Recent Release Reviewed: Predators

Starring: Adrien Brody, Alice Braga, Topher Grace, Laurence Fishburne, Walton Goggins

Screenplay: Alex Litvak, Michael Finch, based on a script by Robert Rodriguez

Director: Nimród Antal

A group of killers, including soldiers, mercenaries, and criminals, are dropped into a jungle. They quickly realise that they are being hunted, and they are no longer on Earth.

Unlike the Alien movies, the Predator films have never been big on scares. At their best, they're tense chase films, or big fun stupid action movies. This latest effort, guided through production by avowed fanboy Robert Rodriguez, attempts to combine the two, with a clear intention to summon the spirit of the first film. It's not entirely successful, but it's entertaining enough.

We start by being introduced to the team of killers. Brody's performance as de-facto leader Royce is surprisingly solid, despite the Christian Bale voice, while Alice Braga gives good support as the more empathetic sniper. The rest of the cast are rounded out by the usual stereotypes: Giant Russian, silent Yakuza, odd-man-out (Grace), and Danny Trejo. Most fun, however, is Walton Goggins (The Shield, Justified) as depraved death-row inmate Stans, who gets all the best lines. Fishburne also seems to be having a great time in an extended cameo as "The one you don't fuck with."

Made for a relatively modest $40 million, it's competently directed by Nimród Antal, who beat directors like Michael J. Bassett (Wilderness, Solomon Kane) and Neil Marshall to the gig. It would have been great to see what Marshall would have done with this, but never mind, eh? There's some decent chase sequences, the Predator designs are updated with varying degrees of success (do we really need new masks?), and the Predator-vision brings a warm fuzzy feeling to those of us who are fans.

However, there's never really any sense of surprise. It's pretty easy to spot which of Royce's band of rogues is next to go, and once we get over the fun of the premise, with our anti-heroes stranded on an alien planet, the structure is basically identical to the first movie. While Predator 2 was undoubtedly flawed, it did at least shake things up by bringing the monster to Los Angeles. Certain plot-points are mishandled, specifically one character twist that is revealed far too late in proceedings to make any impact.

Predators is far superior to the Alien vs. Predator movies, which is damning it with faint praise, but it's also a decent sci-fi action film that does restore a little dignity to the franchise. It's no masterpiece, and it doesn't hold a candle to the first movie, but it's a fun ride.

6.5/10

Recent Release Reviewed: Life During Wartime

Starring: Shirley Henderson, Allison Janney, Ciarán Hinds, Paul Reubens, Michael Lerner, Ally Sheedy, Michael Kenneth Williams, Chris Marquette

Written and directed by: Todd Solondz

Several years after the events of Happiness, the characters of that film are still struggling along. Joy (Henderson) is questioning her marriage to Allen (Williams), a perverted criminal who is trying to reform. She travels to Florida to visit her sister Trish (Janney) who thinks she may have finally found a normal man in Harvey (Lerner), and may be able to forget her paedophile ex Bill (Hinds). However, Bill has just been released from prison and heads to Florida to ask oldest son Billy (Marquette) for forgiveness. But while Billy knows the truth, his little brother Timmy is preparing for his bat mitzvah, and has realised that his mother was lying when she told him that his father was dead.

Back in 1998, Happiness was one of the most controversial films around. It looked frankly and with some sympathy at what were mostly unlikeable characters. It was tough to watch but impossible to forget. It's strange that, over ten years later, Solondz has decided to revisit them. He's always seemed like a director with no interest in commercial success, so it's safe to assume that this sequel wasn't made for financial reasons. Indeed, with a completely new cast, Life During Wartime doesn't feel like a follow-up.

The big strength here is the film's cast. Solondz has found a group of actors worthy of their predecessors. Shirley Henderson steps in Jane Adams, Allison Janney for Cynthia Stevenson, Ciarán Hinds for Dylan Baker, Ally Sheedy for Lara Flynn Boyle, Michael Kenneth Williams for Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Paul Ruebens for Jon Lovitz. Henderson is excellent, playing a woman starting to wonder if her perpetual optimism has been for nothing, as is Janney, whose Trish is determined to believe that things are finally getting better. The standout, however, is Hinds, bringing a crushing gravitas to Bill, who knows that he can't hope for forgiveness.

