Tag: four-star

The Killing Complex, by K.G. Leslie

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Literary rating: ★★★★
Kick-butt quotient: ☆☆☆☆½

There’s something to be said for sparse simplicity, and this delivers on that concept in spades. Except for occasional flashbacks, the entire things takes place in one location: a facility somewhere in Europe. It’s where Cassie ends up, locked in a cage, after being abducted while on a trip from Britain, intending to find herself. She’s then deposited in a hall and made to fight for the amusement, gambling or whatever of online spectators. She starts off facing animals, but through pharmaceutical treatment, her strength, speed and savagery are enhanced, and the opponents – both fauna and, eventually, her own species too – become more vicious. The shock collar around her neck ensures her compliance.

In the early going, much of this unfolds inside Cassie’s head, as she goes through what perhaps seems inspired by the five stages of grief, from rejecting the reality of her predicament, through anger, and ending up in a personal commitment to do whatever is necessary in order to survive – even if this comes at the cost of her own humanity. But just when she’s on the edge of becoming a soulless killing machine, she’s relocated, and placed next to another prisoner, Thomas. He was also abducted, but more recently, so hasn’t been ground down by his situation yet, and his optimism reignites Cassie’s own interest in life. But is everything quite what it seems, or are there other agendas at work?

Without giving them away, there are a couple of very effective twists here, which I did not see coming – and, indeed, I defy anyone to say they did. The first is something of a cheat, considering how much of the time to that point has been Cassie’s internal monologue, and this has carefully hid a key piece of information. But the second works particularly well, because it demonstrates that the bad guys here aren’t stupid: Carrie is going to need to do more than bludgeon her way out. Good though she certainly is at that, as is proven repeatedly. This isn’t a book for animal rights activists though, with Cassie working her way up from herbivores to the top of the food chain, in addition to her human opponents.

I do wonder quite why the people are wasting the remarkable drugs, which help Cassie survive massive damage as well as enhance her fighting abilities, on an inter-species fight club. I’d have said the military-industrial complex would pay better than Fanduel for that stuff. But sadistic perverts gonna pervert, I guess, and so here we are. By the end, I was galloping through the pages, staying up well past my usual bedtime to do the dreaded “one more chapter.” It does end on something of a cliffhanger: usually that’s something I don’t like, but I didn’t feel like I’d been sold half a story here, and can definitely see further entries appearing here down the road.

Author: K.G. Leslie
Publisher: Self published, available through Amazon, both as a paperback and an e-book
Book 1 of 3 in the Killing saga.

A Certain Scientific Railgun – S

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★★★★
“Bigger, stronger, faster, better!”

Have you ever had this experience? There is a series you see and the series is fine, okay, solid. But without you noticing, you connect with these characters subconsciously, on an emotional level. As you watch them regularly, you get accustomed to them (though they are totally fictional) and don’t realize it until something happens, and you suddenly feel how much you have gotten attached to them. It’s not a new experience for me. It happens from time to time, but not often enough I would call it a rule, every time I watch a new TV show. Usually, I just passively experience the respective episodes and don’t waste much thought on it, least of all any kind of emotional investment.

It’s strange – at one point, when you started watching movies and series, you felt a strong emotional connection to everything, but today, it seems mostly gone. This does not only has to do with becoming a grown-up and seeing a lot more, but maybe also filmmakers and storytellers having forgotten the art of getting you emotionally involved in their plots and characters. But I have to say: A Certain Scientific Railgun got me, despite initially thinking I didn’t care much at all for the series. The show had been a satisfying, quite well told combination of “Slice of Life”-episodes, with some action-filled SF-arcs.

While for some. these “SoL” eps were unnecessary annoying filler episodes, I didn’t mind them. They provided additional colour to the big picture. I also was well aware I might not be the target audience: the Index series is the one supposed to be for the boys. Also, I went in without any specific expectations, always an advantage. Principally, I liked what I had seen, so had no problems with paying for another season. While sometimes things were maybe a bit too kawai for me, and the antics of a character like Kuroko Shirai could get on one’s nerves, the series was overall well thought-out, put attention into the details, and I enjoyed the emotional dispositions of the four girls, who all had their own character.

The next season arrived and… was even better?! Sure, it’s a subjective opinion, but I personally think the emotional investment I already had in the show paid off. The new season (from 2013, three years after the first was released) seemed to start like its predecessor: The girls going to school, spending time in their company, Kuroko abusing Mikoto… same old, same old, one might say. If one likes a season of a show, a new season is like meeting some good old friends again after a while. Then, the story starts to develop slowly… First in tiny steps that are hardly remarkable. There is a special art in storytelling when you are able to build up a story-line from small events to a big pay-off, when something finally can come to fruition and blossoms in a big climax.

