Iro's One Movie a Day Thread

#719 - Lethal Weapon
Richard Donner, 1987



An ageing detective is forced to team up with a suicidally reckless police officer in order to solve the mystery surrounding a dead woman.

The original Shane Black movie, Lethal Weapon features all the hallmarks that would come to define the man's few but undoubtedly distinctive attempts to update film noir for the sensibilities of an audience hungry for high-concept blockbusters. By these standards, Lethal Weapon certainly delivers as it works off a very tried-and-true formula (that only become more tried and more true in Black's later scripts). There's the familiar odd-couple dynamic that forms between two members of the L.A.P.D. - Danny Glover is the strait-laced family man while Mel Gibson is the widower with his own death-seeking tendencies. In true noir/Black fashion (same thing), what starts off as a seemingly straightforward case for the two to work - namely, that of a coked-up young woman falling to her death in the film's opening minutes - soon points to a much more complex and insidious mystery. To this end, the heroes must not only solve the case but also try to survive the various dangers that come with working their jobs.

Lethal Weapon naturally crackles with just enough clever one-liners and idiosyncratic qualities to make up for its somewhat pedestrian plot. The story at large isn't quite as memorable as individual sequences such as Gibson's Dirty Harry-like attempt at preventing a suicidal citizen from jumping to his death or the scene in which the two leads hit the firing range and do some target practice. Glover and Gibson have reasonably good chemistry together, with the former's avuncular consternation playing off well against the latter's smart-mouthed mania. Blockbuster journeyman Donner does well enough at capturing the various different modes that the film lapses into, whether it's the sharp buddy-comedy or the slowly-escalating tension. The action certainly seems a little lacking compared to other films of the era, but it's definitely got its fair share of memorable moments ranging from desert shoot-outs to muddy fist-fights. The original score composed by both Michael Kamen and Eric Clapton serves to date the film harder than Gibson's thick mullet ever could with its distracting emphasis on saxophone, but given the story's aspirations to neo-noir within its action-movie framework this actually seems to fit the movie. Lethal Weapon doesn't exactly feel like a classic, but it's still fairly entertaining even on a repeat viewing and I certainly wouldn't mind seeing it again. That may be damning with faint praise, but that's still better than earning no praise whatsoever.

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Iro's Top 100 Movies v3.0

#720 - Thunderbolt and Lightfoot
Michael Cimino, 1974



A former bank robber crosses paths with a young car thief who encourages him to go back to pulling off heists.

Before Michael Cimino hit Oscar gold with visceral Vietnam War melodrama The Deer Hunter, he directed a little film called Thunderbolt and Lightfoot that starred Clint Eastwood and Jeff Bridges as Thunderbolt and Lightfoot respectively. The former is a veteran thief in hiding who is tracked down by his murderous former partners (George Kennedy and Geoffrey Lewis), while the latter is a reckless small-time crook who starts the film by stealing a used car out of a dealership. They cross paths soon enough and, despite some resistance on Eastwood's part, they gradually warm up to each other. This makes the film into a typical early-'70s road movie for a good chunk of its running time with all the problems that that entails. I don't deny that there are classics in that regard, but Thunderbolt and Lightfoot definitely doesn't feel like one as it indulges a lot of the usual counterculture road movie clichés with virtually none of the charm. The most egregious example of this is an early example where Bridges manages to rope a couple of rather impressionable women into being one-night-stands for both him and Eastwood, with their treatment being a pretty distinct representation of just how poorly female characters tend to fare in movies of this ilk.