For the most part, Life During Wartime doesn't really say anything new. It's neither as shocking as Happiness (nothing here matches Dylan Baker's confessional scene with his son), nor as funny. The jokes about saying inappropriate things in front of family members and medicating children seem a little like Solondz going back over old ground. There are moments, however, when it works. Joy's hau nted by the ghost of Andy (Reuebens), who is desperate to sleep with her, then screams abuse when she turns him down. Reubens' is creepily effective, playing off Henderson's determination to be kind very well. A scene between Bill and Jacqueline (Rampling), a bitter woman who picks him in a bar, resonates, too, with both characters certain of the pointlessness of hoping for forgiveness. "Only losers expect to get it," she spits. Hinds' scene with Marquette is also superbly played, but to discuss that too much would be to spoil one of the best moments of the film.

It's certainly an interesting experiment to see this characters with different faces so many years later. Life During Wartime is occasionally very sharp indeed, and the performances are excellent. However, it doesn't really seem like the ideas abou t forgiveness have enough meat to drive a whole film, and frankly there's not that much new ground being covered here.

6/10

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

Recent Release Reviewed: The Box

The Box
Starring: Cameron Diaz, James Marsden, Frank Langella, James Rebhorn, Gillian Jacobs
Screenplay: Richard Kelly, based on the short story Button, Button by Richard Matheson
Director: Richard Kelly

1976. Things are tough for Norma and Arthur Lewis. He's a NASA scientist who's been turned down for astronaut training. She's a teacher at a private school, and has been informed that the school will no longer pay for their son's tuition. Enter the mysterious, gruesomely scarred Arlington Steward, bearing a box with a button. Press it, and they will be paid a million dollars. The consequence is that someone, somewhere in the world who they do not know will die.

First things first: I thought I'd like The Box. And after I watched it, I found that I didn't. Now, my opinion may well change after a second viewing; there is a lot in the film, I think, that would benefit from a re-watch. But this first time left me cold. Richard Kelly's return to cinema after the roundly derided Southland Tales is a very mixed bag. The big plus is that it's a great moral conundrum that the characters have to face. Financial security weighed against the life of a stranger. And to the characters' credit, it's a decision that they don't take lightly. But they do take it. And it's there that the story begins to slip. It's obvious from the get-go that Steward isn't telling them everything, but the morality of their decision is inescapable. And it's not a spoiler to tell you that they make the wrong choice. Otherwise, there would be no film.

A big problem lies in the casting. Of course, the Lewis family isn't exactly on the poverty line. Both Arthur and Norma have good jobs. As Arthur points out, they don't need a million dollars to be happy. The film is set in Virginia, which means that Diaz is playing a Southern housewife, which, contrary to other reviews, she does not pull off. Just because she's now age-appropriate, it doesn't mean the actress can get away with giving what is a fundamentally bad performance. The Luthers also have a son, which the characters only seem to remember when it's necessary for the story. As Norma becomes more and more distraught, Diaz' performance frays at the seams. Marsden fares better in an admittedly less challenging role, but suffers the same pitfalls towards the final third. That said, the two actors work best when they are with each other. A sub-plot involving Arthur creating a prosthetic for Norma's disfigured foot is performed gently and sweetly by the two leads. But generally, I did find myself wondering if the film would have worked better with different actors in the roles of the Luthers. Of the leads, only Frank Langella finds the happy medium between auto-pilot and ham as the enigmatic Steward, giving the occasional twitch of empathy even as his incredibly cruel mission continues onwards

There's also a unforgivablewaste of the supporting talent. Celia Weston and Holmes Osborne are given little to do as Norma's parents, and deserve much more screen-time. Osborne was fantastic as the father in Donnie Darko, while Weston (Observe and Report, Igby Goes Down, Junebug) seems condemned to play drunken inadequate Southern moms for the rest of her career (admittedly, she does it very well). Superb character actor James Rebhorn (The Game, The Talented Mr. Ripley, Carlito's Way) is given even less in what is potentially the most interesting character in the film, as Arthur's boss who uncovers the truth surrounding Steward. Frankly, a film based around him would have made for a much more compelling movie. There is also good work from Community star Gillian Jacobs as the Luthers' babysitter who may be linked to Seward.

