The
Patriot
Stop laughing
at me. It’s not nice to point either. I knew what I was letting myself
in for, I am not as stupid as these reviews often make me look. But I refuse
to kow-tow to the film going cognoscenti and boycott something on their
say so. Yes, I expected the historical aspects of The Patriot to be clunky,
but much like U-571 I did not care about this. Did it construct an entertaining
film that was consistent to itself. If I knew nothing (which is not far
off to be fair) about the American war of Independence could I love this
sweeping epic of family, derring-do and big battles? The short answer is
no.
The medium
answer is not in a million years. The long answer follows.
I do not
have a problem with formula films. A formula after all is merely something
to hang your characters on. The haunted house story will always endure
because – whilst we know nearly everyone is going to die, we want to be
engaged with the characters that die. However the Patriot straddles a number
of genres and as such enjoys about five different formula’s laid upon each
other. Film opens with Mel Gibson the single father of a family of seven
– four boys and three girls. Seven may seem like an arbitrarily large number
of children for characterisation purposes, but its okay. We only need to
know one boy and one girl. Anyway, Gibbo and his own little Von Trapp family
live in pre-Independence South Carolina. Gibson used to be a soldier, this
we know due to fondling of an old tomahawk. So its odd when this ex-army
man and – truth be told – action hero refuses to go to war. Is this due
to family or due to some in depth characterisation. Nope, none of the above
– its due to stretching the film out so we can see Gibson “break” when
his family is attacked and kill the bad guys.
Ah, to be
British in America at the moment. The British villain has long since become
a cliché, but Devlin and Emmerich – the producers who seem to dine
out on not having any new ideas – literally wet their pants over having
an entire army of Brits as bad guys. So the whole British army is dastardly,
though some like the big bad leader of the army (Tom Wilkinson as Lord
Cornwallis) has to unfortunately conform vaguely to historical records
of what he was like. So we a left a lower ranking Nazi who torches churches
for fun to be Gibson’s personal nemesis. You know, the kind you find in
the middle of a pitched battle field and have a film duel with whilst everyone
else fights around you. Historical accuracy be damned, this bad guy is
so dastardly that he would never have made it out of the nursery without
being locked up. A cartoon villain undermines the initial cut and thrust
of the personal story. The case for independence is equally unconvincing,
they’ll pay less tax. Let’s go to war then. The Americans try to claim
the moral high ground of real life victory, and there are some appalling
scenes with some happy slaves who suggest that slavery is pretty much a
utopian way of life.
So Gibbo
does the “this is personal” thing, gathers together his own dirty dozen
and for some reason goes to live in the middle of a swamp. This period
of a really rather long movie drags on forever. On the one hand the formula
demands that Gibson is a tactical genius. On the other hand history demands
that he never won the war single handedly. Enter the bad guy who targets
families, in a terrible contravention of the rules of war. Gibson and son
(Heath Ledger who is as good as he can be, but the film does not help him)
rescue family and appear to move them to the Blue Lagoon. Son marries,
and Gibson gets it on with his sister in law who has been looking after
the kids. You see there would be no romance while his wife was still alive,
yet he needed someone he could conveniently dump five kids on. Anyway we
get a re-run of the Ewok scene out of Return Of The Jedi then its back
for the very tedious climax.
Problem
with the Patriot is that the script allows for nothing interesting to happen.
Crucially the only characters we care about die half an hour before the
end. This is supposed to push Gibson into Mad Max mode, but frankly we
just know there is going to be another thirty minutes of tedium. Instead
it could have developed into a story similar to The Man Who Shot liberty
Valance, the old guard (Gibson) handing over to the new guard (Ledger).
They are both Australian after all. Instead the whole thing grinds into
a battle reconstruction which neither excites or convinces.
Its pointless
dissecting The Patriot critically as it fails on nearly every level. The
mere fact that the story is so hackneyed hides the fact that it is shot
quite badly, with scenes stretched out to lazily fit an overblown John
Williams score. It is amusing to note than none of the major people involved
in this film were American, and perhaps this is where the cynical attempt
at grasping the notion of American patriotism comes from. The Patriot tries
to stir the heart, and instead chokes your heart to death with its own
poor bilious clichés. This, in the end, makes it worse than even
the artistically bereft M:I2, and the first earner of a (1).
