Tag: r

The Rizen

  By

★★½
“Tunnel of love-craft.”

This is about the third Lovecraftian film I’ve seen with a heroine in the past year or so, after Black Site and The Creature Below. While I’m not sure it’s still quite a trend, it’s notable, considering I’ve only seen three Lovecraftian films over that time. It certainly stands in sharp contrast to the original author, for whom women were very rarely the protagonists. However, this equally provides clear evidence that this isn’t enough, on its own, as a guarantee of quality.

It’s 1955, and Frances (Swift) regains consciousness to find herself being dragged through an underground tunnel by a half-human monster. She bashes its head in with a convenient rock, and starts trying to figure out what’s going on, since her memory is all but gone. She encounters a scientist (Tajah) and then a handcuffed soldier (Knowles) – neither of whom can remember much either – and more of the monstrous humanoids. As the trio make their way through the complex, fragments of flashbacks reveal this was a NATO project, using captured Nazi occult research with the aim of getting a Cold War edge. However, this has backfired, and control over things has been lost. With emphasis heavily on the “things”…

It’s one of the most blatant and annoying cases of amnesia as a plot device I’ve seen of late, with characters conveniently remembering things at the precise moments needed by the story-line. However, even to get to that point, you have to endure painfully repetitive meandering through dark corridors for what seems like forever. It feels like a bad RPG, in which the heroine picks up largely useless sidekicks to follow her around, in the expectation that they might eventually serve some purpose. Indeed, the whole thing resembles an unofficial adaptation of Resident Evil, made by people too concerned about loyalty to the game, rather than an entertaining movie.

To that Jovovich-shaped end, Swift is one of the film’s better elements – a stuntwoman, with a good physical presence which is (to some extent, deliberately) far better than those of her male co-stars. However, only to some extent: it doesn’t excuse the painful nature of Tajah’s performance, for example. This stands in awkward contrast to the “name” British actors whom we see in the flashbacks, including Bruce Payne, Ade Edmondson and Sally Phillips. Clearly the budget could only stretch to bringing them in for cameos, though it just emphasizes the gap in ability. The main problem, though, is a structure where the viewer spends the first hour with no clue what’s going on – and with little reason to care, either. There’s only so much slinking around dark corridors I can take. This movie delivers all of that quota, plus an extra 30 minutes for good measure.

It’s a shame, since if they’d started with the explanation, we could perhaps then have gone along with the characters on the journey. As is, we alternate for most of the running time between bored and confused. When everything eventually makes sense, it was good enough to leave me somewhat intrigued, on reading there is a sequel in production. Pity that intrigue comes an hour too late.

Dir: Matt Mitchell
Star:Laura Swift, Christopher Tajah, Patrick Knowles, Bruce Payne

Reset

  By

★★★½
“Run Xia Tian Run”

China seems to have discovered SF in a big way of late, most recently with The Wandering Earth, the biggest blockbuster you’ve probably never heard of. At time of writing, it’s the #7 film at the world-wide box-office this year, though 99% of its tally came in its home country. A couple of years earlier, this film made much less impact, yet for me is superior. It’s a time-travel piece, not dissimilar to Run Lola Run, with a triptych repeating the same events in three different ways, as the heroine strives to achieve a satisfactory outcome.

Xia Tian (Yang) is a research scientist working on time-travel for a corporation. She’s got to the point where they can send things back 110 minutes, though the process is imperfect for organic material. This attracts the attention of a rival company, who send Tsui Hu (Huo) after Xia. He kidnaps her son, Dou Dou (Zhang), as leverage to force her to hand over the research data. After Dou Dou is killed at the handover. Xia decides to use the time-machine to send herself back, effectively getting a do-over. And when things still don’t go as planned, it’s back for another attempt.

There are two main differences to Lola. Firstly, we have multiple heroines all occupying the same time-line, so there are three Xia Tians running around simultaneously, trying to save Dou Dou. Secondly, due to the imperfections of the process, they have different personalities, becoming steadily more aggressive. If you’ve seen Michael Keaton’s clone film Multiplicity, you’ll understand the idea. This is a result of the time-travel actually being hopping across parallel universes, a bit of a needlessly confusing detail, which we could have done without. Just handwave on the specific process – or, as Lola did, omit them entirely.