As for the story, it has its twists and turns but is finally fairly straightforward. There's no room for interpretation here, as there was in Donnie Darko, and Richard Kelly refuses to get lost in the twists and turns as he did in Southland Tales. But this means that some of the more interesting aspects end up unexplored. For all of Southland Tales' faults (and there were many), it did not lack for ambition. I'm not criticising The Box for keeping it's focus relatively tight, but the film's decision to not explore the grander scheme means that the it lives and dies by its lead characters. And frankly I found it difficult to care. I'm not against movie-star casting, and I understand why it was necessary for Kelly to cast a big-name (otherwise a film like this would not have been made in the studio system), but the star must be able to make us forget that we're watching a star. Diaz simply does not work here.

The Box is certainly not a disaster, however. Kelly has a knack for the unnerving, and several sequences here will have you at the edge of your seat, provided that you are willing to go along with it. Seward informs Norma that he has many employees, dead-eyed nose-bleeders who trail our heroes wherever they go. The best use of this, however, is during a scene in which Gillian Jacobs' babysitter sees a shadow outside the window. A similar sequence, in which we actually see one of these men watching Norma from her yard works well, but not as well as before. By the time crowds of these people are following Arthur and Norma around a library, it's a trick repeated once too often.

It's worth watching The Box. I suspect that I might have enjoyed it more in a different mood, or if I watch it again. There are scenes in the film that will remind you why we all went ga-ga over Richard Kelly in the first place. The 1976 setting is rendered beautifully, from the costumes to the set-design, and the NASA-Mars connection is certainly intriguing. I'm favourably inclined to films that aren't afraid to embrace more fantastical and bizarre influences, particularly from this period, but I do think that by the second act, in which Richard is forced to choose a wormhole, you'll know which side of the fence you're on. I do think that Button, Button may have best been left as a short story, however. A noble effort, perhaps. But there is too much here that does not work for The Box to be a success.

6/10

Recent Release Reviewed: Kick-Ass

Kick-Ass
Starring: Aaron Johnson, Chloe Moretz, Nicolas Cage, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Mark Strong
Screenplay: Jane Goldman and Matthew Vaughn based on the comic by Mark Millar and John Romita Jr.
Director: Matthew Vaughn

"Tool up, Honey-bunny. It's time to get bad guys"

Dave Lizewski is a regular, nerdy high school nobody until he decides to put on a costume and fight crime as Kick-Ass. After being so badly beaten that his nerve endings are too damaged to feel pain, he starts winning fights and becomes an internet sensation. But he's not the only costumed crime-fighter in town. Soon he meets Hit Girl and Big Daddy, a father-daughter duo who are taking their vigilantism is a bit more seriously and racking up quite the body count.

During the first scene in which the well-intentioned but basically inept Dave meets Hit Girl, he spends most of the scene cowering on the floor while the 11 year-old child dismembers a room full of bad guys, wisecracking and grinning. The look on his face his pure terror. The look on hers is glee. This sums up in a very simplistic fashion a viewer's response to watching Kick-Ass. Yes, it's shocking to see this young girl kill so many people in superbly and imaginatively choreographed set-pieces. But it's damn entertaining.

But let's start at the beginning. This is the third feature for director Matthew Vaughn after Layer Cake and Stardust, and his second with co-writer Goldman. It's also his best by quite some way. While Stardust benefited hugely from a sense of humour to offset the fantastical story-line, Kick-Ass benefits from moments of straight-faced darkness that remind us that this mostly comedic film is set in the real world. Dave's mother wasn't killed by a mobster, she was killed by a brain aneurysm. People do get hurt, and characters do get killed. Of course, that doesn't mean that the film lacks comic fantasy.

The film starts as a funny riff on Spider-Man, with Dave Lizewski (played well by Nowhere Boy's Aaron Johnson) growing bored of his inconsequential life, hanging out with his friends and the comic book store and being regularly mugged. When he asks his friends why no one has tried it before, the answer is simple: "Because they'd get their ass kicked!". They're not wrong. His first attempts at fighting crime end shockingly violently, and lead to his "super-power". Dave's action scenes are believable and painful.