People like Hitchcock, or some of the best action directors, know how to do that, but today I think it is virtually secret knowledge. I would certainly not have expected to find it in a Japanese anime, where you can be happy if one’s intelligence simply isn’t being insulted too much! It begins relatively harmlessly. Somebody claims to have seen Mikoto Misaka (our title-giving “scientific railgun”, thanks to her coin trick), but Mikoto wasn’t there at all. Then it happens again which leads to the girls talking about having a doppelganger, and eventually to the very interesting question, which forms the premise of this season: “What would you do, if you had a clone?”

Another strange thing occurs. Somebody is leaving envelopes containing money in small, dark side-streets, leading to people going on their own treasure hunt, and Mikoto & Co. try to find out who’s doing that and why. The story constantly builds and you slowly realize that you are paying much more attention to the show then you ever did before.  When Mikoto finally meets her doppleganger, it’s initially almost a shock. It leads to questions: who is the girl, why is she behaving so strangely, and where does she come from? Mikoto indeed has “sisters”. Actually, a lot of them. And these girls are part of an unethical and inhuman experiment.

The series really managed to grab me here totally, and part of it is due to the way the story is constructed, something I mentioned when reviewing the previous season. We grow attached to Misaka over time, and care for what she is going through emotionally. I don’t know what I would do if I met my clone, but I guess I would be quite angry about somebody stealing my identity and misusing my genetic map, which is something Misaka also feels. But there is something unexpected happening. While the Misaka clones appear a bit strange and speak about themselves in the third person, they are instantly likable and cute, it’s shattering to find out what kind of role they have to play in an on-going “experiment”. It was quite a shock, at least for me who came along with no idea of the evil hiding in the shadows (I’m not spoiling that here!).

Again, much of the effect of the series lies in its careful combination. On the one hand, you have cute school-girls doing harmless girly stuff: studying, social services, sitting in cafés, mocking each other, searching together (as happens in one episode) for a four-clover-leaf in a green field. Then, suddenly, a hole of darkness opens where very evil people do very evil things, with hardly any remorse or justification for their acts. The contrast makes this story shocking: in another darker show, it would have been your typical, average stuff. Here, I almost got the feeling I’d watched an anime written by the Brothers Grimm! While we have seen much worse, it’s the combination of different elements that makes this work so well.

Unfortunately, our protagonist makes the decision to play Batgirl and solve the problem alone, without her friends, which I found a bit questionable. The climax of the previous season had shown how effective these four girls are when working together, and this can also be seen at the beginning of this season. But I guess as the so-called “sister-story-arc” was also already featured, albeit briefly, in A Certain Magical Index, the writers here were bound to how events played out in that series. It doesn’t look good for our little railgun: She experiences fear, despair, helplessness and pain. It’s quite some time since I saw so many relatable and believable emotions in an animated character.

It’s always nice when a powerful character is “cut down to size”: it adds realism to any story. Fantasy and SF stories should have rules and powers should have limits. And 5-level esper Mikoto, who in the past was not above bragging about her incredible electro-talents, experiences these, physically as well as emotionally. We look differently at our protagonists when they are not the strongest kid on the block anymore. Here, we meet megalomanical, sadistic villain Accelerator, who is more than a match for Mikoto. But then, Misaka is not totally alone; for there is still Touma Kamijou, the protagonist of A Certain Magical Index, the boy who wanted to protect Misaka previously and whom she challenged to a power-fight. Maybe he can help?

There are interesting aspects here. Do super-powers make you susceptible to arrogance, because you start subconsciously to feel superior to everyone else? It’s something the powerless Saten worried about in the first season before meeting Mikoto. The character of Kongou, a level 4-esper is like that (though she becomes more sympathetic this season), as is another level 5-esper introduced at the beginning of this series. You calso remember the many, many times when Mikoto used her powers carelessly in the past. To paraphrase Francis Bacon’s famous sentence: if power corrupts, do then superpowers corrupt…um, superly?

It’s a thought, albeit never directly articulated here, and is definitely evoked when watching this story. We also get a brief look into Accelerator’s past: he has a reason why he does what he does. Once again, the show manages to give us some understanding as to the villains’ motives. It delivers a much more layered approach than just telling us, as so many stories across so many media do: this guy is bad, and has to go! It makes the show more well-rounded, the stories much more satisfying, characters more ambivalent and therefore – if I may use the word – realistic. Also, kudos to the writers of these stories for applying the laws of physics in a logical, and well-considered manner!

After this very well-built, suspenseful story arc, running from episode 2 until episode 16, I can understand why some felt the remainder of this season was a bit of a letdown. While we get another arc, the new one can’t quite compete with what happened before, though is decent on its own merits. For a while, we go back to small stories of the girls getting together and the usual jokes like e. Saten pulling up Uiharu’s skirt to embarrass her. Yes, that’s a thing. It’s alright by me. After you have clashed with the Big Bad, it’s absolutely fine to have another episode where your heroines are in a hurry to bring a cake to a meeting, where they drink tea and say goodbye to a friend who is moving away. It’s the “slice of life” aspect: if you are in for the meal, you have to eat the vegetables, too!

