Category: Film

The Fighter

Only time for one film on Friday again. I am so looking forward to a return to university (hopefully) next year when I can start cramming in 7-8 a week again!

The Fighter

“That guy did not just get off the fuckin’ couch. If he did, I’m gonna get a couch like that.”

Plot-in-a-nutshell: The ups and downs of two brothers, both boxers, in smalltown America.

Very short review as I’m short of time.

Fairly run-of-the-mill rags to riches story, though based on true events. One brother (Dicky – Christian Bale) never quite made it in the ring, so he looks to his younger sibling Micky (Mark Wahlberg) to capture that glory for him. With a possessive mother (Melissa Leo) managing him, Micky never quite seems to be getting there.

Events take a turn for the worse for Dicky at around the point where the story is waning. Just as the plot seems to be stuck in the “seen it all before” rut, things do get more interesting. As ever, I’ll avoid spoilers so I won’t say what happens.

The family starts to squabble, Micky looks to other avenues and his career moves in another direction.

The Fighter won’t be remembered for its story, enjoyable though it is. It will be remembered for one of the best casts to come together for a film in some time. Bale and Wahlberg could be brothers in real life, the way they appear on screen. Leo is magnificent as the bitchy mother and their sisters are scary and mad. Amy Adams is a perfect mix of sweet and tough as the love interest, while special credit must go to Micky O’Keefe who plays himself. Not as a minor part, but as a major supporting character.

While this isn’t a great film, it contains so many excellent performances it should be seen to appreciate the acting. Also, ensure you wait a few seconds into the end credits to see a short segment featuring the real-life brothers. From that shot, you can see how well Bates and Wahlberg have captured their subjects.

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Black Swan, NEDS and Tangled

Three films this weekend and certainly some variety in them. WARNING: this review contains the word “****”.

Black Swan

“I just want to be perfect.”

Plot-in-a-nutshell: ballet dancers vie for the prized rôle in Swan Lake while the director bashes the audience’s brain with a marmalade-smeared herring.

Black Swan has had some impressive reviews and I believe is up for OSCARs. Darren Aranofsky isn’t exactly known for making run-of-the-mill films and this certainly isn’t a change in direction for him. Natalie Portman plays Nina, an incredibly skinny young girl and a promising ballet star, under the watchful eye of trainer Thomas (Vincent Cassel) and domineering influence of her mother (Barbara Hershey).

After landing the part of the Swan Queen, she finds herself in a confused friendship/rivalry with Lily (Mila Kunis), a more happy-go-lucky character.

That’s about as far as the regular plot goes. Leading on from this, the plot goes ever so slightly Fight Club. Only weirder.

One thing I will say – every performance is superb. the acting is simply brilliant right across the board. The story, however, just didn’t grip me. I guessed a couple of the “odder” parts before they happened so despite the twisting freakiness, I never felt surprised.

This may make me pretty unique in the film viewing world, but I just didn’t enjoy Black Swan that much. As I said, a great piece of work but just not one that grabbed me. Gill – on the other hand – loved it!

NEDS

“What the **** are you looking at, you wee ****?”

Plot: A young boy grows up in Glasgow and changes from promising student to psycho thug. Pretty much a documentary, really.

If you want hard-hitting, this is it. NEDS is brutal, unrelenting and unforgiving. In many places it’s rather uncomfortable to watch (although never quite as much as The Kid).

Conor McCarron plays John McGill, a young boy leaving primary as best-in-class and entering secondary school where expectations change from academic to thuggish. His brother’s reputation as a NED (non-educated delinquent) precedes him and other people’s expectations of how he might turn out push him towards the Dark Side.

For a bunch of amateur actors, the performances are well above par. The dialogue certainly helps gain the movie it’s 18 rating with more “*****” than a building full of senior bankers. It’s pretty violent as well, including some domestic incidents on top of the street brawls. This is not one to watch with grandma.

John’s descent seems pre-prescribed, especially once people find out where he lives and who his brother is. The message buried within certainly hinges around whether nature or nurture is at the heart of how a person turns out.

If there’s a weak point in the film, it’s the ending. After some strong incidents and emotional story, writer/director Peter Mullan doesn’t seem to know how to round things off. A shame as it spoils an otherwise excellent example of low-budget locally-made cinema.

Tangled

“Frankly, I’m too scared to ask about the frog.”

Plot-in-a-nutshell: Rapunzel with a PIXAR twist.

Yes, I know this isn’t a PIXAR film – it’s traditional Disney – but John Lasseter is a senior producer and it shows in the humour. Apparently this is the most expensive animated film ever made. Much as it is enjoyable, I just can’t see where the cash went. It doesn’t look much better than anything else recently. Having said that, Disney went to extraordinary lengths to create a CGI film that looked like a traditional hand-painted one. Developing new technology is always a big investment.

The story is fairly simple. After all, it’s geared at the younger audience. We took two 9 year-old girls and a 2 year-old boy (who was very well behaved!). The girls enjoyed it, but did seem to get a little bored close to the end. At 100+ minutes it’s a little longer than most animated films these days.

With some witty banter between characters, there is something there for the grown-up, too. However, the two best characters in the movie are Maximus the horse and Rapunzel’s pet chameleon – both non-speaking parts. This says a lot for the quality of the artwork.