IF THIS
FILM WERE A CAR CRASH: Could have been Last Of The Mohicans hitting The
Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. Is The Sound Of Music hits Dad's Army.
Payback
This one
is a tricky one. I have to admit to being ambivalent about Melanie Gibson
and all of her works. (What is it? Melvin, Melinda) I did not care for
the Mad Max films - especially not the one where they didn't need another
hero but got one anyway and Tina Turner to boot. Lethal Weapon movies tend
to improve as they get older, though I always had a soft spot for the one
where Patsy Kensit gets it. Braveheart is admirable, but not being Scottish
I cannot really sympathise. Infact the only Gibbo movie I like is The Man
Without A Face, and that's just because I like films where actors known
for their good looks are hideously scarred. Add to this the fact that I
rather like Point Blank and really like the books of Richard Stark/Donald
E.Westlake (who wrote The Hunter which both of these films were based on),
I was never going to like Payback, was I?
Well, no
- I wasn't. So the plus point is I liked it as much as I did. Which is
a bit. Which is I did not actively hate it, and as action thrillers go
its one of the best in a while. But - well I'll come to the But.
I went to
this one with Louise, bit of an action movie junkie (I don't want to typecast
her too much because she also has a sensitive side - its just she does
enjoy a good trashy action thriller.) She loved it. She had not seen Point
Blank, or read the book or really gave a fuck. As far as she was concerned
it was a good, hard action thriller which had a few twists in it and kept
her excited all the way along. And really I can't disagree with her. Everything
she says is true. But something was not right. Something bugged me.
Okay, the
film is not Point Blank. I can live with that. I can applaud that. If it
had been Point Blank, but updated, it would have been a bit worse than
it was. The source material is fine and can certainly be attacked in a
different way. Point Blank, for all its seminal status, is hyper stylised.
It is a Director of Photography's film. It is an outsiders view of America.
And it is, in a lot of ways, very much of its time. What Payback tries
to do is the opposite. Still stylised, but very much in that no-man's land
of Nineties noir (ie nineties stars, with seventies props and forties suits).
The city is never named, our hero only has a surname (Porter). The aim
is to try and set it outside time as a classic, hard story. Which almost
works. It does look gritty, grimy and the desaturated colour works wonders.
The supporting cast are either relatively unknown actors, or (in the case
of Coburn and Kristofferson) archetypal actors themselves. So what is the
problem I hear you ask?
THE BUT
Sorry, but
its Mel. He has done a fantastic job getting where he is. A jobbing Australian
actor catapulted into stardom. An already acomplished director. Problem
is, in this film Mel tries really hard not to be likeable. But he can't
help it. We see him, we think of Riggs in Lethal Weapon. I know its probably
my fault, I know I'm probably stupid, but the character of Porter only
works if he is fucking nasty. Mel Gibson is not fucking nasty. Mel Gibson
is a personable star with a winning twinkle in his eye. So while he spends
half the film grimacing to show us how nasty he is, he still can't get
rid of that thar twinkle. And homicidal bad guys don't twinkle.
He does,
therefore, act his socks off - as does Maria Bello who is remarkably mature
looking in her first major film role (mature in more ways that one). I
think Mel might have convinced me as well, if it wasn't for one other aspect.
The film sabotages itself by not knowing exactly what it wants to be. It
wants to have its cake and eat it. Yep, Mel is mean, moody, and nasty -
but he has got a winning way with a quip. In that case he's no longer Porter
and we really are in Lethal Weapon mode (if only Lethal Weapon 1). This
is obviously where the film lost its way, and the ending got remade in
the process. Now I have nothing against the new ending, its nice, its clever
and it works. It just works in a slightly different film, and we all leave
(even Louise) thinking that it was not perhaps "the correct ending". Damn
straight. Indeed part of the fun of the film is spotting the reshot bits,
which have been inserted all the way through the film to make the ending
coherent. And also trying to find what got thrown out.