This season is not perfect; nor was the previous one. A possible flaw is it becomes almost a one-girl show with Mikoto on her own and her friends reduced to side characters e.g. Kuroko constantly worrying what is up with Mikoto and where her best friend spends her nights. Fortunately, this is corrected in the second story arc, dealing with Febri, a little girl who is the subject of an experiment herself. Mikoto finally learns she not only has good friends, but to take help when it’s offered. The power of friendship can even deal with very well-equipped forces of the dark and shady “underworld” in Academy City. These little lessons of morality integrated into the show, definitely leave a feel-good-feeling at the end.

Finally, we even learn about the motivations of some of the villains in the background. In a city where all those highly-enabled people are the focus of everyone’s attention, the “normal” people, regardless of how ingenious they may be or how hard they work, have hardly a chance of ever getting their spot in the limelight. Being constantly neglected can make you do very terrible things. But again: not everyone working on the side of the bad guys is necessarily an enemy and Mikoto gets her “Will Graham vs. Hannibal Lecter”-moment, so to speak! Once again the arc is well-built and develops the sensitive, emotional touches which make the show more than the usual action.

It ends in a very satisfying finale which sees almost everyone, including second-tier characters, join Mikoto’s final battle against the evil scientists’ group. There’s still a deadly satellite in orbit that could destroy Academy City unless Mikoto and Shirai get up there and blow it up in time. Shouldn’t be a problem for Mikoto, the city’s famous railgun, right? Watching this series felt for me a bit like seeing Kim Possible in an X-Files plot, spiced up with some great action from a Hollywood blockbuster. Though I could have done without the show’s main musical theme playing, once again, over the battle scenes during the finale. Here the producers really should have invested in some action music!

Some questions remain. What exactly will happen to the almost 10,000 “sisters” of Misaka? Are there other powers in the shadows we have not seen yet? Or is Academy City now free of big criminal-scientific organisations? Will Misaka get together with Touma? Probably not, since in his own series he has quite a harem of female followers. And what is with her obsession over that frog? Stay tuned, for J. C. Staff, the studio behind the show, also produced a third season, which came out a good seven years after this one. At least something good that came out of that terrible year! So, let’s continue…

Dir: Tatsuyuki Nagai and others
Star (voice): Rina Satō, Satomi Arai, Aki Toyosaki, Kanae Itō

Griselda

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★★★★
“Calor blanco”

This is far from the first time we’ve covered films, series or documentaries about Griselda Blanco, the drug boss who ruled Miami with a lead fist in the eighties. There was Colombia narconovela La Viuda Negra. Lifetime TVM Cocaine Godmother, starring the not exactly Colombian, Catherine Zeta-Jones. And there was factual retelling, Queen of Cocaine. Now, we get the highest-profile version, made by Netflix and starring probably Colombia’s best-known actress. Albeit best-known for her role in long-running sitcom, Modern Family. We saw her here previously in the underwhelming Hot Pursuit, but this is a very different kettle of fish. Concern was understandable. Would she be up to the dramatic lifting required for such a heavy and complex role?

Yes. That’s the short answer. She does a fine job of depicting a character whose defining trait, in this rendition, is single-minded determination. It’s an aspect apparent from the start, where she flees her abusive husband in Medellin. Griselda arrives in Miami with her three kids, and little more than the clothes on her back. Oh, and the kilo of top-shelf cocaine, swiped from her spouse. Through sheer refusal to take no for an answer, she finds a buyer and convinces him to give her a shot [she meets him in Miami’s Mutiny club – Chris was actually a member there back in the day!]. When he stiffs her, she reels in a Colombian supplier, convinces him to front her 100 kilos, then creates her own market and network of dealers.

It’s kinda inspiring, weirdly. Early on, the series can be seen a twisted version of the American dream, where an immigrant can come to America, pull themselves up by their bootstraps, and anyone can achieve success if they work hard. The reality is, Blanco didn’t arrive in Miami seeking asylum from domestic abuse, but fleeing increased law-enforcement heat for drug trafficking in New York. Not exactly what Vergara described the show as, depicting “How beyond all odds, a poor uneducated woman from Colombia managed to create a massive, multi-billion dollar empire in a male-dominated industry, in a country that was not her own.” You go, #girlboss! #slay!

Often literally. For her chosen profession here is thoroughly illegal, and the hard work involves ordering brutal violence against your rivals and enemies. This might be a cause for concern. But who are we to quibble? The makers have said they didn’t want to make a hero(ine) out of her. Neither did Brian de Palma, and yet, you can buy Scarface T-shirts. The market decides for you, and the way it depicts the violence for which Blanco is responsible seems more like an attempt at plausible deniability. It’s the usual double standard of Hollywood: making disapproving noises, while also depicting Griselda strutting glamourously out of the Mutiny, blood spattered on her cheek from a recent victim. 