While these scenes are good, they pale in comparison to those featuring Hit Girl and Big Daddy. We're introduced to the two characters as he is about to shoot her in the chest with a hand-gun to show her that there's nothing to be afraid of. "I wouldn't be afraid anyway" she tells him, but puts up with it. Their real identities are Damon and Mindy Macready, who are working their way up towards mob boss Frank D'Amico (Mark Strong). It's been a while since Nicolas Cage has been this good. We're used to seeing him play quirky, but there's a heart and a sadness here that is too often missing from the actor's work. His performance is an excellent combination of comic oddity, paternal tenderness, and dark hints at psychosis.

Then there's Chloe Moretz. Kick-Ass would be a far inferior film were it not for her performance. She manages not to coast by on the fact that her character is violent and swears a lot, giving a geniunely witty turn and hinting that there may be a little girl inside. It's not too big a hint though. Mostly, she just enjoys killing bad guys. My hopes for the Let the Right One In remake have gone up after this film. The cast is rounded out by Christopher Mintz-Plasse (Superbad's McLovin) playing the geeky son of Frank D'Amico who dresses up as crime-fighter Red Mist and Mark Strong as D'Amico himself, who has a lot of fun as the increasingly furious mob boss.

The action is handled well by Vaughn, and for the most part the film manages not to betray its meager budget. The set-pieces match the tone of the film: startling violent but comically over-the-top. The "New York" streets do occasionally look like a sound-stage but not too often. The soundtrack is also impressive, making excellent use of pieces of music from 28 Days Later and Sunshine in amongst the catchy pop-rock.

This most certainly isn't for everyone, but if you found the trailers funny, the film is fantastic. It's hilarious, shocking, exciting, and frankly kick-ass. Also, it's got that rare thing: The good Nicolas Cage performance. Catch it!

8/10

Very foul-mouthed Hit-Girl trailer:

Recent Release Reviewed: The House of the Devil

The House of the Devil
Starring: Jocelin Donahue, Tom Noonan, Mary Woronov, Greta Gerwig
Written and directed by: Ti West

"Are you not the babysitter?"

1980s. A title card explains that during the 1980s over 70% of Americans believed in the existence of abusive Satanic cults. College student Samatha (Donahue) needs cash, fast. She's just found her dream apartment, but has to raise the deposit before the weekend. Desperate, she finds a flyer advertising a babysitting job for Mr. Ullman (Noonan). Mr. Ullman sounds creepy on the phone, but he's willing to pay her well for a single night's work. When she and her friend Megan go up to their huge house in the middle of nowhere, Ullman reveals that he wasn't entirely truthful. Megan thinks they should leave, but Samantha decides to take the job anyway...

The House of the Devil is a love-letter to films from the 1970s and 1980s. From the poster to the soundtrack, from the "based on true unexplained events" premise to the clothes and colour palette, everything is beautifully reminiscent of a past era of horror film-making. It's also really rather good. The last time a film was promoted in a similar fashion we got the underwhelming Grindhouse, with it's great trailers and posters but disappointing substance (although I do like Planet Terror). The House of the Devil is a different animal. For those expecting an exploitation film due to the poster and the tagline, that's part of the joke. Spooky films like Halloween and Rosemary's Baby seem to be the touchstones here. A big clue with regards to tone should be the presence of Larry Fessenden as producer, who wrote and directed low-key horror films Wendigo and The Last Winter.

Ti West has become the next big horror director thanks to this film, and based on the evidence presented here, it's a deserved title. His first film, The Roost, wasn't great but was well-intentioned and boasted a great Tom Noonan cameo, and from all accounts Cabin Fever 2 is awful, but West has disowned it as a product of studio meddling. Here, he shows a very impressive handling of pace and tension, as well as proving adept at building menace.

Jocelin Donahue is a great discovery as Samantha. Apart from looking the part, she carries the film with a believable performance as her growing apprehension leads to terror. Mary Woronov is appropriately creepy as Mrs. Ullman, who makes odd references to the Ullman family history, and Greta Gerwig (who's been getting raves for Greenberg) makes for a excellently sarky and funny best friend. There's also a nice cameo from Dee Wallace (formerly Dee Wallace Stone) as "The Landlady".

