she takes part in a gun-battle against ill-defined opponents for ill-defined reason, on behalf of the ill-defined organization for whom she works. This goes wrong, she gets suspended, and the organization subsequently vanishes for the great bulk of the movie, so who cares? However, it turns out her mother has been kidnapped by the villains, in order to get their hands on the products of some research which was being carried out by her dad. It’s up to Ameera and her boyfriend, Jason (Hsu), to ensure they don’t get it, and stop Operation Hurricane – whatever it may be. Though before you can care, you will first have to stop snorting derisively at pseudo-science babble like a virus being “enabled with an isotope nanometers.”
I do have to say, it looks nice, with some very crisp cinematography, and was not a cheap production in terms of locations, sets and cast. This, in no way, excuses the shockingly ropey CGI effects, or the way the action is staged, so you get to see little more than the participants waving their limbs at each other. There is quite a nice car-chase round some winding mountain roads, with Jason on a motorbike chasing after the truck insude which Ameera is dangling. Again, the photography is lovely, until it’s spoiled, first by Jason’s Magazine of Infinite Ammunition, and then the MS Paint-like explosion after a car goes over the edge.
Any technical shortcomings, however, pale in comparison to a script that is spectacularly reluctant to give the viewer any meaningful information, short of having its fingernails pulled out. Both characters and plot elements show up without explanation, and you’re left trying to figure out who or what they are, and why you should give a damn. Long before the climax, where Ameera is suddenly and inexplicably re-united with the organization that suspended her, an indeterminate amount of time ago, you’ll have abandoned any hope of this being any more than incoherent if well-shot nonsense.
Lauren Pierce (Noble) is an expert archer, leading her high-school team. However, after she rescues a friend from sexual harassment, she finds herself on the wrong side of justice, and is sent to “Paradise Trails”, an incongruously-named juvenile detention facility, where harsh discipline and indefinitely extended sentences are the order of the day. And wouldn’t you know it, the place is run by a former Olympic archer – Bob Patrice (Sage) and his creepy son, Michael (Terry). It’s not long before Lauren is plotting an unofficial departure, along with new friend Becky (Mason), who knows the truth about what’s going on behind the scenes. When they get evidence proving it during their exit, they become the hunted as Bob and Michael will go to any lengths to stop the truth from getting out.
Okay, the above is shamelessly lifted from The Last Action Hero, in which there’s a spoof trailer for Arnold Schwarzenegger as Hamlet. But it applies just as much to this, which is remarkably progressive considering its origins; 1977 Turkey was not exactly in the forefront of women’s liberation. Yet here we are, with a modernized and severely truncated version of Shakespeare’s story. This runs 86 minutes, compared to 242 minutes for, say, Kenneth Branagh’s Hamlet. But it hits the main spots, even if only in passing: for instance, Hamlet’s soliloquy shows up, though “Alas, poor Yorick” gets short shrift. 
This is one of those films where 
Coincidentally, this one-man production was watched immediately after another, also put together toward the north-west corner, around the USA/Canadian border. But Carter Johnson is relatively restrained compared to 
Is it possible for a homage to be too accurate? This could be the problem here. It’s clear that Bickert has a deep affection for the “women in prison” genre – yet, again, possibly too much so. For this is less a parody or a pastiche than a loving re-creation, and doesn’t understand that a lot of these movies… well, to be honest, they suck. Badly acted, poorly plotted, thinly-disguised excuses for porn. And that’s the 
Before getting to the film, we probably have to address the elephant in the room: the rape accusations against Luc Besson. Though police investigations have finished, with the allegations unproven, they definitely have damaged Besson’s reputation. While in Europe, the basic rule remains “Innocent until proven guilty”, in Hollywood a mere accusation in a newspaper headline or online can potentially destroy a man’s career these days. And while some people are guilty of the crimes of which they were accused, I personally strongly doubt that the small, overweight, apparently introverted Frenchman is a serial rapist.
Do I sound too enthusiastic? I don’t think so. Besson is an excellent director. This doesn’t exclude him from creating flawed movies or average scripts; yet even his failures are – at least for me – still more satisfying and interesting than an average “successful” conveyor-belt Hollywood movie. He is an almost classic storyteller, telling his very own stories, depending on what he focuses his current interest on in the moment. One quality I think I haven’t seen mentioned anywhere, is his ability to lead actors. All of the performances here, including Evans, Murphy and Mirren are very good. But the one that really impressed me is supermodel-turned-actress Sasha Luss, who previously played a smaller role as an alien in Valerian.
In one scene, a not unsympathetic, shy Russian who is an illegal arms trader confesses his love for her; she kills him in the moment she has the relevant information. Then there is that scene in a restaurant, which makes the similar scene in Nikita look like a Disney movie in comparison. Anna leaves a room full of bloody corpses behind her; the word “overkill” sprang immediately into my mind! A normal “relationship” with her girlfriend seems possible; but Anna hardly seems to care for her, since said friend is mainly a cover. At the same time she has passionate sex with Evans and Murphy, and calls them her family. But is this just another deception? You never know if she cares for anyone at all, or if she is just manipulating everyone around her emotionally and sexually, for use later in her intricate plan.
This is a sequel to 
I mention the above for two reasons. Firstly, because Chris wondered why the film was called “At One”. Secondly, because when it finished, I turned to her and said those four little words which mean so much: “I can only apologize…” Yes, to use it in a sentence, I’ll be atoning for picking to watch this low-rent “Die Hard in a church” offering, for some time to come. [Though the following night, I had to sit through her choice of Justice League: paid back in full, I’d say…] There were a couple of aspects here that weren’t terrible; unfortunately, the overall execution was painfully close to… well, god awful seems the appropriate term here.
I should probably have learned from my first experience with Ms. Hu: the thoroughly mediocre jungle ensemble piece which was