Griselda has a strict zero-tolerance for anyone who thinks she is a soft mark because she’s a woman. Especially in the early part of her career, was quite willing to wield a baseball bat or gun to that end. Later on… well, she had people for that sort of thing. But as we head into the second half, things get progressively darker. Griselda starts to become paranoid, suspecting the people around her – an attitude not helped by her taste for smoking crack. She believes there’s an informant in her circle, and takes brutal action against those who she thinksit might be. Things peak at a birthday party for Dario (Guerra), her third husband. It ends in Griselda letting loose with her gold-plated MAC-10 (top).

The irony is, there’s no informant: just good police work. For on the other side of the law, the series gives us June Hawkins (Martinez, bottom), intelligence analyst and detective in the local police force. She was also a real person, one who played a significant role in the pursuit and capture of Griselda, being one of the first to realize a woman had taken over the drug trade in Miami. I suspect her role was likely inflated somewhat, in order to act as a counterpoint to her target: co-creator Doug Miro admitted about the character, “There’s a fair amount of artistic license.” That applies to the whole series, though I’m not inclined to complain.

It is a fairly straightforward rise-and-fall, charting first Griselda’s path up to the top, when she was earning $80 million per month. This is followed by the slow but likely inevitable collapse, as her business rivals and law enforcement catch up with her. We know how the story eventually ends – in a pool of blood outside a Medellin butcher’s shop. The series doesn’t bother going all the way to the end. It finishes with Blanco released from jail, sitting on the beach. But it’s not a happy ending, having just been told that she has lost almost everything for which she worked: three of her four sons have been murdered. Conventional morality wins out in the end.

In terms of production value, this is definitely several slices above the other efforts, even if Los Angeles stood in entirely for Miami (the latter no longer resembling what it was at the time). Of particular note is the make-up work on Vergara. It must have been a challenge, because events unfold over a significant number of years: your lead is, obviously, more or less fixed at a point in time. Initially, there’s little of note, but it gradually builds up, in a way that’s so subtle you might not notice. Until, by the end, you suddenly realize the character no longer looks like the actress. Though still rather prettier than the real Griselda.

I highly doubt this will end up being the final or even the definitive version of the Griselda Blanco story. The last surviving son, Michael Corleone, filed suit against Netflix, and reports indicate he has his own version of the family story he would like to tell. For now, however, this is the best adaptation of her life. If obviously skewed towards a questionable message of feminist “empowerment” which the makers wanted to send, Vargas’s strong performance holds the strands together and makes for a captivating experience. 

Dir: Andrés Baiz
Star: Sofía Vergara, Alberto Guerra, Martin Rodriguez, Juliana Aidén Martinez

Wolf Creek: season one

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

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

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

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

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

But… it isn’t.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jericho Ridge

  By

★★★★
“Assault on Precinct 1.”

After a year which has been filled with disappointments and films which have failed to generate much reaction beyond a mild “Meh,” it’s nice to see one which certainly surpasses expectations. Indeed, with about two months left to go in 2023, this would certainly be a finalist for GWG Film of the Year, were there to be such an award, and potentially could walk away with that hypothetical trophy. It’s the kind of movie which, even when you know exactly what’s about to happen, still delivers in a way that can generate an undeniable reaction. Considering my expectations going in were not much more than the made-for-TV level – this being a BET channel exclusive – it surpassed those greatly.

The heroine is Tabby Temple (Amuka-Bird), a deputy in a small, rural North Washington town (albeit one entirely faked in Kosovo!). She is just heading back to work following an extended lay-off due to a broken ankle. The reason for this injury is not immediately clear. Nor is the reason why she is no longer a chief deputy, but it appears to be something to do with her troubled teenage son, Monty (Morris). She returns to find the police station in some turmoil, due to a burglary the previous night, while an investigation is also under way regarding the murder of a local drug dealer. Sheriff Eddie Reynolds (Kunz) goes out to visit a suspect, leaving Tabby behind, to guard domestic abuse prisoner Earl Macready (Socha), and await the arrival of a locksmith to install new station locks.

It’s here things go very badly wrong, with Tabby discovering there is apparently something in the station that a certain party is prepared to go to any lengths to obtain, with the burglary being just the first step in that process. She finds herself under siege, and severely out-gunned, the station’s armoury having been stripped almost bare. Local help is… not going to help, shall we say, and the state variety won’t get there for some time, leaving Tabby to try and survive until they do. The unexpected arrival of Monty during a lull in proceedings, only heightens the stakes, and also forces mother and son to confront the truth about their fractured relationship, and how it became that way.