It's only once the duo reunite with Eastwood's former partners to pull off another heist that the film gains any significant structure to its plot, but there's nothing terribly exciting about the heist that they do plan to pull off. The tensions between the main quartet and their distinctive personalities ends up being more watchable than the actual heist itself. Eastwood and Bridges naturally fill out the roles of grizzled pro and fresh-faced upstart respectively; meanwhile, Kennedy proves an incredibly belligerent and antagonistic force of nature even after he gives up on trying to kill Eastwood and sides with him. Though Bonnie and Clyde showed how the road movie could deftly be combined with the heist movie, this doesn't translate into success for Thunderbolt and Lightfoot. The whole thing ends up being a slog for the most part that is only really redeemed by Eastwood and Bridges sharing some decent (but not amazing) chemistry, to say nothing of the odd memorable scene (such the entire sequence that involves the duo hitching a ride with a crazed driver, which might just be the best scene in the film because of how left-field it ends up being). One could just as easily see Thunderbolt and Lightfoot as a cynical attempt to cash in on the success (both critical and commercial) of similarly road-based New Hollywood movies - whatever the case, the film certainly doesn't do enough to justify itself to the contrary.

Eh? They already have. That's what the whole thread is. Did you just reply to something you saw at the end of the first post without noticing the rest of the thread?

Yeah, I have no idea what you're asking there.

The answer to your question is found easily by skimming the thread: he says he'll start "soon," and then he posts shortly after, which means he's started.

The question I ask ("my" question) was whether or not you replied to something without looking at the thread much. Seeing as how I asked you, I'm not sure how you could "miss" your own answer.

#721 - The Lobster
Yorgos Lanthimos, 2015



In a dystopian world where single people are forced to form relationships with one another or be turned into animals, a newly-single man arrives at a hotel designed to facilitate such couplings.

It takes a truly well-crafted film to get under my skin and The Lobster is definitely an example of such a film. It skimps over convoluted world-building in order to focus on its very bizarre premise; namely, that people who are not involved in romantic relationships must be forced to acquire them or risk literally losing their humanity. The film introduces us to Colin Farrell's paunchy, bespectacled everyman as he is made to take up residence in a remote countryside hotel after recently becoming single. Once there, he has forty-five days to find a suitable partner so that they can move on with their lives together in the city. The time limit can be extended if the guests at the hotel can go out into the woods and capture the rebellious "loners" who live in the woods. If the guests do not find suitable partners before their time runs out, then they are turned into the animal of their choice and let loose into the wild. Once Farrell is set up inside the hotel, he begins his journey to find a way out of his predicament one way or the another.

I already referred to The Lobster as the darkest comedy of the year (that I've seen, anyway) due to the bitterly amusing undercurrent to such a superficially horrifying concept. There's the hotel staff's cheerfully transparent interactions with their lonely charges (even as they are shown torturing guests for breaking the simplest of rules) or the various disturbing ways in which the increasingly desperate guests try to get out of the inherently sadistic program (which don't even bear mentioning considering their gruesome natures). This much is borne out by the casting, which features a number of actors who have prominent backgrounds in off-kilter comedy such as John C. Reilly, Olivia Colman, and Michael Smiley. Such a choice works to justify the incredibly stilted acting that takes place between the various characters; after all, they are all trying very hard to lie not just to others but to themselves and such a fact only feeds into the hopeless absurdity of the situation. Some of this is arguably done to a fault, as is the case with Rachel Weisz's voice-over narration that is broadly enunciated as it balances ponderous ruminations on the harsh nature of their reality with crudely banal descriptions of sexual fantasies.

The ways in which The Lobster expands on its central metaphor constantly prevent it from growing stale as it proceeds to develop the world and the characters within it. It'd be one thing if it was just the hotel staff forcing such an ostensibly cruel ultimatum onto its hapless guests, but the ways in which the general population appear to embrace the ludicrous codes of courtship even outside the confines of the hotel is strangely plausible. Relationship compatibility in the world of The Lobster seems to be entirely determined by individuals sharing a single common characteristic, with some especially desperate people attempting to fake having the same distinguishing features as others in order to find a mate, thus taking existing romantic ideals and taking them to incredibly absurd levels as characters are incapable of processing any other ways to bond with one another. While it's not exactly a dystopian film without a resistance movement, the film still sets up a group of rebels who are as fanatically committed to their own ideals as the system they oppose and thus aren't exactly preferable for characters who are just looking to live out their lives in peace.