As a lesson
in how to reshoot a movie, Payback may well go down in history. Its a remake
of Point Blank, and a reshoot of itself. Every version bears only a 50%
relationship with the novel. In the end though its the casting that nobbles
it. Mel is too big, too clean and too nice to be Porter. You can be the
best actor in the world, but even you have to hold your hand up and fess
up to not being able to do everything. I'm sorry, but as much as I like
him, Tommy Lee Jones was never right for the role of Ferris Bueller - and
Melvin just ain't no Porter. (6)
IF THIS
FILM WERE A CAR CRASH: It would be Point Blank in a side on ram with Lethal
Weapon with the nice blonde doctor lady from "er" looking after the casualties.
The
Perfect Storm
I have been
in some pretty cool showers before. You know, hot summers day, suddenly
the clouds roll out of nowhere and you get that warm balmy rain that gets
your T-Shirt wet and makes the whole world smell of freshly mown grass.
This might just be me – but it is obviously a ham fisted pre-amble to talking
about The Perfect Storm, one of the oddest titled films to be released
in some time. It has this problem due to the fact that it is based on the
non-fiction best-seller of the same name by Sebastian Junger. Since he
has a lot more time to talk about meteorology it probably makes sense.
Here it is dropped in by a TV weatherman and seems incongruous. What levels
must we get to for a storm to reach perfection? Who knows? We do see much
rain here though.
The Perfect
Storm rescues the big summer flick just when it seemed to be sinking like
a stone weighed down by the double duds of the Patriot and Mission: Impossible
2 (I’m assuming that Battlefield Earth cannot even be considered in this
category). What this has over the previous two films is a story, some characters
and actually even a small degree of originality. Basically it boils down
to the fact that you do not expect to see a film about some fishermen fighting
for their lives against a big storm in the middle of the summer. Quite
possibly the only reason it is there is that the special effects were so
expensive. That however does not make it any less welcome.
The strengths
of A Perfect Storm rest almost totally on the fact that, despite everything
we see on the screen to the contrary, this is a small story. In the end
it is the tale of how fishermen earn a living, and that this can be rather
dangerous. The fact that for the money they have to take these extra risks
in boats which may not be that well equipped. And that dying with dignity
is still dying. Forgive me if I’m wrong but this is the stuff of
Ken Loach, not of the summer blockbuster. Whilst it does sully itself in
many places the mere fact that the films heart is in the right place that
makes it impressive. Yes the storm is good, it is almost frightening (which
is high praise from me - –he man who always stresses that water cannot
be scary) but it’s the people we care about.
So to those
people. Clooney and Wahlberg reprise their buddy act from Three Kings –
and look set to do so again in Oceans 11. Clooney wears a beard too old
for him, but cuts an impressive jib as the half sympathetic half Ahabesque
captain of the Andrea Gail. Wahlberg is also good at rehashing his vaguely
naïve persona. However it is the supporting cast who treat the tale
with dignity, and this is especially important since they are playing real
– in some cases – dead people. The problem which will usually arise here
is that since they are the victims, they will be shown in a positive light.
No real character depth since they must be portrayed well. And while the
script ploughs this line, the actors push the envelope a bit more. The
unspoken camaraderie, and the only hinted at love of fishing – and family
which conflicts. We understand why they do what they do, and we also understand
those who curse them for it.
The good
almost outweighs the bad here, the bad is merely annoying. And annoying
it is – mainly James Horners score. This film is awash with sentimental
strings, which is fine and dandy but seems to bludgeon the emotion down
out throats. I know this is a tragic tale, I do not need a score to tell
me. I want to be able to hear the storm. Loathe as I am to ask for more
science in films, perhaps it would have been nice to find out more why
this storm was perfect. Director Wolfgang Petersen manages to balance development
and disaster, but unfortunately throws a few mini-stories into the mix.
As exciting as the coastguard chopper is, or the yacht they save – they
are only tangentially related. It seems a shame after building up empathy
with the cast we then drop the ball by losing focus.
A Perfect
Storm is by no means a perfect film. For what it is though, it’s a nice
addition to disaster movie lore. Perhaps being approved in the wake of
Titanic, this true story – and extrapolation of true story – lacks the
cod romance of the previous. It replaces it with a swordfishermans love
of the sea, which comes through the screen. When did you last see a film,
let alone a summer blockbuster, that attempted to make you empathise with
working class people just doing their job. It is this, despite its lack
of focus and overbearing score, which will stick in your mind. That plus
a nicely understated eulogy which says all it needs to say without actually
saying it that makes The Perfect Storm pretty much a success. (7)
IF THIS
FILM WERE A CAR CRASH: Twister meets Riff-Raff. Perhaps Oh My Darling Clementine
too.