But this is not s touchy-feely emotional drama, to put it mildly. Once it gets going, this is a relentless assault, which sees Tabby go from a quiet, almost passive observer, into a fully-fledged warrior queen. Amuka-Bird is quite excellent in both parts of that dual role, being entirely plausible as both devoted mother and unstoppable force. And she needs to be, because the villains are just as brutal in their approach. The film also does well with passing out the necessary information to the audience, doing so in its own time, despite a couple of scenes which do feel rather too obviously expositional. In general though, this does a great deal without the need for stars or big production values. Story, performance and crisp execution are all on point instead, and the results are all the better for it.

Dir: Will Gilbey
Star: Nikki Amuka-Bird, Zack Morris, Simon Kunz, Michael Socha

Assassin’s Vow, by David Bruns and J. R. Olson

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Literary rating: ★★★★
Kick-butt quotient: ☆☆☆☆

Bruns and Olson are retired U.S. Navy officers, Olson in particular with a background in naval intelligence –and that background is drawn on heavily in the various self-published series that he and Bruns co-write. This particular 117-page novella exists only in an electronic edition; in keeping with my usual practice, I’d never have read it, but for the fact that it’s a freebie. Supposedly, it’s the fourth in a succession of “Standalone Suspenseful Short Reads.” In fact, although I read it as a standalone, it actually ties directly into The Pandora Deception, the fourth novel in the authors’ WMD Files series. (The first novel of that series is premised on the conceit that former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein really did have his infamous “weapons of mass destruction,” but cleverly smuggled them out of Iraq before the Americans closed in – okay, this IS fiction.) Our protagonist in this novella, Mossad agent and top-notch assassin Rachel Jaeger, is an important character in the afore-mentioned fourth novel of that series (and possibly others); and indeed, we can surmise that the reason this work is given away for free is so that it can serve as a teaser to draw readers to the series.

Actually, our heroine’s real name is Makda Moretti; “Rachel Jaeger” is her Mossad code name (jaeger means “hunter” in German, and probably also in Yiddish, which is a Germanic language; and Rachel is a name with definite Old Testament associations). Historically, going back to at least New Testament times and possibly back as far as the reign of Solomon, a certain number of blacks in East Africa have identified with the Jewish faith. Rachel was born in Ethiopia, and her mother was one of these (although her mixed race father was half Italian). But though this subculture is mentioned. the authors don’t develop it at all. Their concentration is very much on providing the character’s “origin story.”

We begin en media res, on her first mission as a fledgling operative in a town on the Egyptian Sinai penninsula, where she’s supposed to provide scouting and lookout functions for a team tasked with taking out a terrorist. (But circumstances will cause her role to morph into something more demanding….) Well positioned flashbacks show us how, as a smart, physically fit and observant Tel Aviv Univ. student with a double major in economics and foreign languages, a solid background of martial arts training, and no close family (her mother had recently died, and her brother had emigrated to the U.S.) she was recruited into Mossad. (Later flashbacks show her family’s harrowing trek to Israel from danger in an unraveling Ethiopia, on which her father was killed, when she was a very small child, and a later formative experience of standing up to two bullies in order to defend another child, which shaped her penchant for defending innocents.)

Levi, the slightly older agent who recruited her, initially used the cover of a dating relationship as a medium to get close to her and check her out; this probably began as a ploy on his part, but quickly became much more serious, and the Makda-Levi relationship plays a very crucial role in the plot here. I don’t recommend reading the Amazon book description (the Goodreads database entry doesn’t have any description) because it divulges a lot of the plot, not just the premise. But suffice it to say that personal tragedy will be a shaping force in Rachel’s career. The time frame of the main tale is apparently about two years.

This is not a deep novel wrestling with moral, psychological, spiritual or political issues. There’s no real exploration of the complex roots and merits of the current Israeli vs. Arab hostility. Both Rachel’s and Levi’s role in Mossad is strictly counter-terrorism, combating and forestalling bad actors who would target and murder innocent civilians for political ends. That these people need to be stopped is a moral no-brainer, regardless of your attitudes towards Zionism or Palestinian statehood. Religion plays no role in the tale; Rachel and Levi are strictly secular and identify with Israel on the basis of peoplehood (which in her case is not exactly ethnic either, but more cultural, in a broad sense). The first time that she has to take a life (in self-defense), Rachel experiences some believable psychological distress at the enormity and finality of it, but is able to work through it and come to terms with it fairly quickly, as an action in successful and needed defense of her people; that kind of issue doesn’t arise elsewhere in the book. Despite the Amazon blurb’s overwrought reference to her “inner demons,” we don’t really meet any of the latter, our authors don’t really psycho-analyze her in depth, beyond the obvious feelings.

