Recent Release Reviewed: The Limits of Control

Starring: Isaach de Bankolé, Paz de la Huerta, Tilda Swinton, John Hurt, Gael García Bernal, Luis Tosar, Bill Murray
Written and directed by: Jim Jarmusch

An enigmatic hitman is hired to perform a job in Spain. Along the way he meets various people who talk to him about different subjects.

I've always been a Jarmusch fan. I understood when some people complained about his films were too slow, too knowing. I didn't mind. I liked them. However, The Limits of Control, a film Jarmusch has referred to as his "inaction movie", is so deliberately slow and uneventful that it's very difficult to enjoy, even for his most ardent admirers.

It's not exactly a new tactic that Jarmusch employs in this film, with the main character drifting along, meeting interesting people played by well-known character actors. Dead Man and Broken Flowers were very similar in that respect. However, both of those films had more going on than their cameos. In The Limits of Control, a huge amount of the film is spent following Lone Man on his silent journey, connecting with no one. Chris Doyle's photography makes Spain look wonderful, and de Bankolé is effortlessly cool, but after a while the inaction becomes draining.

There are moments of humour, mostly delivered by Paz de la Huerta as The Nude, who manages to make her performance as memorable as her consistent lack of clothing. There's something wonderful, too, about a film that gives Tilda Swinton such a marvelous slo-mo entrance and exit, clad in white cowboy hat and peroxide wig, twirling a clear plastic umbrella.

So, basically what you want to watch in this film are the cameos. Don't assume that the fantastic cast will be on screen for long. With the exception of de Bankolé and de la Huerta, no one appears for longer than five minutes. All the scenes with the famous actors are structured the same, with an actor you recognise approaching de Bankolé, asking him if he speaks Spanish, delivering a monologue on a subject such as art, cinema, science, and bohemian culture, then giving our man a matchbox. These range from well-played and interesting (Swinton gives an enthusiastic turn and looks very cool, Hurt manages to imbue his character with a nice bit of weariness and cynicism), to forgettable or misjudged (Bernal's oddball "Mexican" isn't funny enough). Finally Bill Murray appears as the target, and feels like he's walked into the wrong film.

So, it's safe to assume this is an experiment film. It's a comment on what we expect from our movies. We expect things to happen. Or, even in films where nothing happens, we expect it to be entertaining, or interesting. There are quite long sequences of the film that are somehow very watchable despite the lack of incident, but for non-fans those scenes will feel like death. The Limits of Control shows flashes of classic Jarmusch, but, for too much of its running time, it's an infuriating test.

5/10 (for Jarmusch fans)
3/10 (for people who don't like his films)

Recent Release Reviewed: The Losers

Starring: Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Zoe Saldana, Idris Elba, Chris Evans
Screenplay: Peter Berg and James Vanderbilt, based on the comic by Andy Diggle and Jock
Director: Sylvain White

"That's right, bitches. I got a crossbow"

The Losers are an elite military unit. While on a mission in South America, they are betrayed by the mysterious Max (Jason Patric) and left for dead. Enter Aisha (Saldana), a femme fatale with an alluring proposition: She'll get them back into the States and help them find Max.

I'll admit it. I've got a weakness for well-orchestrated action films. I'll go on and on about Jim Jarmusch or Lars von Trier, but every now and then I'll get a craving for a Bad Boys, a Point Break, or a Con Air. And while The Losers might not be up there with the best of the guilty pleasures crowd, it's damn entertaining. And in the interests of full disclosure, I should mention that I watched this shortly after The Limits of Control (review forthcoming), so perhaps I enjoyed it more than I might have normally.

Sure, it's basically plotless. There's a MacGuffin about Max trying to buy some sort of weapon that disintegrates matter....or something. But I didn't watch The Losers for that. I watched it for the cast, and the promise of quip-filled action scenes. And it did not disappoint on that score. Yes, it's the kind of movie in which the characters wisecrack while dodging bullets. And, you know what? I have no problem with that. In the minus column, it's violence is restrained thanks to the PG-13 rating. Our guys mostly use tranquilizer darts and over-elaborate schemes to get around the baddies. And hey, that's fine. It's only during the last stretch that you wish that White would cut loose a little as the bloodless explosions pile up.