The real star of the film, however, is Tom Noonan as Mr. Ullman. It's hard to think of another actor who can make creepy so sympathetic. With another actor, Mr. Ullman's dialogue would become typical "horror movie villain" dialogue. But with Noonan, there's always the possibility in the back of the viewer's mind that Ullman is geniuinely well-intentioned but keeps making a bad choice of words. "Oh, thank goodness. You're saving me. And I promise to make this as painless for you as possible." Of course, at the front of our minds is the thought that Ullman is up to no good. But his soft voice is so wonderfully at odds with his imposing height, dark suit and cane.

The House of the Devil goes at it's own pace. No suspicions are confirmed or dispelled until quite late into the film. We keep waiting for something to happen, which makes the sudden bursts of action really very shocking. An impatient viewer would call the film boring, but if you let yourself be immersed in the story and the atmosphere, The House of the Devil is one of the most rewarding horror films I've seen in a long time. And it is all about the atmosphere. This should appeal to horror fans, as well as those not usually drawn to the genre. It's a slow build rather than a gory blood-fest. And Tom Noonan is just excellent.

9/10

Recent Release Reviewed: Adventureland

Adventureland
Starring: Jesse Eisenberg, Kristen Stewart, Martin Starr, Bill Hader, Kristen Wiig, Ryan Reynolds
Written and directed by: Greg Mottola

1987. After graduating college, James Brennan is told by his parents that they can't afford to pay for his summer trip to Europe, not to mention Columbia University. Looking for a summer job to pay for tuition, he discovers that the only job he can get is working at Adventureland amusement park. While doing his crappy job, James falls for Em Lewin, but she's more complicated than he realises.

As you can probably tell from the above description, Adventureland isn't big on plot, but then it doesn't have to be. It's a fairly straight-forward, gentle coming of age tale that is funny, sensitive and touching. Mottola has said that the story is very personal to him and that a lot of it is based on his own experiences. It does feel heartfelt. While there are occasional nostalgic pangs for a different time (mostly through the soundtrack), it's not maudlin, and the film is often harshly critical of the late 1980s. Adult figures are either clueless or alcoholic, and everyone's getting laid off. James also realises that his college degree has left him undesirable for any job. "I majored in Comparative Literature and Renaissance Studies! Unless someone needs help restoring a fresco, I'm screwed!"

The strong ensemble cast is led by Jesse Eisenberg, who's been doing sterling work since the underrated Roger Dodger. James isn't quite as nerdy and socially awkward as some of the leads in recent comedies, he's believable and likeable. He's supported by Kristen Stewart, who handles the difficult role of the troubled Em well. Apatow regular Martin Starr shows that he can work wonders when given a character rather than a cameo as the bookish Joel, a character who has more depth than the usual "nerdy best friend". Ryan Reynolds gets to show off his dramatic chops as Connell, the handsome, cool repair-man who's something of a legend to the carnies because he once jammed with Lou Reed. Seemingly an older-brother figure to James, Connell quickly turns out to be less benevolent than he appears. Under-used but wonderful are SNL stars and blog favourites Kristen Wiig and Bill Hader as the park's managers, who are essentially used for comic relief. Apparently husband and wife, they're both not-all-there, and adorably committed to the park rather than the cruel tyrants you'd expect from a movie about a young character forced to work a crappy job. They're good enough to make you wish they had more screen-time.

Adventureland certainly isn't a straight-up comedy, in fact it's often quite dark. There are characters who are just there to add laughs when needed, such as Hader and Wiig, and James' friend Frigo (Matt Bush) who hits James in the nuts whenever he sees him. However, given the cheesy tag-line about the worst job ever leading to the best time of their lives, and the understandable wish to trade on the fact that Mottola directed Superbad, some viewers may be surprised that Adventureland isn't a raunchy teen comedy. Yes, there are scenes of drunken parties and weed-smoking, but the main thrust of the story is James realising that his time in college has barely prepared him for the real world. He's left open to bad advice from Connell, and sometimes does the wrong thing. This is not exactly a new structure for a film, but it's one that is very effective when done right. Here, Mottola knows and loves his characters and it comes through. Adventureland isn't going to change the genre,but it makes for a very enjoyable ninety minutes