Yet there remains plenty to enjoy here, not least Yang’s performance as Xia #1, #2 and #3. It’s the kind of thing which could become horribly confusing, yet the subtle differences in the three versions of her, help them remain distinct, right to the end. Unsurprisingly, this site was particularly fond of the final iteration, which prefers to shoot first and ask questions later. However, all three have their moments, whether it’s driving at speed through a dockside obstacle course, of whipping up an impromptu smoke-bomb in an elevator, from a few household chemicals in the proper proportions.

The production values here are equally impressive, slickly depicting a future China (2025, to be precise) which is so clean you could eat your dinner off it. The set-pieces are particularly effective, such as Xia’s escape from the towering facility which houses her research, climaxing in a near-fall into the Garbage Disposal From Hell. There are elements which require the suspension of disbelief e.g. Xia surviving a car-crash into the bottom of a gorge, then being right back at her office in the next scene. It’s still a fresh and original concept, exactly the kind of thing which Hollywood desperately needs in the genre of late.

Dir: Chang
Star: Yang Mi, Wallace Huo, Chin Shih-chieh, Hummer Zhang

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

  By

★★★
“Girl with a ray-gun”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A Reckoning

  By

★★★
“Much calm before the storm.”

Considering how little actually happens here, I enjoyed this considerably more than expected. It kicks off with 19th-century settler Mary O’Malley (Dietrich) being informed her husband has been brutally slain. Despite the warnings of fellow settler Henry Breck (a small role for Lance Henriksen), Mary heads out on the trail through Oregon for revenge, looking for the serial killer responsible. He’s known as “Marrow” (Makely), for reasons which eventually become clear. She encounters Jebediah (Robinson), a bounty-hunter after Marrow who doesn’t appreciate the competition, and Barley (Crow), a trader who offers and receives temporary companionship.

That’s pretty much it, up until the final, inevitable confrontation between Mary and Marrow, where we are reminded again of firearms’ role as a great equalizer. [Dietrich resembles a middle-aged version of Noomi Rapace, all slightly-built and cheekbones; Makely looks like he might have wandered out of a WWE ring] Read the reviews eviscerating this on the IMDb, and you’ll see a lot of people who appear very disappointed with the pacing and lack of action. For once, I wasn’t one of them. I was somewhat forewarned, wasn’t expecting non-stop gun battles or whatever, and was happy for this to proceed at its own, leisurely pace. I will say, it is probably not something you want to watch late at night, admittedly, as it could prove to be a little… too soothing. This likely worked much better in the Saturday afternoon slot where I viewed it, and could appreciate the landscapes as they unrolled.

It helps that the performances are mostly good to very good, with Dietrich’s performance the epitome of “speak softly and carry a big stick”. The film does a particularly solid job of setting up her character, both by her early interaction with Breck, and a subsequent conversation with Diana Maple (Meg Foster, an equally brief role as Henriksen’s), another settler who encourages and supplies Mary on her quest. However, some characters come off as slightly bland, or in Marrow’s case, over-the-top, and whenever the film is not exploring the countryside, the limited resources are painfully apparent. The “town meeting” at the start, for example, appears to take place in front of a bed-sheet, presumably intended to simulate a large tent of some kind. Given this, the amount of wilderness wandering makes considerable sense.

Lee seems to be a one-man film industry out of the Pacific North-west, with two other movies released in 2018 and two more in post-production. [Not sure I’ll exactly be chasing down Bigfoot pic Big Legend though] This one runs a relatively short 80 minutes, and is probably wise to do so. The film may not even be one to which you need to devote your full attention. The scenery is pretty, the cinematography does it justice, and the music fits in with the whole “chill out in the background” vibe. Pop your head up whenever you hear the sound of gunshots, and you’ll be fine.

Dir: Justin Lee
Star: June Dietrich, Kevin Makely, Todd A. Robinson, Kevin Crow

Relentless

  By

★★
“Hell Salvador…”

From just about all I’ve read, the director seems entirely earnest in his desire to make a serious film about a serious problem, human trafficking in Central America. That the end result falls almost entirely wide of the mark is a bit of a double-edged sword. In terms of making its intended point, that it feels more like a B-movie from the fifties is a bad thing. But on the other hand, the serious film about the serious problem would likely be considerably less amusing.