There is considerable strength to the technique on display as Lanthimos blends unflinchingly dull and static camerawork against elaborate technical flourishes that often involve slow-motion to considerable effect. Though the film is arguably a little too slow for its own good at times, the languid pacing is carried off with purpose and is naturally punctuated with the odd scene of violence that can range from darkly humourous to disturbingly harsh and occasionally both at the same time. The soundtrack, which features abrasive application of classical music to emphasise the world's extremely thin veneer of class and dignity, may grate a bit at times but it's definitely used to good effect for the most part. The Lobster may prove extremely alienating in its use of graphic yet effectively restrained depictions of sex and violence, but if you can handle it then you can definitely find something of worth here as it keeps your attention until it ends on just the right note.

#722 - The Big Store
Charles Reisner, 1941



When the manager of a department store hatches a plot to kill off the store's rightful owners and take over for himself, a trio of detectives are hired to protect the owners and foil his plan.

Long-time followers of the thread will have seen me cover a number of Marx Brothers movies and grow increasingly unimpressed with just about each new one that I encounter. While the scale of each production definitely grew with each film that they did, it was unfortunately cancelled out by the fact that the jokes wore thinner and thinner against a formulaic plot that also got increasingly padded out with musical numbers of extremely debatable quality. The Big Store follows the usual Marx plot involving an attractive young couple fighting back against a villainous executive who plans to take over a lucrative establishment (in this case a department store). Enter the brothers as a detective and his associates who become involved in protecting the couple from harm, but not without causing their fair share of havoc throughout the store.

By this point I'm pretty much numb to the Marx brothers' antics and not even the increased scale of the production can compensate for the ways in which they run through their usual bag of tricks. Granted, there is something to be said for technique involved in the scene where Harpo plays a harp in front of a couple of mirrors only for his reflections to start playing their own tunes, but the climax involves some wire stunts that may not lack for ambition but fail to yield any laughs. Even the musical numbers, which are usually the weakest part of your average Marx brothers movie, somehow come across as better because the rest of the film is so incredibly weak. I don't recommend The Big Store - chances are that if you're thinking of watching this then you're probably intending to watch as many Marx brothers movies as possible anyway. You might get more out of it than I do, but that really wouldn't be too hard.

#723 - The King of Kong
Seth Gordon, 2007



A documentary based around the world of competitive video gaming, specifically focusing on one man's attempt to break the world record for the highest score on Donkey Kong.

Though it is a documentary, The King of Kong works around the loose structure of your typical underdog sports movie. The sport in question is actually video gaming - specifically, retro gaming. Due to many of these titles being created in the days where video games were primarily accessed by inserting quarters into arcade machines, it stands to reason that the games in question were designed to be difficult enough so as to guarantee that punters would put in coin after coin in order to win. As a result, there is an entire culture based around attaining high scores on such incredibly challenging titles as Centipede, Pac-Man, and Frogger. Of course, the main focus is on Donkey Kong, the 1981 platformer that first introduced the world to gaming's most iconic character, Mario the plumber, as he climbed building after building in order to rescue his girlfriend from the eponymous ape. While there are many individuals featured in this film, the film is driven by the conflict between two men; Billy Mitchell and Steve Wiebe. As the film begins, Mitchell is a small businessman with decades of experience as a pro gamer who holds the world record for the high score on Donkey Kong. The film truly starts when Wiebe, an engineer turned science teacher, works towards achieving a new high score on Donkey Kong in his spare time. When he tapes himself recording a high score that beats Mitchell's, this causes quite the stir and naturally attracts Mitchell's attention...