7/10

Recent Release Reviewed: The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
Starring: Noomi Rapace, Michael Nyqvist, Lena Endre, Peter Haber, Sven-Bertil Taube
Screenplay: Nikolaj Arcel, Rasmus Heisterberg, based on the novel by Stieg Larsson
Director: Niels Arden Oplev

Disgraced journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Nyqvist) is contacted by old, incredibly wealthy industry tycoon Henrik Vanger (Taube). Henrik wants to find out what happened to his beloved niece Harriet, who disappeared 40 years ago, and has narrowed down the suspects to the members his family, many of whom have ties to Nazi groups. As Blomkvist relocates to the small village of Hedeby, where the Vangers live in wealthy isolation, troubled computer hacker and loner Lisbeth Salander (Rapace) gets wind of the investigation and decides to get involved.

The first of three Swedish films based on the incredibly popular Millennium trilogy gets things off to a very good start. The tragic story of Stieg Larsson, who died before the publication of the books, is movie-material itself, but The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo crams enough intrigue, murder, and violence to fill its two-and-a-half hour running time.

Almost inevitably, the fact that the film is in a foreign language has placed it in the arthouse arena. While it is beautifully shot and determined to go at its own pace, it's also very much a dark, violent, thriller reminiscent of Se7en and The Silence of the Lambs. It's a murder mystery based around a rich reclusive family, the main character is a journalist, there are red herrings and sudden shocking violence. The comparison to these 1990s genre films isn't supposed to be detrimental. In fact, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is probably as close as any film's come to that quality since.

Aside from its inherent Swedish-ness (Yes, that's a thing), three things really set this film apart from the many, many other films crowding the genre. The treatment of misogyny and violence against women, the two leading actors, and the character of Lisbeth Salander. The Swedish title translates as Men Who Hate Women, and that is accurate, to put it lightly. Of course, we know that victims of serial killers are traditionally women, but the film is uncommonly unflinching in it's depiction of the violence. These scenes are graphic, brutal and hard to watch. This ties in closely with Lisbeth Salander, who is clearly, by quite some way, the best thing that the film, and the book, has going for it. Excellently played by Noomi Rapace, Salander is a tattoed, pierced, Goth loner who has been abused by the system which has kept control of her since events in her youth. As the film starts she is placed under the care of a new guardian who clearly falls into the title's category. Lisbeth fights back, and keeps fighting throughout the whole of the film.

Rapace gives a very deft peformance. Tough yet vulnerable, she also shows a keen grasp of light comedy in her scenes with Michael Nyqvist, who also does excellent work in the role of Blomqvist. A Hollywood remake would presumably soften Lisbeth's rough edges, and either make Blomqvist about ten or fifteen years younger, or cast someone more conventionally attractive than Nyqvist, who resembles a slightly rounder Mathieu Almaric. Both actors deserve the attention they've been getting. The rest of the cast give very good performances, and special mention must go to Peter Andersson as Lisbeth's repulsive guardian.

Director Niels Arden Oplev does very well creating the oppressive atmosphere of the Vanger family compound, and he and the writers should be commended for the work they did compressing the novel, which was occasionally guilty of padding, into a film that, although perhaps a little long, suffers from few dead patches. Oplev has made a gripping, tense thriller that deserves an audience beyond the arthouse.

7.5/10

Recent Release Reviewed: 44 Inch Chest

44 Inch Chest
Starring: Ray Winstone, Ian McShane, John Hurt, Tom Wilkinson, Stephen Dillane, Joanne Whalley
Screenplay: Louis Mellis, David Scinto
Director: Malcolm Venville

"You're in the right, Colin. Remember that."

Colin Diamond (Winstone) is a broken man. His wife Liz (Whalley) has left him. Lying on the floor of his house surrounded by the debris of his rage, listening to Harry Nillson's "Without You", he picks up the phone and calls Archie (Wilkinson). Archie calls Meredith (McShane). The next day the three of them, accompanied by Mal (Dillane) and Old Man Peanut (Hurt) kidnap a French waiter from a restaurant and take him to a run down old house. There they wait for Colin to kill "Loverboy", drinking, smoking, and taunting the poor man who's locked in the cupboard, but Colin's not the man he used to be.