Holly Drew (Shaw) runs a coffee shop in what I’m guessing is Portland, carrying on a family tradition of working with farmers in El Salvador: fair trade, ethical production, etc. Her daughter, Ally (Sweeney), is visiting the coffee farm there, somewhat reluctantly: some kind of college credit seems involved. Her stay is rudely interrupted when she and a local friend are kidnapped by Los Discipulos, a local gang. With the local cops worse than useless, Holly goes down there herself, and plunges into the underworld with the help of slightly sleazy but good-hearted Fern (Castro), on the trail of Ally before she can be auctioned off to the highest bidder.

A major problem here, is that Tracy clearly wants to be sympathetic to the locals. It opens with stuff about the civil war there causing a cycle of poverty and violence, etc. Yet in the light of subsequent cinematic events, this comes over more excuse than rational explanation. Because for the purposes of the film, modern-day El Salvador has to be depicted as a “shithole country” (to quote the current American President). Otherwise, where’s the threat to Holly and Ally? So for example: the local police are depicted as being thoroughly corrupt or entirely useless, and no-one beyond Fern seems willing to help Holly in the slightest. If you come away at the end doing anything except agreeing with Trump, you haven’t been paying attention.

The other big problem is character motivation, especially for Fern. He abandons Holly, right at her moment of greatest need… except he subsequently doesn’t. Neither his departure, nor his return, make sense, except that both are necessary for a film in which he’s a supporting character to the “relentless” mother. Similarly, the actions of Los Discipulos often left me scratching my head. They didn’t fit the likely behaviour patterns of the hardened criminals they are supposed to be – again, save for being required by the plot.

We’ve seen almost exactly this kind of “lost daughter” scenario before, in the decent Never Let Go and slightly less-decent Taken Heart. Whether due to the sense of (literal) deja vu, or just because the components aren’t as effective, this falls below the standard of either. Shaw’s performance is likely the only half-decent aspect, and it needs to be in the service of a more considered script. If I’d been making this, I’d have had Fern part of the notorious El Salvadorean anti-gang death squad, La Sombra Negra, and taken Holly down a darker path of vengeance. Sadly, what we have here is considerably more lightweight and predictable, and almost entirely forgettable.

Dir: Lance Tracy
Star: Lauren Shaw, David Castro, Sydney Sweeney, Peter Holden

Raazi

  By

★★★★
“The Spy Who Loved Me”

This Indian spy thriller manages to be both remarkably restrained and human, avoiding a potentially jingoistic approach, and going for something considerably more measured. It takes place just before the war between India and Pakistan in 1971, when Indian agent Hidayat Khan is pretending to give information to Pakistan. In order to get close to their top brass, he convinces his daughter, Sehmat (Bhatt), to enter an arranged marriage to Iqbal Syed (Ahlawat), an officer whose father (Sharma) is a Brigadier in the Pakistani army. After being trained by senior intelligence officer Khalid Mir (Kaushal), she goes to join her new husband, and begins operations as a spy inside the Brigadier’s household.

From there, it’s a series of tense incidents, with a servant becoming increasingly suspicious of Sehmat, but her also falling for Iqbal, and realizing that the enemy are not so different. These conflicting loyalties create emotional carnage, not least when she has to kill multiple people in order to protect her mission. [One of whom is killed using an umbrella laden with a ricin pellet, which is odd, since this was seven years before the KGB used exactly this method to assassinate a dissident, Georgi Markov] She does succeed in sending back vital information to Mir, but he has great difficulty in getting the Indian military to take the data seriously, being uncorroborated evidence from a rookie agent. When the Pakistanis start rolling up Sehmat’s local support cell, it becomes a race against time to extract her before she is caught in the net.

What I particularly liked about this was Sehmat’s “ordinariness”: she has no amazing abilities or combat skills. She is brave, smart and very committed, yet far from immune to the hellish toll a mission like this takes, especially on the psyche of someone thoroughly unprepared for it. The film does a much better job of depicting this than, say, Red Sparrow, in particular with an ending which is genuinely poignant, and a far cry from the black and white depiction which I was expecting. There’s as much ground to criticize the Indian side – not least for their cynical exploitation of a young girl’s desire to satisfy the wishes of her father – as the Pakistani one.

This was one of the highest-grossing Bollywood movies with a female lead ever, trailing only romantic comedy sequel Tanu Weds Manu Returns, and it’s easy to understand why. About the only misstep I can think of, was giving Sehmat’s father lung cancer, as if relying on her daughter’s sense of filial obligation and patriotism wasn’t sufficient moral blackmail. It’s a sloppy and unnecessary bit of early melodrama, whose lack of subtlety is severely at odds with the rest of the film. In a world where most spy movies treat death as a throwaway trifle, this goes a long way to remind us that the taking of another human’s life is absolutely not a trivial matter, regardless of the reason.

