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Reviews
World War Z (2013)
A sure to be classic
*spoilers ahead!*
An extremely impressive entry in the zombie genre and for me easily the best such since 1977's Dawn of the Dead. WWZ may break one of the supposed rules of the genre in its almost complete absence of gore but Brad Pitt's film more than compensates with an efficiently plotted linear storyline that remarkably shows no obvious signs of its troubled production, a spectacular sense of scale, a satisfactory balance between action and emotion rare in summer blockbusters and an often intense breakneck pace.
There's a lot that I liked about WWZ, from the way the film utilises its fast moving zombies as a symbol of the often frightening speed and density of everyday life, to supporting characters who are introduced only to be killed off without any of the bombast you'd have had to endure had the movie been directed by a Zack Snyder or Michael Bay. The emotional heart of the story - UN hotshot Gerry Lane's (Brad Pitt) relationship with his wife and kids - feels refreshingly damped down rather than overblown, believable without being schmaltzy. Rich and famous he may be but there's an interesting grounded quality to Pitt. Casting him as an Everyman sort of character doesn't seem like the kind of stretch it would if you had the likes of DiCaprio or Tom Cruise starring.
The story is a ground-breaking amalgamation of zombie horror and one of those plague stories in which the hero is charged with finding a cure. The plot, which sends Gerry from Philly to South Korea, to Israel and then Wales in pursuit of the infection's source, never feels like it's just marking time. Each location holds a clue and by the time Gerry figures out the ingenious solution en route to the film's climax the story tops even that by forcing our hero to make a virtual life or death decision. The payoff includes what might be the most well earned and enjoyable on screen drink since Ice Cold In Alex.
The action sequences are sensational with the (rightly) much talked about Israeli siege a standout. The chaos which leads to a hectic chase through narrow streets covered by a wire fence over which swarm countless zombies leads to an even more claustrophobic showdown inside a jumbo jet. The film is genuinely unnerving, often tense - especially the final third - and sometimes jump out of your seat scary. All without any bad language or explicit gore. There's a lesson there.
Littered with unexpected touches - the viewer's shock at a would be suicide jump by a certain character who fears he's been infected and can't bear to see his family in danger, a female Israeli IDF soldier who becomes an unexpected ally of Gerry's and who isn't saddled with a lame romantic sub-plot between her and the star, a nuclear blast viewed from the cockpit of a plane in which no words, no explanation are offered and don't need to be (at this point in the movie it truly looks like game over for mankind) and perhaps best of all a last act that eschews the empty spectacle of so many summer blockbusters and goes instead for a tense, low-key and genuinely intimate climax that I'm happy to acknowledge had me on the edge of my seat.
But perhaps best of all is the film's underlying message, epitomised by an Israeli who tells Pitt's character that 'For every life we save, it's one less enemy we have to fight.' This is a movie about the end of the world that unlike so many other zombie films shows people refusing to retreat into small survivalist groups but instead doing their best to save as many lives as they can. It does not surprise me in the least that World War Z has defied months of hostile online sniping to become a big box office hit and I'm very happy it has. Highly recommended.
Daisatsujin orochi (1966)
Unknown gem
I don't think there's a single drop of blood in it but if vicious, visceral sword fights that culminate in a 15 minute showdown between star Raizo Ichikawa and about 200 samurai are your cup of tea - and they certainly are mine - then I would strongly recommend The Betrayal.
It's a briskly paced riff on the bankruptcy of the samurai's much vaunted 'code of honour' in which Raizo's decent samurai Takuma is set up to take the rap for murder (so as to save his master's son who is the real guilty party) with a solemn promise that the truth will come out after one year in exile during which things will quieten down and he can then return to his fiancée, Namie.