Plunkett
& Macleane
Sometimes
you get the urge to see a movie. I'd had a pretty shit, hungover Saturday
and was really in the mood to see an action movie. A no-brainer littered
with comedy and derring-do. Well, P&M was a no-brainer, but it was
littered with missed opportunities and doggy-do. Great premise, fantastic
actors, nice art direction - appalling script.
Now when
I saw the trailer to Plunkett & Macleane I thought this looks rather
good fun. Maybe this is in retrospect, since the trailer did come before
The Thin Red Line, which I don't care what anyone says, is not as good
as The Thin Blue Line. (That camp copper - who is nevertherless not gay.
Rowan Atkinson being pompous and coming unstuck by his pomposity. Stupid
characters doing stupid things in a stupid way. Oh the larks. And please
- more patented Ben Elton 0.5 entendres). So the excitement of things exploding
and Johnny Lee Miller promising to be a Rik Mayall who can act looked good.
There was even its punchy little slogan. "They Rob The Rich - And That's
It". And inherent in that slogan is all that is wrong with P&M. Yep,
its funny. But it feels like it could have been funnier. Try "They Rob
The Rich and Give It To Each Other", or "They Rob The Rich - And Keep It".
These are just a couple of ideas, neither of which are better, but were
equally were knocked up in two seconds. There is just a looseness about
the affair which permeates the whole film.
RUBBISH
SCRIPT CLICHE ONE: Guess what. When Plunkett and Macleane first meet, they
don't like each other.
The script
is riddled with cliche's out of the "How to write Butch Cassidy and The
Sundance Kid" book (£16.99 Routlidge & Kegan Paul). Which is
a pity because the actors have more than enough presence to pull off the
notoriously difficult chemistry aspect of such a relationship. Robert Carlyle
does his catch all cockney rebel, whilst Johnny Lee Miller is really rather
engaging as the posh bloke turned bad. Ken Stott's bad guy is equally creapy,
though his motivation beyond raping Liv Tyler is never quite clear. Even
Liv herself dazzles with a non-period beauty, nineties spunkiness and an
accent that would give Gwyneth a run for her money. And Alan Cummings plays
the fop to all of these with more charm and wit that the script actually
has in it. Everything is resolutely grimy, bloody and smelly - giving a
nice contrast to the world of privilige, which is all powdered and overdressed.
But you could buy this plot in the "Out Of Sell-By Date" in Safeways, and
still feel ripped off.
In this
wunza buddy movie: Carylye plays Plunkett - grimy, grubby thief to Miller's
Macleane, a disgraced, pisshead Army Captain. They get together, hit on
the plan of scoping out the rich folk at posh parties using Macleanes contacts,
then ambushing them on the way home. Of course, they are awfully good highwaymen
and try not to kill anyone. In the meantime Macleane falls for Tyler (posh
bit of scrag), who slowly works out his identity as The Gentleman Highwayman,
and is turned on big time by this. Enter our bad guy, chief of the guard,
who pins the murder of Tyler's dad on Miller and its down to us to wonder,
as Miller is taken to the gallows, whether his mate Plunkett will rescue
him. The book is closed on this one by the way.
RUBBISH
SCRIPT CLICHE NUMBER TWO: While he appears to be a thoroughly nasty bloke
to start off with, during a bit of bonding with Miller, Robert Carlyle
turns out to have been a good, decent hard working chap who turned to a
life of crime after his wife died and he was thrown out on the streets.
Aaahh.
P&M
had four screen writers. Five if you include the bloke who had the original
idea. The script that was used was completely rewritten from the original
by Peter Barnes and Charles MacKeown. (MacKeown was often known as the
seventh Python since he wrote and starred in a lot of their stuff. On P&M
form you can tell why they never let him join). How poor the original script
was I dread to think - I have a terrible feeling it was probably better.