Expectations were pretty high for this Brit flick, and reasonably so. From the writers of Sexy Beast and featuring a cast full of some of the best actors around. I thought that 44 Inch Chest would be a cult hit, receive lots of good reviews and maybe even be one of the sleeper hits of the year. But then it got a fairly muted reception at the festivals. Comparisons to Sexy Beast were unfavourable. The only thing people seemed to be positive about were the performances and the swearing.

Well, these two aspects of the film are certainly the strongest. The dialogue seems tailor-made for each of the incredibly talented actors who comprise the cast, and they tear into it with vigour. Winstone is an actor who always seems to be happiest when not being pressured to put on an accent and 44 Inch Chest finds him well within his comfort zone, vocally at least. But this also his best performance since Nil by Mouth. He's normally called upon to be threatening and intimidating, which he can do with his eyes closed. Here, he's shivering and shaking. He's backed up by a cast who are all clearly thoroughly enjoying themselves. McShane gets to show a bit of range as the urbane, homosexual Meredith, who seems to be the most balanced of Colin's band, but no less deadly for it. Wilkinson is well-cast as mother's boy Archie, and Dillane gives a strong performance as the acerbic Mal. Perhaps most impressively, he manages to not remind us that Tim Roth was originally cast in his part before having to bow out due to his commitment to US show Lie to Me. And then there's John Hurt. Hurt's played bastards before, but never one quite so foul-mouthed and brimming with bile as Old Man Peanut. With hair pressed flat back against his skull and a set of false teeth, given one-liners like "I wouldn't give her the pickings out of my handkerchief!", Hurt apparently decided to chew up the scenery with fantastically malicious energy.

Energy is what the film needs. At its core, the un-cinematic plot of 44 Inch Chest could easily be a play. It's set almost entirely in one room, and when the film leaves the room, it loses the plot. So, for the first half, the film relies entirely on the cast and the dialogue. No room for flashy camera tricks in the room. This is not necessarily a bad thing. If you're going to watch a group of actors sitting around talking, you could do much worse than be saddled with this cast. But it's also clear that director Venville, and writers Mellis and Scinto, are self-conscious about the one-location issue, and take every opportunity to escape.

Instead of giving us any time with the characters prior to the kidnapping, the filmmakers instead give one flashback to Meredith, one to Colin, and make the reckless choice of placing the entire second half of the film in Colin's head. Let's deal with the flashbacks first. Colin's shows us just how he found out that Liz was cheating on him: she told him. It's well-shot, showcases Winstone and Whalley well, and gives us vital information about the characters. Meredith's flashback is entertaining but has no relevance to the plot. Telling us about how he accompanied eccentric Tippi (an OTT Stephen Berkoff) to a casino and made thousands of pounds gambling, it seems to exist purely to allow McShane to look at the camera and have Berkoff ham it up.

Then there's the second half. After about 45 minutes of build-up, Colin orders his friends out of the room so he can have a one-on-one chat with Loverboy. No problem here, but we suddenly find ourselves in Colin's tortured mind. The dialogue's still fun but lacks the immediacy and rawness of the first half since we know that it's not real. And frankly the less said about the country estate fantasies the better. I'm not complaining about the lack of violence in the film, although I can imagine that audience members anticipating a Brit gangster flick will be let down. There is violence here, but it falls into the "abuse" category rather than "cool stylized". It's also important to mention that Whalley's performance in the second half of the film, as the seductive man-eater vision of Liz that Colin has in his head, is excellent. But the second half is definitely where the film goes off the rails. I don't like to criticise a film for trying to reach beyond it's genre limitations but the majority of the dream sequences are pretentious mistakes.

It's a shame because 44 Inch Chest has plenty of redeeming features. Colin Diamond is a fascinating character, convinced he's hurting because he loves too deeply and mostly blind to the fact that he's actually a monster. The pleasure of watching the cast enjoy the dialogue is something that is difficult to overstate. There's also a nice score from David Lynch regular Angelo Badalamenti and Massive Attack. Is it worth a watch? Certainly. Winstone, Hurt, and McShane are at their best and that's not something to ignore. There's the bizarrely fantastic sequence in which Old Man Peanut narrates Samson and Delilah ("What's her name? Delilah. Yeah....right hooer!") And when 44 Inch Chest is running smoothly, it's as good as we hoped. It's just can't keep up with it's pretensions.