Needless to say things go badly wrong when Takuma's master subsequently drops dead of a heart attack and the real killer denies all knowledge of the bargain leaving Takuma a fugitive on the run. Not only that but Namie is seized by the real killer who intends to make her his wife. As the scales fall from Takuma's eyes all hell breaks loose as the now decidedly bitter samurai cuts a swathe through the corrupt officials and former friends ranged against him while struggling with the dilemma of whether to give in to his darkest impulses.
This theme is expertly developed as Takuma encounters a series of events while on the run that seem designed to confirm all his worst suspicions about human nature and it's one of the aspects that elevates the film to the status of an above average entry in the genre. But just when things seem at their bleakest a wounded Takuma is rescued by a kindly bar hostess named Shino whose trust restores his faith in human nature and the journey back from darkness into light begins. Although bleak for much of its length this is a film that never succumbs to nihilism but embodies a touching faith that humans can struggle and overcome what seems like hopeless odds. And although there's a ton of action the film has real emotional power. A reunion between Takuma and his fiancée Namie in which the former trades his status as a samurai to free Nami from the brothel she's been sold into is genuinely moving (it's also reminiscent of the reunion between husband and wife in Mizoguchi's masterpiece Ugetsu Monogatori (1953).
By the time the climax arrives one is thoroughly invested in the desire to see Takuma and Namie survive. In a stunningly well conceived showdown Takuma is confronted by several hundred samurai and in the brilliantly choreographed swordfight that follows the Monty Python-ish absurdities of the samurai system - they have to try and kill Takuma for 'honour's sake' even though their leader comes to the conclusion that he is indeed innocent - results in a strikingly bittersweet closing shot. Despite the lack of blood one of the film's great accomplishments is - in a succession of lengthy single takes - to make you feel every single exhausting thrust and parry of Raizo's during the quite monumental climax. Best moment; During the final battle, a shell-shocked Raizo having to physically prise his hand off the handle of his broken sword, one finger at a time, so tightly is it gripping the weapon!
The Betrayal is almost completely unknown in the West but if you can find it you're in for a hell of a movie. The whole cast are excellent and Raizo Ichikawa - sometimes mocked for his delicate features - has just the right role here as the thoroughly decent samurai whose betrayal tempts him into the path of darkness. Atmospherically shot by cinematographer Chishi Makiura who did such an impressive job with modest means on the same director's superb Ghost Story Of The Snow Witch (1968), this is an excellent samurai film from an underrated director.
J. Edgar (2011)
Love frustrated
*spoilers ahead*
Eastwood's excellent film is a typical example of his preference for working within genre while at the same time creating refreshing variations on its basic themes. J Edgar comes on like a standard issue biopic as an elderly Hoover (Leonardo DiCaprio) dictates his memoirs to a succession of young agents about the founding of the FBI and its early triumphs under his leadership. But late in the game Eastwood and writer Dustin Lance Black spectacularly pull the rug out from under us by having Hoover's close friend and confidante Clyde Tolson (Armie Hammer) declare that everything we've seen thus far has been a pack of lies. The question then becomes why and it's here that the point of Eastwood's film becomes clear. This isn't actually a biopic at all, it's really a tale of unrequited love, of Edgar's unrequited love, and of what happens when that love is denied and those impulses find another outlet.
I've never been a fan of DiCaprio but I must concede that here he gives a compelling and sympathetic performance as J Edgar in a time period spanning the best part of five decades and it's a testament to the humanism of both the script and his performance that as monstrous as the character often is we never entirely lose our sympathy for a man whose loving instincts (his date with the young woman who ultimately becomes his lifelong secretary is an absolute hoot) are crushed by a domineering mother (Judi Dench) and the strictures of the time which made an open (and not necessarily physical) same sex relationship impossible. As the object of Edgar's affections Armie Hammer upstages the star with a touchingly heartfelt performance as Clyde Tolson and there are brief but strong supporting performances from Judi Dench as Mother and Naomi Watts as Edgar's loyal secretary Helen Gandy.