In the film as it stands, where there should be zingy action and witty
remarks, we get zippy camera angles and people saying dull things. Wiity
is not just saying something apposite at the right occasion, it also relies
on picking the right words. Yet here the wit is an afterthought, Miller
and Carlyle are begging to banter, yet they don't have a chance. Instead
we get mean and moody asides. The only characters who seem to have any
spontaneous wit are two fops, played by comedians Armstrong and Miller,
and you get the feeling they may have helped write their own lines.
RUBBISH
SCRIPT CLICHE THREE (BIGTIME SPOILER): When Johnny Lee Miller gets hung,
up pops Robert Carlyle at the last minute who proceeds to shoot off the
rope with his musket. Read that again. Shoot an inch wide rope, twisting
and moving and jerking, with a musket. Those notorious sniper rifles of
old...
In the end,
we are left with a film of missed opportunities. It is a bit of a laugh,
when it could have been great. And films like that can bug you more than
truly shit films. So in the end P&M will go down as an okay film, do
a bit of business on video, but won't be anyones calling card. (Except
maybe when Liv tries to nick Winslett's roles.) There is only one remarkable
thing about Plunkett & Macleane is it has easily the most tedious opening
credits of any film I have ever seen. If you are going to go see, turn
up five minutes late. Or, more likely, fast forward the video. (4)
IF THIS
FILM WERE A CAR CRASH: It'd be Carry On Dick in a head on ram with Trainspotting,
with Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid taking most of the collateral
damage. Everyone would crawl out alive with superficial injuries and it
wouldn't even make the local news.
Proof
Of Life
There are
not a huge number of films based on Vanity Fair articles. After Proof Of
Life one can only hope that this novel form of inspiration is relegated
to the dustbin it was originally sired from. Not that the initial premise
behind Proof Of Life is necessarily a bad one. It is in fleshing it out
- in a Vanity Fair star power and tacked on love story way - that the film
crumbles under its own weight of pretention andboredom. You see for a film
which sells itself as an action love story there is nary any love, and
precious little action.
So back
to the premise - which in its pure form could have been good. Russell Crowe
- he of hottest Box Office star in the world at the moment fame - plays
a hostage negotiator for a insurance company. The idea is that when you
get kidnapped, your insurance company stumps up the cash and also the expertise
to make sure that they are not getting diddled. This is nicely shown in
a during credit sequence where Crowe (ex SAS and Australian - it is broached
but not fully explained) makes a daring rescue in Chechnya. Savour this
bit of action - because it is the only suspenseful, interesting thing which
happens in the film. Because the real story is about Meg Ryan and her husband
David Morse in a thankfully fictional South American country.
David Morse
is Meg Ryan’s idealistic husband building a dam for an oil company. He
despises oil companies - as does hippy Ryan - but it is a means to an end.
Even if things are strained between them since she lost a child in Africa.
And then he gets kidnapped - and Crowe steps in. However the oil company
has not paid the insurance, so he leaves after getting a piece of mind
from Ryan - Schtop Schtop! This film isn’t ready yet. Have they never heard
of script editors. Proof Of Life has too much plot. Far too much plot.
Therefore it is too long, and nothing of interest happens in it. Is there
any reason why the non-payment of insurance plotline is brought in? It
adds twenty minutes to the film, removes all of the tension in the early
part of the film and we know he is going to come back. The dead baby
also eats up ten minutes of tedious confessional. It may add the most rudimentary
colour to the character, but is frankly manipulative and feels it. Ryan’s
character merely simpers through the film and tries to pretend there is
some chemistry between her and Crowe. There is none. The doomed love story
is a damp squib. A damp squib which takes up another half an hour.
Did I mention
David Morse in all of this. He does the full Castaway as the husband, kidnapped
and dragged around the country for no obvious reason. His sections of the
film are the most interesting - but we are well aware the film does not
want them to be the focal point. If that is the case, why show us so much.
Abandoned sub-plots litter the film, characters just go AWOl without any
reason. True the whole thing is supposed to take place over four months
- but that is no reason for the caption Day 124 to feel like you really
have been in the cinema for that long. When we finally get to the action
sequence it is a pale retread of the sequence at the beginning of Predator
- albeit with a cheesy lifesaving exchange between Morse and Crowe. This
is over scripted like the rest of the film. Over scripted, over plotted
and under-edited.