While there are the odd moments that feel staged (such as the fact that there's a camera crew recording both sides of a phone call between Mitchell and another person observing Wiebe's record-breaking), that hardly seems to matter as the film tells a familiar but fascinating story in capturing the rivalry that unfolds between Mitchell and Wiebe. Wiebe comes across as a fairly likeable underdog for the most part but his focus on achieving his goal isn't totally idealised - the most obvious example of his delving into obsession would definitely be his original high-score tape where his young son can be heard loudly begging him to stop playing the game in order to pay attention to him. Regardless of Wiebe's flaws, it's pretty impressive how Mitchell acts out his role as the film's nominal antagonist by pulling every trick in the book in order to defeat (or, failing that, discredit) Wiebe so that he can maintain his long-standing record. Wiebe is then put under greater and greater trials in order to prove himself against not just Mitchell but also the various authorities (who do want to side with him but are bound by the rules of the game), building quite the underdog narrative in the process. The overarching attempt to add a narrative structure to every event in the film doesn't feel as forced as you would think and the film's short running time means there's virtually no padding to the proceedings.

When The King of Kong isn't directly focusing on Wiebe's quest to become the Donkey Kong world champion, it does a pretty good job of depicting this rather peculiar competitive sub-culture. Many different elements of the film's world include an arcade specifically reserved for people to set world-record high-scores on or one man's obsession with encountering a Donkey Kong Easter egg known as a kill-screen (to say nothing of the octogenarian woman who's looking to maintain her own record on Q*bert). Just because it's dealing in such a frivolous subject doesn't mean that the film and the people in it don't take themselves seriously. Players will discuss the intricate systems of pattern-recognition that they must observe and memorise in order to make progress through these seemingly simple games, and that's without observing how part of Mitchell's attack on Wiebe is based in connecting his improbable success to a secret plot by one of Mitchell's long-time rivals. The film also knows how to play moments for the right levels of drama, utilising classical music and popular music to accentuate each moment properly (even if it does fall prey to inspirational clichés with tracks like "You're the Best" or "Eye of the Tiger"). As a result, The King of Kong manages to be a quick but substantial documentary that does entertain through its collection of oddballs and relatively niche subject matter, but that doesn't prevent it from having emotional nuance as we follow Wiebe through the highs and lows of his journey. Even if you don't care about video games, you're liable to find something of worth on a cinematic level.

The King of Kong sounds like a must see for the documentary countdown, nice and short too I see.

King Of Kong is one of the documentaries I put on the list for you, cricket. Definitely worth a look before you submit your list.

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#724 - Star Trek V: The Final Frontier
William Shatner, 1989



The crew of the Enterprise are called in to resolve a hostage situation but are instead coerced into helping a religious zealot search for God.

I'm definitely amused by the notion that the long-running Star Trek cinematic franchise has a curse of sorts that results in each odd-numbered installment being substantially weaker than their even-numbered counterparts (though this arguably went out the window with Nemesis, the tenth film in the franchise and also generally considered one of the worst). This hasn't automatically made the odd films unquestionably terrible, though; original film The Motion Picture had enough technical and musical quality to make it watchable, while The Search for Spock wrought a decent enough film out of a storyline that was intended to undo one of science fiction's greatest tragedies. The films involving the cast of The Next Generation didn't fare so well - cross-over Generations was an ultimately middling attempt at passing the torch, while Insurrection felt a bit too much like an episode of the show that was unnecessarily blown out to movie length. (Never mind the reboot.) Fifth entry The Final Frontier had managed to earn an especially unfavourable reputation even by the notoriously haphazard standards of the franchise, but seeing as it was the only Trek film I hadn't yet seen, I figured I would still have to watch it.

The Final Frontier doesn't start too promisingly. After a brief prologue that introduces the film's chief antagonist, a Vulcan zealot named Sybok (Laurence Luckinbill), the film launches into a prolonged sequence where the main cast members are spending their shore leave camping in Yellowstone National Park, complete with campfire singalongs and hover boots. Of course, their shore leave doesn't last long before the Enterprise is called in to deal with a hostage crisis that is being orchestrated by Sybok, which also happens to draw the attention of a glory-hound Klingon captain. To go into further detail would arguably spoil the plot and the various reveals (even though I knew them already), but such details aren't especially relevant in the grand scheme of things since it ends up being a plot that Star Trek has covered before and since. Of course, there's nothing wrong with doing variations on a theme, and if nothing else The Final Frontier provides enough of a variation to partly justify its existence. Sybok proves complicated enough as his quixotic quest to find God (or at least the Vulcan equivalent) is driven by such a tangibly sincere belief that he is able to magically manipulate others into helping him as a result.