6/10

Recent Release Reviewed: Shutter Island

Shutter Island
Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Ruffalo, Ben Kingsley, Michelle Williams, Max von Sydow
Screenplay: Laeta Kalogridis, based on the novel by Dennis Lehane
Director: Martin Scorsese

It's 1954, and Federal Marshal Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his new partner Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo) arrive on Shutter Island, an maximum-security asylum for the criminally insane. They're here because one of the inmates, Rachel Solando (Emily Mortimer), escaped from her locked cell and is nowhere to be found. The doctors, led by Dr. Cawley (Ben Kingsley) and Dr. Naehring (Max von Sydow), are polite but uncooperative. Teddy begins to suspect that Rachel could not have escaped with no one noticing. He's also haunted by nightmares of his dead wife (Michelle Williams), who was killed in a fire started by an arsonist (Elias Koteas) who he believes is an inmate. Teddy and Chuck find themselves drawn into a mystery there may be no way out of.

Right, that's as much of the story as I can give you without wrecking the film! The first, and perhaps most important, thing to say is that Shutter Island is a big, fun, silly throwback to the type of overblown gothic horror that probably would have starred Vincent Price. From the dense fog that opens the film, to the incredible storm that prevents Teddy and Chuck from leaving, to the crypts, the lighthouse, and the maximum security wing that resembles a torture chamber from the middle ages, Scorsese and his team have turned everything up to eleven. The same instructions have been given to the actors, who all stay on just the right side of hammy.

DiCaprio continues his progression into one of the best actors around under Scorsese's guidance. He's got progressively better with each film, and he does well with a challenging role. It's a big performance, to be sure, but it certainly fits with the tone. Ruffalo is quietly solid in the less showy role of Teddy's loyal partner, Kingsley gives his best work for a while as the softly spoken head doctor, and he is very capably backed up by von Sydow, who's clearly enjoying himself. Michelle Williams gives another excellent performance (following Wendy and Lucy and Synecdoche, New York) as Teddy's deceased wife, and is incredibly haunting in fantastically shot dream sequences that are flooded with colour and layered with dread.

It's also a mark of a Scorsese film that the supporting cast is flooded with incredible character actors. Patricia Clarkson, Jackie Earle Haley, John Carrol Lynch, Elias Koteas, and Ted Levine all make a very big impression in their limited screen time, which for most of them is a matter of a couple of minutes.

Dennis Lehane is known to cinema-goers as the author of the novels Mystic River and Gone, Baby, Gone, both of which were successfully turned into films. The first words that come to my mind when thinking about those two movies are "gritty", "depressing", and "realism". None of these words are applicable here. Shutter Island is overblown in the most entertaining sense of the word. The colours palette ranges from inky black darkness to scenes of almost overwhelming light/dark contrast. Michelle Williams' dream sequences, in particular, are shot with a striking mix of yellow and red that, combined with her excellent performance, make these scenes some of the most memorable.

Shutter Island also draws heavily on 1950s anger and suspicion. The red menace of the Communists is present and correct, although I won't go into it too much here. Teddy Daniels and Chuck Aule both served in the Second World War. Daniels was present for the liberation of Dachau, which we see in carefully judged flashbacks that are given the same treatment as his dreams. There are just as visually striking, but they do not feel exploitative. These scenes move the narrative forward. They also give Daniels another point of antagonism, as von Sydow's Doctor Naehring is German.

And as for Mr. Scorsese? Well, the verve and energy that critics enjoyed so much in The Departed is equally as present here, if not more so. I was not a big fan of Gangs of New York, and I thought The Aviator was entertaining, but it feels like he enjoys these B-movie homages so much more. He clearly had a great time crafting this labyrinthine, over the top Gothic horror. There are things in the film that are easy to criticise, and some of the plot twists are signposted too easily, but the most important thing about Shutter Island is this: It's very entertaining. I'm repeating myself, but it's a big, fun B-movie made by a brilliant director and featuring a fantastic cast. What's not to like?

8/10