Dir: Meghna Gulzar
Star: Alia Bhatt, Jaideep Ahlawat, Vicky Kaushal, Shishir Sharma

Ride the River, by Louis L’Amour

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

Goodreads characterizes this novel, set in 1840, as the fifth volume in the author’s Sackett series. The fictional Sackett family, in L’Amour’s writings, are descended from tough, larger-than-life Barnabas Sackett, who emigrated to America in the 1600s and settled on the frontier, and who laid down a law for his descendants that whenever a Sackett was in trouble, the rest were bound to lend their aid. This book is indeed about a Sackett, and no doubt chronologically the fifth in that sequence. But the sequence forms a multi-generational saga in which the individual books are generally about different people; though some knowledge of the family origins, as mentioned above, might be helpful (and is repeated in the text of this book, for readers who didn’t read the series opener), they can be read perfectly well as stand-alones. (I haven’t read any of the other Sackett novels.) L’Amour also wrote sequences of novels and stories about two other fictional families that bred adventurous pioneers, the Chantrys and the Talons, whose paths sometimes cross those of the Sacketts –and the paths of a couple of the Chantrys will bring them into this tale as well.

Sixteen-year old Echo Sackett, of the Tennessee Sacketts, lives in the mountains with her family. Her pa is recently dead; her brothers are on an extended trapping expedition further west, and her uncle is laid up from a bear attack. So when an unusual circumstance brings an ad in a peddler-borne Pennsylvania newspaper to light, seeking the youngest descendant of one Kin Sackett to claim an inheritance, it falls to Echo to undertake the long and somewhat dangerous round trip to Philadelphia to receive and bring back the money. Readers accustomed to judging teens by the most immature and irresponsible examples that 21st-century American entitlement culture can produce might well see this as a foredoomed exercise that should never have been contemplated. But Echo is a product of a very different kind of culture. A crack shot who packs a pair of Doune pistols (see this link: http://firearmshistory.blogspot.com/2010/12/pistols-highland-pistol.html ) and is accustomed to shooting game for the table without missing, self-reliant, mature and capable Echo is a formidable young woman, not a child. She might need her cool head and firearms skills (and her “Arkansas toothpick”) on this trip, because there are those who didn’t want that ad seen to start with, and who’d prefer to have that money in their own pockets, rather than hers.

One reviewer said he felt this novel was “gimmicky.” I’m not sure what he considered the “gimmick” –possibly the protagonist’s gender, or the Sackett family’s clannish ethos of sticking together and helping each other in the face of trouble, including attacks by outsiders. Personally, I didn’t consider either element a gimmick. For me, seeing competence and fighting skills on the distaff side of the equation is a strong plus; I don’t see those kinds of qualities as inconsistent with female nature in any way, and Echo has plausible reasons for her characteristics. The Sackett ethic strikes me as something all families could profit by internalizing, and as such a worthwhile message for contemporary society. L’Amour’s knowledge of his settings, from 1840s Appalachia to distant Philadelphia, and of relevant history, is clearly extensive; he brings his world to life well. The characters, especially Echo herself, are vividly drawn and evoke reactions from the reader. In much of his work, L’Amour’s plotting is often predictable, but he managed to take me by surprise with one key development here –in a good way! There’s no sex and very little bad language here, and respectful treatment of a black character. With plenty of effective action scenes, the book is a pretty quick read.

There’s also a element of low-key, but serious, romantic attraction that develops in the book. For some readers, this will be problematic because of Echo’s age; while the age difference per se isn’t excessive, at this time of her life, it happens to put her love interest above 18 while she’s below that age. This didn’t scandalize me, in context; as I said, Echo is a woman, not a child (and in her community, she’s considered to be of a normal marriageable age). I didn’t consider the mutual attraction to be in any sense pedophilic or abnormal.