However, this can't take away from the cast. Watchmen's Jeffrey Dean Morgan enjoys his first lead role as the gruff team commander Clay, Avatar's Zoe Saldana clearly has fun not having to deliver all her dialogue with po-faced sincerity, and Idris Elba is solid as Clay's second-in-command Roque. Columbus Short and Óscar Jaenada round out The Losers as the family man vehicles expert and taciturn sniper respectively. Best of the bunch, however, is Chris Evans as nerdy communications man Jensen. He gets the best lines and makes the most of them with a comic timing and enthusiasm that bodes very well for Scott Pilgrim. Also, he almost manages to pry Journey's Don't Stop Believin' from Glee's syrupy grasp.

When we're following The Losers, everything is entertaining and fine. Things do go off the rails a bit when the focus shifts to Max, the gloved villain. Jason Patric does a very good job, reminding us that he was supposed to have a comeback after Narc, but the fact is that the story, beyond "revenge", is very weak. There are some funny moments (a misunderstanding of a nod from Max means that a man is thrown off a roof rather than slapped), but we want to get back to our heroes.

The bottom line is that there's enough here to keep us entertained, and entertained well. There's also more than enough promise to make me hope for a sequel. It's always refreshing when the "funny quips" are actually funny, and the chemistry that the cast share is fantastic. The Losers isn't perfect, but it's damn good fun. If you think this sounds like the kind of film you'd enjoy, chances are you will.

7/10

Recent Release Reviewed: The Killer Inside Me

Starring: Casey Affleck, Kate Hudson, Jessica Alba, Tom Bower, Elias Koteas

Screenplay: John Curran and Michael Winterbottom, based on the novel by Jim Thompson

Director: Michael Winterbottom

"I love you."

In a small town in Texas in 1952, deputy Sheriff Lou Ford (Affleck) is told to convince prostitute Joyce Lakeland (Alba) to leave. Instead, he begins a violent affair with her, hiding the truth from his girlfriend Amy Stanton (Hudson). But a con involving the son of local tycoon Chester Conway (Ned Beatty) will soon reveal Ford's true nature.

N.B. This is my review. I thought I'd be much more impressed by this film. As it is, all that stuck with me when I left the cinema was the shock of the violent scenes. The rest of the film seemed almost incidental. Ben will write his review of the film when he's seen it, and he may well disagree with me entirely!

All the controversy surrounding Winterbottom's adaptation of Thompson's cult novel put me in mind of another film accused of misogyny: Lars von Trier's Antichrist. But while Antichrist see

med to revel in it's genre trappings, Winterbottom takes great pains to keep focus on the characters rather than the desert landscape or the 50s small town setting. Which begs the question, why set it there at all? I'll talk more about that later, but aside from a virtuoso opening title sequence, there's little other than the cars and the smoking to place The Killer Inside Me in the 1950s. The fact that Lou's a cop is only important in that he gains people's trust. As a waitress points out, he doesn't even carry a gun.

The three central performances are superb. Affleck's turn as Lou Ford, the every-man with the pitch dark soul, has drawn a lot of comparisons to his work as Robert Ford. However, while Robert was ultimately a somewhat tragic figure. Lou is a monster. While it might have been expected to cast an actor with a somewhat more cheerful demeanour to make the transition more chilling, Affleck's focus, and that horrifying little grin when he lets himself go, makes the central character chillingly magnetic. There's also the fact that Lou doesn't have a transition. People call him a nice guy, but we see very little evidence of that.

Alba shows a vital sadness and heart to the role of Joyce, the prostitute who is convinced that Lou is going to run away with her. The same goes for Hudson in the part of Amy, who initially seems to have more smarts and backbone but makes the exact same mistakes. Both actresses are normally to be seen in more family-friendly, upbeat fare, and both excel here. It's their old-fashioned movie-star good looks, personality and soulful eyes that make it so hard to watch when things take a horrible turn.

In terms of story, Winterbottom keeps focus solely on Lou. We see the world through his eyes, and hear his subdued world view through voice-over. For the first 20-30 minutes, this is gripping. After that, it settles into a disappointing sort of monotony. Because of this, there is a lot going on with the plot that we don't know about, and any supporting characters are pretty much incidental. This does mean that we have no one to root for. The two men closest to figuring out the truth are DA Howard Hendricks (Simon Baker), who needles and works Lou but can't quite catch him on a lie, and union man Joe Rothman (Elias Koteas), who's only concerned that the he and the union can't be seen to be to blame. Of the two, Howard is marginally more heroic, but neither seem to be especially likeable.