With the notoriously over-dramatic William Shatner taking over directorial duties for this installment, one could very easily expect the film as a whole to suffer. Granted, the film does have its questionable moments - the most notable example of such involves a considerably aged Uhura (Nichelle Nichols) carrying out a seductive song-and-dance routine in order to lure some enemies into a trap - but I daresay that the film's good moments manage to outweigh its bad ones. There's a memorably potent sequence where McCoy (DeForest Kelley) is made to confront his darkest secret, plus Spock (Leonard Nimoy) must also deal with his own preexisting connection to Sybok. In this context Kirk (Shatner) doesn't really have too much of an arc, especially when compared to the last few films - instead, his own concerns with facing his mortality (especially how he insists that he will die alone) and his skepticism about Sybok's unwavering faith in the existence of God can't help but feel like diminishing returns even as it attempts to do something original. The plot also feels a bit listless and stretched-out even as it is peppered with action sequences whose ambition is often beyond their reach.

While there's plenty here to suggest that The Final Frontier earns its reputation as one of the worst Star Trek films (and probably the worst out of the ones featuring Kirk and the original crew), I honestly found myself enjoying it a lot more than I would have thought. It builds off an incredibly familiar Trek plot while also failing to reach its true potential, but it doesn't make a mess of things despite some weak humour and special effects work. If anything, it does yield a handful of strong moments that rise above the rest of this admittedly mediocre film. While much of the interplay between characters tends to be ridiculous for one reason or another, there are still good instances of everything ranging from sarcastic camaraderie to heartfelt catharsis. Add in an appropriately versatile score by veteran composer Jerry Goldsmith and you have a film that definitely won't be a contender for the best Trek film but still proves surprisingly decent despite its many flaws.

#725 - High Plains Drifter
Clint Eastwood, 1973



A nameless drifter arrives in a small town and is hired by the townspeople to defend them from a trio of bloodthirsty outlaws.

High Plains Drifter marks Clint Eastwood's second film as director and his first take on the Western, so naturally it serves as a deconstruction on par with other Westerns of the era. Much like the iconic roles he played in Sergio Leone's Dollars trilogy, Eastwood's protagonist is a nameless gunslinger who rides into a small frontier town; however, it's clear from the opening minutes that he's not even halfway heroic. Whether it's goading the local undesirables into attempting to kill him or even going so far as to rape the town prostitute (and then compound that by having her start to enjoy the act halfway through, which opens up a serious can of worms), it's clear that this is going to be one very unpleasant take on your typical Western narrative. Even the familiar-sounding plot about Eastwood being hired to help the townspeople defend themselves against a gang of recently-released bandits looking to take their revenge on the town is complicated in many notable ways. Leaving aside the incredibly murky sense of morality that Eastwood's character embodies, there's also the fact that the bulk of the townsfolk are extremely unsympathetic cowards; this much is borne out by their willingness to give Eastwood the run of the town simply for the sake of their own safety, which definitely comes back to bite them when he decides to milk that promise for all that it's worth.

Though it's arguably not quite as nuanced as it wants to be, High Plains Drifter proves a reasonably strong attempt at deconstructing the Western. While much of the film is as visceral as you'd expect from Eastwood, it does show some acid-like influences as it depicts dream-like flashbacks to a brutal whipping complete with eerie strings, to say nothing of the ways in which Eastwood's control of the town extends to surreal decisions such as appointing a little person to be the town's new sheriff or having every building in town be coated in red paint. It gets to the point where the actual outlaws who serve as the film's nominal villains become secondary to the points that the film attempts to make about the fickle morality of the townspeople, especially when it comes to pacing out the revelation of the town's dark secret. Such left-field revisionism is reflected on a technical level as the film uses some fairly disjointed camerawork and editing to effectively garnish Eastwood's usual levels of professionalism. While Eastwood would definitely go on to make better Westerns that mixed subversive nuance with classical technique, High Plains Drifter proves a reasonably strong way for him to begin, even if some parts are definitely up for debate.