What it is instead is a straightforward tale of espionage action-adventure, with no real pretensions beyond offering exciting entertainment for readers who appreciate danger, suspense, physical challenges, and the satisfaction of seeing a good gal kick some bad-guy butt. :-) That’s exactly what the authors set out to deliver, and they make good on their promise admirably. This is a very well-written, fast flowing novel, with believable characters, all of them presented in life-like fashion. The prose is thoroughly serviceable, and free of bad language, with the exception of a couple of s-words in one place. (I appreciated that restraint, which I regard as a hallmark of good, tasteful writing.) There are a variety of locales here –Rome, France and Tunisia, in addition to Israel, the Sinai and East Africa, as already mentioned– and while they’re not necessarily realized with a deep sense of place (remember, this is a 117-page novella!), all of the physical settings are described vividly enough that we can easily visualize them.

Inside knowledge of espionage trade-craft and the inner workings of an intelligence agency is incorporated seamlessly into the narrative, giving it a solid feeling of verisimilitude. Our authors refrain from depicting explicit sex, and they treat sexual matters in general with restraint. It’s mentioned that Makda and Levi began sharing her bed after they’d been dating two weeks, but it’s left at that, and the feelings between the two, in fairness, are much more intense than the short time span suggests. (Normally I’m skeptical of insta-love scenarios in fiction, especially in a modern setting, but it carried complete credibility here.)

One scene had both Rachel and the target of one of her hits naked at one point, because she was posing as a prostitute in order to carry out her mission, but there’s no gratuitous physical description and no sexual activity takes place. (It’s a disgusting scene only because of the repugnant nature of the target’s exploitative and misogynistic attitudes, but he’s meant to be disgusting.) As an action adventure yarn with a government-sanctioned assassin for a main character, it’s going to feature lethal violence directly described, but there’s restraint here too; there’s no wallowing in gore for its own sake, and neither the authors nor Rachel are sadistic. (She’ll deliver certain death to her marks –who inspire no particular pity!– with consummate efficiency, but she”ll deliver it quickly and cleanly.)

My high rating reflects the degree of skill with which the authors deliver on the conventions of their genre, as well as my enjoyment of the tale (I’d easily have read it in one sitting if my time had allowed!). The only negative I felt is that Rachel’s character arc here doesn’t leave her, emotionally, in as good a place at the end as her friends would want her to be. (And by the time you finish the book, if you read it, you’ll probably also count yourself among her friends. :-) ) To be fair, however, that’s because it’s not a complete arc; the authors have at least one more adventure for her, in a full-length novel that will probably allow for much more progress in her personal life journey. Sadly, I don’t plan to witness it; at the age of 70 and with a gargantuan TBR, I don’t choose to get sucked into the welter of Bruns’ and Olsen’s various series, so I read this as a stand-alone. But I wish our heroine well; and can unhesitatingly recommend at least this start of her saga to all fans of espionage thrillers and action heroines!

Author: David Bruns and J. R. Olson
Publisher: Reef Points Media; available through Amazon, currently only as an electronic book.
A version of this review previously appeared on Goodreads.

The Gentle Touch

  By

★★★★
“Touched by an angel.”

British television was rather late to the policewoman party. The first such American show, Decoy, had aired in 1957, and been followed in the seventies by Get Christie Love! and Police Woman. But the UK had to wait until the eighties for their first home-grown series. The Gentle Touch just beat Juliet Bravo to the title, beginning its five season run four months earlier, in April 1980. It centered on Maggie Forbes (Gascoine), a Detective Inspector who worked out of the Seven Dials station in central London. The show began with the murder of her husband, also a police officer, leaving her to raise teenage son Steve (Rathbone), despite a strong devotion to her career in law enforcement.

To be honest, it’s more character- than action-driven overall, yet that’s its strength, since it does a great job of creating people who feel “real”. Nobody here is perfect: everyone has flaws, and struggles to cope with life’s ups and downs. Maggie is the focus, having to operate in an era when casual disregard for a woman’s talents was the norm. Not least by her Scottish colleague, Bob Croft (Gwaspari), though he eventually came to appreciate her many talents, such as Forbes’s fierce devotion to justice. Fortunately, her boss, Detective Chief Inspector Bill Russell (Marlowe) always had her back, even if his approach means cutting her no slack either. But every episode seemed to have one or more great performance, taking advantage of the vast pool of top-tier British character actors.

If you’re familiar with British films and television of the time (and I basically grew up with them!), you will see a lot of recognizable faces. Josh Ackland, Enn Reitel, Joanne Whalley, Art Malik, David Kelly, Ralph Bates and even Floella Benjamin – now Baroness Benjamin, then playing a high-class call-girl! The show also covered a lot of social topics not often seen on eighties television, from racism to porn, yet generally managed to do so without feeling like it was delivering a lecture. There’s no denying its success at the time. This peaked with the ninth episode of season three, in January 1982, which was the fifth most-watched TV program of the year in the United Kingdom, seen by almost a third of the entire population.