My one criticism of the book is the slipshod writing/editing in several places. Echo serves as first-person narrator for most of the book; but for scenes to which she isn’t privy, or where he wants to give us a different perspective, L’Amour occasionally uses other viewpoint characters, in third person. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that, and it even enhances the story at times. But at other times, L’Amour forgets which narrative thread he’s using, and is inconsistent with pronoun use in the same sentence or paragraph. That takes a reader out of the story, and is particularly frustrating when you’re reading this aloud (as I was, to my wife). Just for that reason, I deducted a half star.  But that didn’t keep me from really liking the book! Any read by L’Amour has always been a winner for me, and this one was no exception.

Author: Louis L’Amour
Publisher: Bantam, available through Amazon, both for Kindle and as a printed book.
A version of this review previously appeared on Goodreads.
Book 5 of 19 in the Sacketts series.

Red Sparrow

  By

★★★
“The Russians are coming! The Russians are coming!”

There was a while there, where Russia dropped out of the top spot as far as being cinematic villains were concerned. No longer the “Evil Empire” of the Reagan era, they had largely been replaced, in the post 9/11 landscape, by Islamic fundamentalism. But now, those pesky Russkies are back as the bad guys once again, following their interference in the sacrosanct and solemn process of Americans electing a president. [I really must figure out a sarcasm font for this site] While this is supposedly set in the present day – I say that, because at one point, cutting-edge computer software is delivered on a set of floppy disks! – this feels more like something born out of Peak Cold War.

Ballerina Dominika Egorova (Lawrence) suffers an accident on stage that ends her career. Living in a Bolshoi-provided apartment and with a sick mother, things look bleak until her uncle Ivan Egorov (Schoenaerts) steps in. He offers her a job as a “sparrow”, honey-potting foreigners in order to obtain intelligence from them. After some qualms, Dominika accepts, and undergoes training designed to remove all her inhibitions. Her first target is Nate Nash (Edgerton), a CIA operative now in Budapest. He had to leave Moscow after an incident involving him and a high-level Russian agent; that agent’s identity is what Dominika has to discover, in her guise as an embassy translator.

The most obvious recent touchstone is Atomic Blonde, which I found considerably more entertaining – even if it is, I would venture, considerably less realistic. This is dour stuff by comparison, almost unremittingly grim in the dehumanizing way the Russians use Dominika, Dominika uses Nate, and Nate uses Dominika. For it’s clear from the start that he is not taken in by her facade and sees the honey-pot for what it is – yet thinks she can still be a useful asset, who can be recruited and turned. Or is that actually part of Dominika’s game-plan, to appear as a potential defector? It’s only right at the end, by the time many wheels have turned, that we discover whose side she’s really on: not much of a spoiler to reveal that it’s her own.

One thing which is clear. is how the film has been misunderstood, reading reviews which say things like, “Red Sparrow is intended to be a sexy thriller.” No, it’s not, any more than Showgirls was. Both are often about sex; yet that doesn’t make them “sexy”, especially when the director depicts the ugly aspects as much as (if not more often than) the erotic. Here, the sexual encounters are weaponized, and are as much about power as anything. Nothing illustrates that better than Lawrence’s nude scene, during a very public training session as what she herself calls “whore school” A classmate who had previously tried to rape Dominika is ordered to have sex with her. But, partly in response to her taunting, he’s unable to perform. If you think it’s supposed to be “sexy”, you’re the problem, not the film.

The trailers may have somewhat betrayed it, making it look like a modern version of Atomic Blonde (or even an origin story for Black Widow!). It isn’t, and you should not expect anything with such gleeful abandon, or such a defiant sense of era and location. Sparrow could easily take place in any Eastern bloc city, at any time since the end of World War II. It’s no less brutal than Blonde, deserving its adult rating for violence and torture as much as the sexual content. The heroine is certainly not as active a participant, though it’s creepy as hell to see Dominika energetically wielding a tool usually reserved for carrying out skin grafts. But it is considerably more serious in intent, though the case could be made (and has been), that it’s ultimately less empowering and more exploitative.

Not sure I’d go that far: I know it’s a great deal less fun, and also which of the two is the only film I’ll have in my collection. This doesn’t necessarily make it a bad movie; especially if you can get past Lawrence’s accent, her performance is worth a look, and as an ice-cold tale of deep-frozen international intrigue, the 140 minutes go past quicker than I initially thought they might. The actress is re-teamed here with Hunger Games director (who is no relation), and I’m not sure he’s the best person for the task, seeming to rely heavily on trotting out tropes of the genre we’ve seen too often before. However, a bigger problem is likely Edgerton as the male lead, who has close to zero charisma, and even less chemistry with his co-star. That, however, may be intentional, since they’re both playing the other as a patsy, with the “real” emotions involved being questionable.