#726 - Into the Wild
Sean Penn, 2007



Based on the true story of Christopher McCandless, a young college graduate who gives away his worldly possessions in order to travel through the American wilderness.

Sometimes I wonder what difference knowing the true story behind a biopic makes to the film in question. Knowing how the story of the individuals involved is likely to conclude isn't automatically enough to ruin a film, but it can definitely put a damper on the proceedings. Into the Wild is based on the true story of would-be adventurer Christopher McCandless (Emile Hirsch), a college graduate and son of an affluent family. Inspired by reading books by the likes of Henry David Thoreau and Jack London, McCandless opts to abandon the career path set out for him, sign away his life savings to charity, and set out on a journey along the open road with the goal of eventually making it to Alaska. The film begins with him taking up residence in an abandoned bus somewhere in the Alaskan wilderness before cutting back and forth to different points in his journey, ranging from his idealistic beginnings through to the various adventures (and misadventures) he has on the road.

It's pretty much a given that in order for a story to work, an audience has to care about what happens to its characters; this much should apply regardless of whether or not a character is supposed to be sympathetic. Given the context surrounding the film's actual events, Into the Wild seems to be forced to provide a sympathetic portrayal of McCandless and his desire to strike out on his own. This much is borne out by the incredibly simplistic ways in which the film sets up characters that serve as antagonists to McCandless. The most immediate examples are his upstanding parents who supposedly want what's best for their son yet are shown to be incredibly flawed hypocrites underneath their picture-perfect exteriors (especially William Hurt as his verbally abusive father). In addition, McCandless tends to go up against other difficult authority figures that range from obstructively bureaucratic wildlife rangers to violently strict train engineers. While I can understand the reasons why the film might want to portray McCandless as sympathetic, I question just how well such a decision actually works on a cinematic level. The film seems to be guiding viewers towards siding with McCandless's free-spirited intentions, but it's just as possible for a viewer to be alienated by the sheer foolishness of what he's attempting; as a result, his eagerness can come across as irritating more so than infectious. The same goes for his high-minded romanticising of both nature and the road, even if that does gradually get deconstructed as the film moves towards its conclusion.

The reason I bring up the issue of audience sympathy in regards to McCandless's exploits is that your attitude towards his actions will definitely inform whether or not you can tolerate Into the Wild as a whole. The film favours a loosely episodic plot structure rather than a recognisably straightforward narrative. The inherent problem with building a film around clearly-defined segments rather than a continuous narrative is that the film's quality can vary wildly from segment to segment, which can easily result in a whole of inconsistent worth. This unfortunately happens to Into the Wild, with the bulk of the film feeling like a serious endurance test. I'm generally okay with films being slow and long if that measured approach actually means something in either the short or long run, but I never got that feeling with Into the Wild. When McCandless isn't wandering around on his own, he's having encounters with other travelers on the road of life. These people tend to be played by recognisable faces such as Catherine Keener, Vince Vaughn, and Hal Holbrook. For the most part, they don't yield especially interesting foils to McCandless - Keener functions as little more than an understanding adult whose implied back-story feeds into her becoming something of a surrogate mother to McCandless, while Vaughn makes an agreeable employer whose seemingly settled lifestyle is lent some semblance of roguishness by his criminal dealings. Holbrook is far and away the stand-out as a lonely old craftsman whose tragic past and earthy countenance feel compellingly sincere in a way that the rest of the film, earnest though it may be, struggles to match across the rest of its running time.