I’m not a fan of films with spontaneous singing, so I switched off when the characters burst into song. With the exception of the performance in the grotty inn, most of the song/dance sequences don’t have much going on on-screen to while away the time.

Overall, not a classic but not too bad. As I said, though, the kids enjoyed it – and that’s the main thing.

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The Mechanic

Original poster
Poster from original 1972 version!

Gill couldn’t join me at the cinema this week as we couldn’t get a baby sitter. As such, I skipped the arty stuff and went to see something nice and Neanderthal. Ladies and gentlemen:

The Mechanic

“*BOOM*”

Plot-in-a-nutshell: Hired killer gets stuck in a plot involving other people being killed. People die. Things explode. More people die. Come on, it’s a Jason Statham film – what do you expect?

With the exception of Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Statham’s output has been fairly formulaic. Big explosions, car chases and ass-kicking has made up everything else he’s been in. The quality, however, has varied. For every Transporter 1 there’s a Crank. The Mechanic fortunately falls into the “good films” camp and is actually fairly low-key with the action sequences.

That’s not to say that there’s not a lot of action.

The film is set in the world of contract killers. Statham plays “Arthur” (probably not his real name), who is coerced into doing a job he doesn’t really want to, and then has to deal with the consequences. The nature of his chosen profession dictates that he has to be sneaky rather than all-out spectacular and this is reflected in the action scenes. They’re fairly short, tight and well-choreographed – no time wasted.

There’s also a lovely touch of gore to them with some nice blood spatter from the gunshots and plenty of bits to make you go “ow, bet that hurt”. Nothing up there with Saw, but gruesome all the same.

It’s not a bad story, either, although once the details have been set down it’s fairly obvious who the real bad guy is and what’s going to happen by the end. Regardless, it’s great entertainment and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Possibly Statham’s best all round film to date.

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Morning Glory

Unusual title for a film. Gill thought it was rather funny, though why she reckons green weeds used in Asian cooking are amusing is beyond me. We actually saw this as a “back up” when NEDS filled up. With neds, funnily enough. I’ve never seen so many shitty tracksuits in one place outside of SportsDirect.

Morning Glory

“He’s the third worst person in the world”

Plot-in-a-nutshell: busy-bee producer takes over beleaguered breakfast TV show and tries to turn its fortunes around.

I love an unexpected gem, and Morning Glory turned out to be one of these. It follows the same basic plot lines as any “small fry against the big guy” movie, and the two competing hosts who hate each other (Harrison Ford and Diane Keaton) story has been done plenty of times before.

Rachel McAdams plays the small fry, Becky Fuller, unexpectedly sacked when she expected promotion. She finds herself in at the deep end with another network, heading a show that’s about to sink.

So far, so predictable. Then enter Ford as the excessively grumpy Mike Pomeroy. A man who doesn’t want the job he’s forced into and who hates his co-host Colleen Peck (Keaton). Ford doesn’t actually turn the film around, the script just happens to go up in tempo when his character arrives on the scene.

The surprise star of the show, and the character who definitely gets the belly laughs, is Ernie Appleby (Matt Malloy). There weren’t many in the cinema, but everyone we could see was bent double with laughter at the point where Becky makes a desperate grasp for a ratings increase and Ernie the weatherman becomes her weapon of choice.

It’s predictable, it’s been done before, but it’s a great little movie. Ford and Keaton are simply superb – and Jeff Goldblum‘s near-cameo as the studio exec is a peach.

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It’s Kind of a Funny Story (film review)

Due to Gill’s eldest starting back at her Friday club, we couldn’t get to the cinema before 9pm. As such, just the one film this week (boo!)

It’s Kind of a Funny Story

Plot-in-a-nutshell: depressed teenager gets himself committed to a mental ward and meets some loons.

If I’d known this film featured Zach Galifianakis, I would likely have avoided it. He’s not bad, just typecast. He’s always the fat, useless, bearded outcast that everyone tolerates and then gets to like at the end of the film. *yawn*

In IKoaFS, he’s a fat, useless, bearded outcast who’s genuinely quirky (without being outrageous and just plain stupid) who has reasons for being where he is, reasons for getting better and who you can actually start to feel empathy for by the time the movie ends. This is what good scriptwriting does for an actor who was never actually all that bad.

Zach plays Bobby, an “inmate” of an adult mental ward who befriends teenager Craig (Keir Gilchrist) when he checks himself in due to feeling suicidal. As the film goes on, Craig’s problems are dealt with as Bobby’s are made more clear – and understandable.

The film focusses on the stresses that we often put our children through in this day and age, as well as the predominantly American solution of shoving them towards a psychiatrist and a bottle of tablets. I suppose it would class as a black comedy given the subject matter. Imagine One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest for the teen generation. Except better. In fairness, I thought what some may argue as Jack Nicholson‘s finest hour was over-rated – but all the same.

There are great performances across the board and very few if any “seen it all before” moments. Simply, it’s well scripted and entertaining. Sure, you kind of know how it’s going to end but the way it’s presented is excellent – plenty of little animated segues and the like.

Given we only saw one film this week, I think we picked a good one.

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