The rest of the supporting cast aren’t bad. Having recently seen Jeremy Irons being criminally wasted in Assassin’s Creed, I was much more pleased with his performance here, though both he and Charlotte Rampling (as a Nikita-esque head of the school for sparrows) have something of the same accent issue as Lawrence. It always seems odd: we are supposed to be able to accept the conceit of non-natives playing foreigners who speak English to each other… only if a fake local accent is applied on top? It’s about as necessary and convincing as the glasses on Clark Kent. Mary Louise Parker also shows up, as a US senator with a taste for booze, whom Dominika opportunistically swipes from another agent.

The makers deserve some credit for making a feature film that is clearly intended for a mature audience, something which we don’t see enough of out of Hollywood these days [why bother, when you can churn out sequels and comic-book movies to greater profit?]. But the result here, while well-crafted, is almost entirely cheerless. It’s hard to engage with a heroine whose initial action are altruistic, yet appears to become, by the end, amost as soulless and propelled by self-interest as the state who recruited her.

Dir: Francis Lawrence
Star: Jennifer Lawrence, Joel Edgerton, Matthias Schoenaerts, Jeremy Irons

Red Sparrow (alternate review)

  By

★★★½
“From Russia without love.”

So, I saw “Red Sparrow”. But I was hesitant. So hesitant, I actually pressed the button to get off the bus when I was still not so far away from my flat. But the door didn’t open; I interpreted that as force majeure and stayed until I reached the cinema.

First of all, this movie is not what it seems to be – or is marketed as. Which you could already sense; I mean, if you see a trailer for a 140 minute-movie and there is not the slightest indication of action, it could perhaps be guessed that it’s not really an action movie. And indeed, it’s not. If someone goes into the movie expecting a movie like Atomic Blonde, Unlocked, Salt or Haywire, he/she will likely be disappointed. The action early on is only with Joel Edgerton, not with Lawrence. And despite beating up a treacherous couple responsible for the end of her ballerina career, and an extended torture scene at the end that ends with a stabbing, Dominika is usually not involved.

This movie reminded me most of all of the American remake of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo: long and drawn-out, but without the suspense. You have to have what we call in Germany “good seating-flesh” – you’re sitting a long time in the cinema! When the film ended, an old woman behind me who was there with her son and his wife whispered, “Schwere Kost, nicht wahr?”. That translates as “A heavy meal, wasn’t it?”, meaning it’s not easily digestible. I was also reminded of John LeCarré movies, where everything is all talk and no action at all. So it’s not an action-adventure, or a “girls with guns” movie. But I think that fans of Jennifer Lawrence (mainly in the USA, not really in Germany) and feminists won’t likely embrace or love this movie. It’s not really an “enjoyable” movie, that can serve a quasi-feminist agenda in the way Wonder Woman did.

No, the main theme of the movie is the constantly shifting sands underfoot, which could easily open up at any moment and swallow the main protagonist. Some characters die during the course of the story, and it’s not necessarily the guilty ones who catch a bullet. But it’s a problem that there are hardly any sympathetic characters in the movie. Even Dominika is a big question mark, as the Russian secret service tactics force her to play a game of deception and manipulation, exactly as she was trained for. It leaves you, even at the end, guessing on which side she is/was/may have been on, in shades of Atomic Blonde. Things constantly change…

It also reminded me of Child 44 with Tom Hardy, Gary Oldman, Noomi Rapace and – hey! – Joel Edgerton.  This was a serial killer story set in Stalin-era Soviet Union, in which you could constantly lose your head or fall victim to intrigue. The feeling of constant threat and danger was stronger there. But I note, “Soviet Union,” because confusingly, this movie seems to play in contemporary Russia. Which is…. quite strange: the “red sparrow” program did exist in the 1960s but may not even have survived that decade, never mind existing today. The movie adapts the first book in a trilogy by a former American agent so he presumably knows what he wrote about; it all appears very realistic.