Despite its apparent attempt to provide a genuine tribute to Christopher McCandless's ultimately tragic journey of impassioned self-discovery, Into the Wild still ends up feeling like a very love-or-hate film. It collects a variety of recognisable actors to fill out various roles, but beyond Hirsch's notable physical transformation and Holbrook's bittersweet supporting role these actors get very little of worth to do. On a technical level, Penn's blending of natural scenery with elliptical storytelling is liable to conjure associations with erstwhile Penn collaborator Terrence Malick, but the end product never manages to stand out in its own right. Considering how McCandless's wonder at the marvels of nature is a large part of what leads him to pursue a life on the road in the first place, the film's inability to capture the scenery in a remotely impressive manner is either a blatant failure to do right by its protagonist or a clever subversion that still ends up making the film look boring regardless of its intent. The same goes for the bland acoustic score (complete with Eddie Vedder's vocalising, no less) that also fails to leave much of a positive impression. Though Into the Wild has a somewhat promising outline and Holbrook's handful of scenes are uniformly good, the end result still ends up being an extremely tedious affair that lacks the visual splendour needed to adequately compensate for its choppy narrative and largely empty characterisation.

There is literally nothing about that film that makes me think I'd enjoy it even slightly. Reading your review has only reinforced that feeling. Especially as the main protagonist sounds awfully like Timothy from Grizzly Man, who I found very annoying.

I felt the same way initially; I assumed it would be a silly, hippie-ish romanticization of nature that railed against attachments, relationships, and society at large. I was pleasantly surprised; it was just a portrait of a troubled young man. I really liked Grizzly Man (Treadwell was grating, but the whole thing was too fascinating for that to bother me), however. If your main problem with that was simply having to listen to someone you found annoying, though, you may not mind Into the Wild, since it's a reenactment.

Anyway, really thought I'd hate it, watched it anyway, thought it was pretty good. , maybe . Largely because I felt--a bit unlike Iro, I suppose--that it wasn't really condoning his choices.

I disliked Into the Wild at first watch but kind of loved it on a second watch.

You could be right. However, that it's a re-enactment is what makes me think I'll hate it/him all the more.

What the hell...
http://www.movieforums.com/reviews/4...-the-wild.html

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The thing is that I actually liked Grizzly Man, but that was a decidedly less ambiguous film than Into the Wild since you knew from the outset that Treadwell's plan was incredibly misguided (yet still tragic) and every other person in the film agreed with this consensus. Into the Wild tries to be more impartial in its depiction of McCandless but I don't think it succeeds in that regard.

Bringing up the concept of hippie-ish romanticising is interesting because Into the Wild does invite comparisons to the original hippie road trip movies like Easy Rider, which also featured a protagonist setting out on a cross-country journey meeting all sorts of unusual characters but choosing to ignore them all in favour of pursuing an ultimately meaningless goal before meeting a tragic end. Into the Wild never did much to differentiate itself significantly from this (apart from being afforded a foregone conclusion due to its true story). Also, it is pretty obvious by the time the film wraps up that it's not meant to be condoning McCandless's choices (though spending half an hour watching a guy slowly starve to death and lapse into delirium will do that), but it almost seems like an after-thought compared to the rest of the film, even though there was plenty to indicate that other such alternative-lifestyle types weren't exactly living much better because of their decisions to live apart from society. Such scenes still aren't particularly engaging and the film's comparatively lengthy running time just serves to make any highlights feel like they're spaced far too far apart for the film's good.

Also, I doubt that this being a re-enactment is likely to make this a more agreeable proposition than Grizzly Man. Annoyance is annoyance regardless of truth.

"What the hell", indeed.

#727 - Starred Up
David Mackenzie, 2013



A violent young man is transferred to a new prison and must try to survive not just the brutal living conditions but also confront his personal demons.

Starred Up is a grimy depiction of the harsh living inside a British prison and offers a degree of insight into the mentalities behind both the inmates and the staff, which is definitely strong enough to make it above average but not strong enough to make it much better than that. It assembles a decent enough collection of leads, with young up-and-comer Jack O'Connell playing the "starred up" (read: transferred from juvenile detention to adult prison after coming of age) youth at the heart of the film. His attempts to treat the prison as being no different from the facility he left behind soon land him in trouble not just with the authorities and fellow inmates but also with his father (Ben Mendehlson), who is also an inmate and has enough connections to keep O'Connell from getting in over his head. While most of the staff are liable to treat the hot-headed O'Connell as too much of a danger to be kept within the prison's general population, he attracts the attention of an idealistic therapist (Rupert Friend) who seeks to make a difference to the inmates through group sessions.