Winterbottom's aim seems to be to take a period which we tend to view with rose-tinted glasses and place scenes of horrible violence into it. But while it's well-shot and superbly acted (Beatty is excellent, as are Tom Bower as Lou's kindly boss, Brent Briscoe as a drunk drifter, and Bill Pullman in a fun cameo), there's nothing terribly compelling about the film other than its shock value. Once one of the women is horrifically dispatched, the rest of the film deals with Lou laconically covering his tracks, and waiting for that temper to reappear. The scenes of violence against women are unflinching in their honesty and are difficult to watch. Accusations of misogyny are misplaced, but frankly there's not much here that Joe Wright and Keira Knightley's PSA didn't cover.

I disagree with some of the flak the film has received, but not all of it. See it for Affleck, Alba and Hudson, and a couple of excellent scenes. However, there are a couple of tough-to-forgive missteps and it's surprisingly light on dramatic tension.

6.5/10

Ten Characters Played By: Michael Wincott

First off, we apologize for the delay. Been a long time.
Anyway, we love Michael Wincott. Suave, gravel-voiced, and very talented, he's one of the best at playing those who are off centre. So, here's a look at ten characters played by our man Wincott:

1. Matthew, Curtains (1983)
OK, so he doesn't actually have a single line in this. But the film is an underrated, genuinely creepy little horror, in which a film director (John Vernon) holds auditions for a leading lady in a big house in the woods. Needless to say, someone starts killing the hopeful leading ladies one by one. Wincott plays Matthew, Vernon's assistant, and swaggers into the film, louche and mysterious, sleeps with one of the actresses in the hot tub and is killed off early. All without saying a word. Alright, so maybe Matthew's not his best character. Good film, though.


2. Guy of Gisborne, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991)
"Might I have the pleasure of your name, before I run you through?"
Now we're talking. The best thing about Kevin Costner's cheesy, overblown version of the Robin Hood story were its villains, played with great relish by Alan Rickman and Michael Wincott. They got the best lines, and they knew it. Wincott's sniveling, cowardly villainy works wonderfully next to Rickman's grand pride and vanity. He'll shoot his mouth off when he's backed up by an army, but he still gets run through by his cousin the Sheriff. And he's stupid enough to question why the Sheriff would threaten someone with a spoon.


3. Top Dollar, The Crow (1994)
"I'm sorry if I spoiled your wedding plans there, friend. But, if it's any consolation to you, you have put a smile on my face."
Top Dollar, the villain of Alex Proyas' superb adaptation of James O'Barr's Gothic revenge comic, is perhaps Wincott's best-remembered performance, and with good reason. In a film that will always have Brandon Lee's shadow hanging over it (He died during filming), the fact is that when Wincott is on screen, you're watching him. As a villain, he's full of contradictions, going from introspective and melancholy to joyful murderous excess at the drop of a hat. That's what makes him impossible to forget. There's the creepy incestuous relationship with his sister, the obviously traumatic childhood ("Dad gave me this. Fifth birthday. He said "Childhood's over the day you know you're gonna die"), the acceptance of Eric Draven's supernatural abilities, and the relish with which he accepts the challenge. The Crow may not be the masterpiece its fans herald it as, but it is an excellent film, and a lot of that is due to Wincott.



4. Conway Twill, Dead Man (1994)
"I'll Tell you one thing: If that there Blake fella keeps on shootin' marshalls I might end up likin' the bastard!"
Wincott's performance in Jim Jarmusch's oddball western Dead Man has a different balance to his previous roles. Conway Twill is a bad man, one of three hired guns charged with hunting down William Blake (Johnny Depp), but his drinking and dirty jokes are nothing compared to the past acts (cannibalism, incest) of fellow mercenary Cole Wilson (Lance Henriksen. Here, Wincott lends a much needed sense of levity to the proceedings. Twill's a simple man wandering through Jarmusch's bizarre landscape, one of the few characters not prone to double meanings and symbolism. He's out of tabacco, impressed by Blake's shooting of Marshalls, and unsettled by his employer's tendency to talk to a stuffed bear. He's funny, and becomes more and more likeable, but is obviously doomed by his decision to ride with Wilson.