The odd episode does perhaps teeter on the edge of implausibility, such as a largely ineffective cliffhanger at the end of season four, where a woman walks into Seven Dials station, armed with a hand-grenade, and threatening to blow herself up. Such excesses seemed positively… well, American. I felt the show was better when staying safely British: you could have a good drinking game, based off people offering each other a nice cup of tea. Speaking of which, Gascoine must have had a sponsorship deal with artificial sweetener company Hermesetas: Chris noticed the way she inevitably dropped a couple of their little tabs into her cuppa. Yet I was surprised how well it generally stood the test of time. Its age only occasionally shows, and most of its 56 episodes proved highly watchable, thanks to the solid characters and performances.

Creator: Terence Feely
Star: Jill Gascoine, William Marlowe, Brian Gwaspari, Nigel Rathbone

I’m Your Woman

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★★★★
“Taking action”

Hearing that James Gunn, new head of the DC movie department at Warners, just recently announced David Corenswet and Rachel Brosnahan as the new actors to play Superman and Lois Lane in the next “Superman”-movie, I felt the need to find out more about these new actors. For Brosnahan I chose the movie I’m Your Woman, an Amazon Prime production from 2020. For one thing, she played the main role, and secondly a two-hour movie is much quicker to watch than a series like The Marvellous Mrs. Maisel. Sure, for that series she got two Golden Globes, one Emmy and two Screen Actors Guild Awards – but my time is a bit limited. Also, I prefer gangster movies over a dramedy show.

I’m Your Woman takes place in the 1970s. Although a year is never specifically mentioned, the dresses, suits, hair styles and the ugly interior design speak for themselves. Jean (Brosnahan) plays the wife of gangster Eddie (Bill Heck). She knows that he’s a gangster but not what he exactly does. In material terms, while there is everything that she could wish for, she is obviously unfulfilled, as she would have liked to have a child – but it didn’t work out. A big change in her life happens when Eddie one day brings home a baby, declaring that it is now theirs. Jean is more than a little over-burdened with the new task, for taking care of anything or anyone, least of all a baby, is something she never had to do.

Very soon her life changes even more dramatically, when one night Eddie doesn’t come home. Instead, she is given a large amount of money and told to go with Cal (Kene), a friend of Eddie’s. She is not told what has happened, so her subsequent escape and isolation in a foreign house remains a mystery to her for quite some time.  As one can probably already guess from the above, the movie is not excessively an action movie with a whole lot of bang-bang. That said, it nevertheless earns its place in the “girls with guns” category, even if this element shows up quite late in the game. For most of the movie, the heroine (and by extensions we, the audience) are left in the dark concerning the why, what and how. Only slowly are we given that information, with light eventually being shed on the background of what happened and the fate of Eddie.

I think this makes it quite an unusual movie as – in contrast to many other movies – we are not immediately brought up to speed with an info-dump, so that we tie ourselves emotionally to Jean. As a result, the fear and tension she experiences are really palpable to us, too. We don’t know who Cal is and why he is helping her, or why people are after Jean. In my opinion, the movie is particularly successful in showing a female perspective, as part of something that would otherwise potentially have been just an ordinary gangster story. In the beginning, Jean does whatever she is told, while at the same time also trying her best to be a good mother to the little baby, even if her knowledge in this respect is also just rudimentary.

It’s only when she realizes that, unless she leaves behind the passive role that she has occupied for such a long time and becomes active, the hunt for her will never end. After that, she is able to change her life and save her new found friends, including Cal and his family. In that respect – and I know how this sounds – this movie can actually be called an emancipation drama. For once this is real, in contrast to the kind of what many modern movies understand under that expression. Also, the story can be seen as offering a historical comment on 1970s paranoia, and in particular how everything seemed to be chaotic at this time. Jean has to come to terms with the notion that those people who try their best to protect her, might have just as little a clue as she has.

I liked this movie, filmed in Pittsburgh, very much. The inherent tension can be felt for the entirety of the movie and it always feels and sounds like the 1970s. Wikipedia tells me the movie was only in theatres very briefly before Amazon Prime released it online. Rachel Brosnahan gives a first-class performance here though the whole production is top-notch. I regret that, too often, quality content like this flies under the radar, while we are distracted with yet another of these big dumb blockbusters Hollywood is constantly pouring over us. I feel Brosnahan is an actress of whom I would like to see more. That appears not to be problem, with plenty more of her work apparently available on Prime.

Dir: Julia Hart
Star: Rachel Brosnahan, Marsha Stephanie Blake, Arinzé Kene, Jameson Charles

Charlotte Who? – A Gaelic Football Story in America

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★★★★
“When Irish eyes are smiling.”

I stumbled across this entirely by accident, Tubi’s autoplay feature putting it on after watching some World Cup highlights. But the start was intriguing enough to keep me watching, and turned out to be a really good documentary, even if the story is a bit clichéd. The original title was the rather more forthright, Who the Fxxk is Charlotte? and that sums up the approach here. Any viewers with an aversion to strong language should not apply. It’s the story of the Charlotte, North Carolina women’s Gaelic football team, and their quest to win the national title. Gaelic football? Yes: an Irish sport, which combines elements of football and rugby. In Ireland, it’s close to a religion with fierce rivalries that go back to the 19th century. 