The film is a decent one that weaves a compelling enough narrative around its well-played characters, though it arguably runs a little long for its own good. The performances are notable - O'Connell has built a good chunk of his career by playing arrogant toughs, with this role arguably making the best of his tendency to be typecast as such. Mendehlson demonstrates the same sort of crooked intensity that made him so fascinating to watch in Australian crime drama Animal Kingdom, while Friend does well enough at playing the hapless therapist whose desire to make change is challenged by just about everyone else, whether it's by O'Connell and his fellow inmates or by the restrictive prison staff (represented by Sam Spruell's sour-faced deputy governor) who are more concerned with disciplining inmates than rehabilitating them. The film is often gritty in a way that recalls Alan Clarke's notoriously bleak 1970s borstal drama Scum with its minimal music and verité camerawork, though the film's tendency to invite comparisons to existing prison dramas rather than stand out on its own is a bit of a problem. It's got a decent enough plot and the acting is solid, but there's little more to it than that.

#728 - Locke
Steven Wright, 2013



A construction worker goes on a road trip to attend the birth of his illegitimate child and must field phone calls from his family and business associates in the process.

Being the directorial debut of screenwriter Steven Knight, Locke is a minimalist film that is definitely dependent on its script above all else. Tom Hardy plays the eponymous character, a family man and reputable construction worker who is about to embark on the biggest project of his career. Instead of going home to watch the football with his family, Locke instead starts driving to London. He soon reveals the reason why; several months previously, he had a drunken one-night-stand with a lonely colleague that resulted in her becoming pregnant. Now that she's gone into premature labour, he intends to drive to the hospital in order to be there for her as she has the baby. Naturally, this decision throws both his work life and home life into chaos as this news not only shocks his wife but his sudden decision to make such a long trip definitely interferes with his work commitments the following day. As a result, Locke becomes a virtual one-man play as it consists of Hardy driving non-stop and fielding dozens of phone calls about his many problems over the course of the film's extremely lean running time.

Hardy has already demonstrated how well he can carry a film on his lonesome with his break-out performance in prison drama Bronson; his ability to carry a film is definitely pushed to the limit as he is the only person who appears on-screen in the whole film. While Locke's clipped Welsh accent can definitely be added to Hardy's growing collection of questionable vocal affectations, it does little to distract from the tranquil fury that underlines almost every conversation he does have, whether it's calmly discussing the finer details of pouring concrete or delivering angry soliloquies targeted at his long-absent father. Though he spends much of the film trying to talk in an incredibly controlled manner, this does nothing to make his infrequent outbursts less effective. The collection of actors required to deliver vocal performances over the phone includes some familiar names, most notably Andrew Scott as Locke's alcoholic subordinate and Olivia Colman as the expectant mother who mistakes Locke's stubbornly honourable intentions for genuine romantic attachment. Though none of them are ever glimpsed on-screen, they play off well against Hardy in a series of conversations that are by turns naturalistic and artificial (though the alternating is not always by design).

Locke definitely works well enough as a character study and Hardy carries it off well, conveying all sorts of complicated emotions even as he alternates embraces or fights his various fates. The writing does occasionally get a little repetitive and contains some clunky lines - at one point Colman's character jokingly references Waiting for Godot, drawing a bit too much attention to the film's play-like minimalism. Even so, it's still a reasonably compelling little film that starts off with a number of shocking developments that will genuinely leave you wondering not just how Hardy will react but also how the film will fill out its running time. It's decent on a technical level, taking a confined yet constantly mobile setting and depicting it with just enough visual flair to not look dull but also not distract from the story proper. The same goes for the music, which is barely perceptible as it ebbs in the background and underscores the drama without drawing attention to itself. I'd be hard-pressed to say that the result is automatically a classic, but it's definitely an interesting enough watch that doesn't outstay its welcome.