Taylor Hackford
has succeeded in making a truly dreadful film in Proof Of Life. The only
people who come of it with any dignity are David Morse and David Caruso
- who manages to squeeze in an entertaining turn as Crowe’s mate. Meg Ryan
sleepwalks, Crowe broods in Australian and the film goes on forever. As
a tragic love story it never reaches first base, as a thriller it is about
as thrilling as porridge. Like the magazine it was inspired by it is all
surface not depth. Or as the tagline of Gladiator might have it, if used
for this movie : What We Do In Proof Of Life, Goes On For An Eternity.
(1)
IF THIS
MOVIE WAS A CAR CRASH: Predator destroys The English Patient - in its dreams.
Pushing
Tin
I've already
mentioned my abject failure to see Being John Malkovitch in my review of
Nang Nak. So having fulfilled my obligation to the London Film Festival
there and then, there was still a stone unturned. I had an obligation to
John Cusack, I had to go see a film with him in it. Hence a brief schlep
to Holloway to see Pushing Tin - a buddy comedy drama about - er - air
traffic controllers. A film which had been bobbing about for a bit, and
I had not got round to picking up - despite a fine cast and....
You see,
straight away, the problem with Pushing Tin is apparent from the get go.
I don't care how stressful the job of air traffic controller is. It is
not sexy. The film recognises this early doors, as it shows the pathetic
specimens trying to pull some girls, who are thoroughly unimpressed. The
film acknowledges this, yet continues to spend a weary two hours ten minutes
showing us the trials and tribulations of two Top Gun air traffic controllers.
Indeed I was suprised that this was not a Simpson/Bruckheimer (or at least
a Bruckheimer) flick, as it follows almost to the letter their three act
story line. (Show someone is the best, knock him down a peg or two, to
make him stronger and triumphant in the third act). So it has a pretty
cliched plot, and a central premise which is not all that interesting.
So what has it got in its favour?
As I said
before, it has a sterling cast. It would have to, because the key to casting
any buddy/male bonding/one upmanship drama is in setting antagonists who
really do appear to hate each other. Pushing Tin luckily has Billy Bob
Thornton (playing his Southern zen master as opposed to his vaguely retarded
yokel) and John Cusack firing on all cylinders as a fast talking, neurotic
New Yorker. The film rises and falls on their uncomfortable relationship,
and therefore manages to rises for at least some of the time above its
already inate flaws. Indeed the first fifteen minutes are a particularily
good showcase of Cusack's talents, from both supremely confident to the
vaguely bored motormouth. It is almost a pity when Billy Bob Thornton turns
up, as we know that this will send this Cusack's likeable, very watchable
character in directions we might not want to watch. The sight of this pair
going to increasingly childish levels to get even is just uncomfortable
- this is not pitched as a farce, and needs not to get to that level.
The film
was written by Les and Glen Charles (creators of Cheers) and they do imbue
the film with a sitcom sensibility. In a lot of ways the film would have
benefitted from being more of a sitcom. The work scenes do contain the
correct level of cameraderie, and it is in these scenes that the stress
of the job is apparent. However, we do not go to the flicks to see more
stressed people, at least not in a light comedy drama. The lightness of
the rest of the script is what really lets it down. This could have been
a very black comedy, or a very serious examination of stressful occupations.
Instead its just Woody Allen done very, very lightly with no real drama
to hang the thing on. The actors do their best, Cate Blanchett in particular
is yet again very impressive in a role that does not allow her much leeway.
But in the end, they cannot escape the boundaries of the project.
Pushing
Tin whiles its hours away aimiably, but never really gets to the heart
of the matter. It does not have a thesis, there is no central theme to
tag the film on. As a high concept movie it fails by having a lousy concept,
and no great action scenes to hang any form of redemption on. It is acted
well, and directed in the most perfunctory of manners (Mike Newell, not
the flashiest director in the world you've got to admit). There are a few
good lines, and John Cusack is always more than watchable. But in the end,
air traffic controllers are not interesting, and so Pushing Tin isn't either.
(5)
IF THIS
FILM WERE A CAR CRASH: Die Hard 2 meets Kramer vs Kramer with abit of Top
Gun, and the oodles of Cheers slapped into it. Its a mess.