But with modern Russia as the background? I find that a bit hard to believe. German reviewers tended to complain about old clichés, thicker than in classic James Bond movies. They may be partly right. When I saw Charlotte Rampling standing and explaining to Lawrence what her duty is, in front of the “school for whores”, I was very much reminded of Lotte Lenya as Rosa Klebb, setting Daniela Bianchini up to attract James Bond. And the Secret Service of Russia appears to come right out of the 50s/60s, not today. Much has also been made, mainly by American reviewers, about the sex/nude/violent scenes. While they are all part of the story, if you are looking at the whole of the movie – once again, 140 long minutes – it doesn’t feel as spectacular or scandalous as the articles made it. Strangely, even Lawrence seemed to play up the sex angle in interviews (also causing a minor outcry by puritans when she appeared at a premiere of the movie, showing some cleavage…). Yes, you see her nude in the movie but I can’t personally say a 3-second shot of one breast and 10 seconds on her butt would be worth the admission!

I mean. Jennifer, you know there exists something called internet pornography? You really think we men are so hormone-driven that a glimpse of your almost-naked body for a few seconds would make us buy a (not really that cheap) ticket for a 140 minute movie? Reeaalllllyyy? ;-) But then this may also be testament to a certain kind of desperation on the part of the studio: how else to sell this clunky piece of espionage fiction. What do you do when you have no big action scenes or robots from space?

There is a nasty but quick rape scene, but we saw worse in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo movies. It has to be said, this scene seemed stolen almost 1:1 from Stoker, with Mia Wasikowska and Nicole Kidman. There are some ugly torture scenes but they are similarly brief, except for the last one. And as I hardly sympathized or identified with any of the characters, they also failed to make an emotional impact on me. I really have to say: After having explored the “Giallo” genre, I can say these kinds of movies – done almost 50 years ago – were much more terrifying when it came to violence, and more daring with regard to nudity or sex. So, I have a problem when some articles seem to celebrate Jennifer Lawrence’ dedication for “revealing so much” and “daring”. Maybe it’s shocking for today’s (female?) American cinema-goers, I don’t know. By my standards and in my opinion, it’s quite tame in all aspects.

I do give credit to Lawrence, who never saw an acting school from the inside, and has matured – yes, even by my standards! – into a “real actress”. I personally find it very positive that a studio is willing to make a movie almost entirely focused on its story with a nice budget ($69 million) instead of the next action-SFX-extravaganza. But I have seen better. That said, for those willing to invest the time and money, the movie may actually provide something. The actors are all good – I have not mentioned Mary Louise Parker in surprise cameo in the middle of the movie), the production design is impressive (even if Film-Russia seems to have a preference for 1970’s interior design) and the James Newton Howard (Salt, btw.) score is solid as always, even though it mainly plays in the background.

The studio’s idea behind the green light for the movie may have been to create another successful franchise. The formula? Actress Jennifer Lawrence + director Francis Lawrence + adapt a successful bestseller. It worked with the Hunger Games movies – Lawrence directed the last three – but I fear won’t be the case here. While I can imagine that the book may have been a great read for those who love a good spy story, that alone does not necessarily recommend it to become a blockbuster movie, despite some admirable achievements by the team in front and behind the camera.

For fans of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy or The Russia House, it may be worth the admission. Everyone else, can wait for the movie to become available as a rental or on TV. Honestly, I would prefer a sequel to Atomic Blonde or The Man From U.N.C.L.E. [The latter should have been so much more successful, but didn’t get the same advertising push as this new J-Law vehicle] While it’s no bad movie at all, people may be lured in based on wrong assumptions, such as thinking this is some kind of Black Widow origin story. They’ll leave disappointed, and I predict another flop in Lawrence’s career.

Dir: Francis Lawrence
Star: Jennifer Lawrence, Joel Edgerton, Matthias Schoenaerts, Jeremy Irons

Revenge

  By

★★★★½
“Women always have to put up a fucking fight.”

This French rape-revenge movie is the most blood-drenched GWG film I’ve seen since Kill Bill, Volume 1, and is not for the faint of heart. However, the good news is, it’s not the rape part of the equation which is hard to watch: this is depicted with admirable restraint, occurring mostly off-camera. The director has stressed that the story isn’t about the rape, and I’m delighted with that: it has always struck me as the least interesting element. It’s a plot device, to kick-off what matters. Focusing on it, as some films have done, seems to me like focusing on turning the ignition key, instead of driving the car. This, instead, offers a road-trip to remember.