The Charlotte club was formed in 2000, and based on what we see here, is as much a social organization as a sports club. There does appear to be quite a lot of consumption of adult beverages. But there’s no doubt, they take the sport seriously, and recruit from all round the area, both Irish and American players. On North America, teams can bring in experienced players from Ireland, known as “sanctions”, to help grow the sport. But some clubs do that to excess: Charlotte refuse to go that route, putting their team at a potential disadvantage compared to Boston, or their arch-rivals from San Francisco, the Fog City Harps. The film follows Charlotte as they develop their team, and take part in the 2016 and 2017 senior women’s tournament, for the best sides in North America. 

There are absolutely no pretensions here. It’s a very straightforward approach, and that no-nonsense style fits the participants to a T. Unlike some docs, there’s no off-field drama here, be it artificial or genuine. It’s all about the sport, and it’s depicted as a classic underdog story with plucky Charlotte trying to beat their larger, more established and more “sanctiony” opponents. Though in regard to the last, I would have been curious to see actual numbers: how many of their team were Americans, and how does that compare, say, to the Harps? It’s an easy enough sport to pick up for a viewer, though in some of the games, it was occasionally hard to know the exact score. A score bug in the corner would have been useful. 

In some ways, the structure feels like it mirrors that of a classic kung-fu film. The heroine loses the first battle against her nemesis, but this only increases her resolve. She withdraws, trains harder and learns new techniques, in order to prepare for the rematch. That’s what we have here, with the 2016 tournament ending in defeat. The Charlotte coach also retires, his previously pledged three-year term having come to a close. Yet this opens the door for a dual-headed approach, with two managers of different styles. Considering this is a sport about which I knew almost nothing going in, it was all remarkably engrossing. If you’re not cheering by the end, you’ve clearly got no Irish in you.

Dir: David N. Stiles
Star: Aoife Kavanagh, Catríona O’Shaughnessy, Jan Henry, Kevin Tobin

White Haired Devil Lady

  By

★★★★
“Hair today, gone tomorrow.”

I’ve been on a bit of a kick of Chinese Animal Attack Movies of late. These are basically their version of those SyFy Original Movies, and typically involve some giant creature – snakes or sharks are particularly popular – menacing the population. Some are rather good fun. Others… are not. But I discovered that the same Chinese streaming services also do seem to have a small selection of action heroine flicks. Much the same goes there, in terms of quality: it will be a cold day in YouTube hell before I can get through Beauty Detective Mission. But now and again, there’s a minor gem like this, which helps to make up for all the crap I (and Chris) have endured.

This is not to be confused with any of the other “white hair” films. Most obviously, White Hair Devil Lady from 1980, but potentially also The Bride With White Hair or even The White Haired Witch of Lunar Kingdom. Though from what I’ve seen, some share a common origin: this one was adapted from the novel series Baifa Monü Zhuan by Liang Yu Sheng, and he’s also mentioned in relation to other movies. Anyway, what we have here is an evil court official, Eunuch Wei (Chui), who seeks the Red Pill which will give him immortality. Due to his murderous activities and general disregard for the local population, he incurs the enmity of Lian Ni Shang (Zhang W), who will do anything to stop him.

Making matters more complex, Wei orders a martial arts school, the Wudang Sect, to deliver the Red Pill to him – its leader, Zi Yang (Zhang Q) does not realize this is a ploy to get rid of them. The lead member he sends, Zhuo Yi Hang (Shi), also knew Lian when she was a little girl. Cue romance, betrayal, and eventually, Lian being framed for the murder of Zi Yang. Given this runs 74 minutes, including credits, there’s quite a lot going on. On occasion, it does teeter on the edge of over-stuffed, yet I’ve definitely seen far worse in the wu xia genre, of terms of narrative coherence. Once it settles down, it’s fine, even if some elements seem swiped from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon i.e. the couple falling off a cliff embrace, accompanied by an emotional cello.

However, we are here for the action, and this is pretty damn impressive. It is somewhat quickly edited, yet like the plot, stays just this side of coherence, and the cinematography and design are super, especially considering the budget on this likely was not that high. Elements like Lian’s weaponized hair are rendered beautifully, and the CGI feels like it was used more to enhance the proceedings, rather than creating them wholesale. If the whole thing does feel like a throwback to the kind of flying fantasy films Hong Kong was making in the nineties, it’s does with enough care and attention to detail to pass muster. My attention was undeniably sustained throughout, and that’s more than can be said for many a more expensive work. It’s embedded below for your viewing pleasure.

Dir: Tianyu Zhou
Star: Zhang Wei Na, Shi Jun Zhe, Norman Chui, Zhang Qi