5. Philo Gant, Strange Days (1995)
"Paranoia is just reality on a finer scale"
Kathryn Bigelow's sci-fi, written by James Cameron, is an odd one. Not good enough for "cult classic" status, but certainly not bad enough to be completely forgotten. Wincott plays the interestingly named Philo Gant, a record producer who's stolen our hero Lenny Nero's (Ralph Fiennes) rocker girlfriend (Juliette Lewis). Of course, given that he's played by Wincott, he's clearly a bad man, and the prime suspect when brutal murders start happening around Lenny. He's also such an obvious bastard that it's not much of a surprise when he turns out to be a red herring. Still, that's what Lenny gets for having Tom Sizemore for a best friend...Not Wincott's best performance, but he does well with an underwritten part.


6. Rene Ricard, Basquiat (1996)
"When I speak no one believes me, but when I write it down everybody knows it to be true"
Wincott followed his OTT villainy with a wonderfully sensitive performance as art critic/prophet Rene Ricard in Julian Schnabel's Jean-Michel Basquiat biopic. He puts that gravelly voice to a different use as the man who discovered Basquiat and set him up with his first show. Rene is flashy and flamboyant ("My God, you sound famous already) but easily hurt. The scene in which he watches Basquiat sell a painting previously dedicated to him to Warhol's manager (Dennis Hopper) is heartbreaking, as he storms out of the gallery. He reappears at a celebratory dinner, insults Warhol, and delivers the film's central message: "We're no longer collecting art; we're buying people." In a film packed with stars (Bowie! Dafoe! Walken! Hopper! Oldman!), Wincott's performance brings the heart. It should also be mentioned that Jeffrey Wright is terrific in the title role.


7. Frank Elgyn, Alien: Resurrection (1998)
"I'm guessing what you've got going on here ain't exactly approved by Congress?"
There's a lot wrong with Jean-Pierre Jeunet's Alien sequel, scripted for Joss Whedon. Fortunately, Michael Wincott's not one of them. A popular theory is that the gang of crooks that Elgyn leads was a blueprint for Firefly's loveable band of rogues, and it certainly applies for some of the characters (Ron Perlman's Johner is almost identical to Adam Baldwin's Jayne). However, Elgyn is certainly not Captain Mal. You wouldn't get Nathan Fillion referring to one of his crew as "severely fuckable." Elgyn wisecracks his way through the first twenty minutes, showing no concern for the morality of his mission, and proceeds to suffer one of the most frustratingly stupid deaths in the film. Note: If a gun is covered in slime, best to leave it. Don't keep walking down the corridor.


8. Heberto Zorilla Ochoa, Before Night Falls (2000)
Wincott re-teamed with Basquiat director Schnabel for this superb Reinaldo Arenas biopic. It's a small role, but a memorable one. Ochoa introduces Arenas (Javier Bardem) to the literary elite in Havana. In his most memorable scene, Ochoa is forced to testify before a tribunal. As sweat runs down his face and his voice trembles, we're reminded how well Wincott can portray vulnerability.


9. Julius Bicke, The Assassination of Richard Nixon (2004)
"As of this moment, I wash my hands of you"
It's fair to say that this film is pretty much a one-man show, with a superb central performance from Sean Penn as the mentally unstable Samuel Bicke, despite good work from Naomi Watts and Don Cheadle. Wincott has one scene late in the film, as Samuel's severe brother. He reveals that Samuel has stolen from him, and disowns him. There's nothing big or flashy here, just a solid depiction of solemn authority. The film's worth hunting down, too.


10. Hayes, Seraphim Falls (2006)
"I never was much for scripture"
The decision to cast Pierce Brosnan and Liam Neeson in a gritty chase Western is an odd one, no question. However, it's difficult to argue with the casting of Wincott as Hayes, the foul-mouthed, callous gun-hand hired by Carver (Neeson) to help him hunt Gideon (Brosnan). Asked by a young colleague how to spell "wife", Hayes tells him "W-H-O-R-E". It may not be a complex part, but it's a pleasure to watch his obvious discomfort as he and Neeson take shelter in a Christian missionary camp. As for the film, it's underrated but takes an ill-advised turn for the dream-like in the final third.