The victim is Jen (Lutz), a young girl having a weekend in the Moroccan desert with her rich, married boyfriend, Richard (Janssens). He’s also there to do a spot of hunting with his pals, Stan and Dimitri (Colombe and Bouchède). They four have a night drinking and dancing, but the next morning, when Richard heads off to make travel arrangements, Stan rapes Jen. On Richard’s return, he tries to smooth things over. Jen is having none of it, and storms off. Knowing that any legal complaint would destroy his marriage, Richard fakes calling for transport out, then pushes Jen off a cliff. Her landing is… not a soft one. Convinced the problem is solved, the men leave disposing of the body until later. Except, Jen isn’t dead, and when the trio go back, she’s not there. Helped by some impressively strong peyote – in this case, the drugs clearly do work – she patches herself up, and turns the hunters into the hunted.

First, let me address the improbably-resilient elephant in the room. Yes, her survival and pursuit is implausible, with a couple of large holes. Literally: one of the film’s two highly cringe-inducing pieces of self-surgery shows Jen patching up a hole in her stomach. Yet there must, of necessity, be an even larger one in her back. What happened to that? To be honest, they didn’t need this aspect at all: simply surviving the fall would have been hardcore enough. She also goes barefoot through the entire film, without a whimper. In the Arizona summer, I can’t take the garbage out barefoot without leaving singed skin on the drive. One shot of her pulling the shoes off her first victim would have fixed that.

It’s a shame, albeit a minor one, because virtually everything else is perfect. The transition of Jen, from the stuff of Richard’s fantasies, to that of his nightmares – he’s the one who delivers the tagline above – is impeccably handled. Even her good looks transform. At the beginning, it’s a shallow and utterly conventional prettiness – which she has exploited into a weekend getaway to a luxury location. By the end, she has paid a terrible price for this. Yet even as she’s missing minor body parts, disfigured, drenched in blood (both hers and others) and covered in desert grime… she’s glowing. Her inner beauty shines through, increasingly illuminating the bad-ass bitch she has become over the course of proceedings.

For a film lauded for its supposed up-ending of the male gaze, this feels a bit odd, since it could be read as the sexual assault triggering Jen’s blossoming: rape as psychological therapy. She should thank her attackers! [The image of a rising phoenix branded into her skin, due to her impromptu first-aid, is not exactly subtle in its imagery. Then again, the entire film is not exactly subtle, and proudly defiant as such] If that reading is on shaky ground, it’s also amusing to note Revenge utterly fails the dreaded Bechdel Test, despite being brutally empowering, to a degree rarely seen. More evidence – as if it were really needed – of how shitty the Bechdel Test is at evaluating films.

The good thing is that the feature’s entertainment value in no way relies on any kind of Identity Politics 1.0.1. to work. It functions perfectly well as a stripped-down pursuit, which neither asks for, no offers, any kind of quarter on behalf of the participants – for their genders or any other reason. There’s a steady, relentless escalation to proceedings from the moment Jen takes flight, to a final confrontation which redefines “paint the walls blood-red”. That’s a jaw-dropping pursuit round the house where things began, and includes proof that cling film, like duct tape, has a thousand and one uses.

The director says the only previous example of the rape-revenge genre she watched was Wes Craven’s Last House on the Left. Though if true, the proximity of names for the heroine here and in the genre’s most infamous entry, I Spit On Your Grave, is a striking coincidence. That aside, it’s interesting to note that the only other female-directed entry, Baise-moi, was also from France. And in tone, this has almost as much in common with À l’interieur (Inside), which was just as blood-drenched, and similarly gave absolutely no fucks. Much credit to Fargeat for this “take no prisoners” attitude, and delivering a thoroughly uncompromising piece of cinema; kudos for all of her cast as well, in particular Lutz, who go all-in to no less a degree.

I’ve been watching extreme films for thirty years or so, and let’s be honest, you get a bit desensitized to it all. We went to see this one at a local art cinema, and from their reactions, it was clear that most of the audience were, let’s say, not as “experienced” in the ways of savage cinema as Chris and I. Their responses merely added to the fun: I’d kinda forgotten how audience reaction can enhance a film (their goddamn rustling of snacks… not so much, but let’s move rapidly on). At the end, after all was said and done, one of the other attendees blurted out loud, “Best ten bucks I’ve ever spent.” I’m not inclined to disagree. Despite its flaws – which I acknowledge and embrace – if 2018 offers a film which packs a bigger punch, I can’t wait to see it.

Dir: Coralie Fargeat
Star: Matilda Lutz, Kevin Janssens, Vincent Colombe, Guillaume Bouchède