For all its epic sweep - we see the young Edgar fighting communists in the early 1920's and his involvement in the Lindbergh kidnapping of the 30's - and the beautifully conceived flashback/forward structure (at one point the elderly Hoover and Tolson shuffle into a lift only to emerge from it as their younger dynamic selves 40 years earlier), the way these events are yoked to Edgar's psychology make this an almost suffocatingly interior film. Fatalistic, wreathed in shadows and unreliable memories, suffused with loss and shot through with a haunting, melancholy feel, it's a long way from your standard Hollywood biopic.
At one point in Edgar's self-aggrandising version of history a young black agent asks him which is more important, the organisation or the man who founded it. Edgar's reply is that there's no difference between the two and that's the tragedy of J Edgar. That prevented from developing a loving relationship he gave his all to the FBI with himself as its only permitted star. The result for Edgar was power, fame and fear, but never love (a stroke of genius here is the way Hoover's FBI bureau reflects that isolation. It seems like a hermetically sealed environment cut off from the outside world, even from the rest of Government, and unchanging even across the best part of fifty years).
When Melvin Purvis shot John Dillinger, Hoover was so enraged at the prospect of the man's fame that he had him sidelined instantly. The film reveals that Hoover appears to have co-operated with Hollywood and commercial interests quite happily just so long as he was the beneficiary. One especially memorable moment has Edgar humiliated before a senate committee as one wily politician demands to know in light of Hoover's endorsement of umpteen commercial properties (everything from G-man movies to cereal boxes) how many arrests he's actually made (the answer: none). This comes as a real shock since up to this point we had no idea Edgar was so involved in promoting his own image. Eastwood is in his element here. The theme of image vs reality is one of the perennial themes of his work and runs through the likes of Flags of Our Fathers, Unforgiven, Invictus and many more.
Of the wiretappings, illegal recordings and secret files Edgar amassed the film fascinatingly implies they were the product of Edgar's own repressed impulses, his inability to express love turned poisonous and fuelled his abuse of power - his attempted blackmail of Robert Kennedy, President Roosevelt, Martin Luther King, his hatred of longhairs, progressives, communists, blacks, hippies and all the rest.
One thing I particularly liked is the way that as Edgar gradually succumbs to his demons it's Tolson who becomes the voice of his conscience. In a key scene he warns Edgar away from an attempted blackmail of Martin Luther King. Ultimately it's too late to save Edgar but as the man ascends the stairs to his bedroom for the last time in his life there's a recognition from him that of all the things in the world, love is the strongest and most enduring of all. It's a very moving moment and topped in the scene following as Tolson weeps for the man he loved.
This could be, in another director's hands (Oliver Stone for example,) incredibly salacious but Eastwood directs with real sensitivity - the attraction between Hoover and Tolson is subtly presented but not in an exploitative or prurient manner. Indeed the 'was-J Edgar-gay?' question is much more open to interpretation here than you might suppose. This is about love, it's not about being gay and it most emphatically is not about sex. There's also a lovely nod towards those rumours about Edgar's supposed fondness for cross-dressing. The production values and sense of period are utterly believable and a remarkable achievement on a budget of some $35 million. Cautiously recommended then but don't go in expecting some standard Hollywood biopic. Despite early appearances to the contrary it really isn't that.
Hereafter (2010)
Why critics are dumb, pt 97
The victim of a vicious, venomous critical trashing that only goes to demonstrate the cluelessness of most critics, Hereafter is a European art-house movie with Hollywood production values. It's yet another Eastwood movie that ranks as the best American film of the year because it engages both heart & mind with its tale of three individuals in different parts of the world disconnected from life by a brush with death.
In Paris, famous TV reporter Marie (a luminous Cecile deFrance) briefly dies during a horrific natural disaster & has a vision of what she suspects may be the afterlife. Back home she can't get the experience out of her mind & her obsession threatens her high-flying career & friendships. In San Francisco, lonely, middle-aged factory worker George (Matt Damon) can talk to the dead but his 'gift' makes it impossible for him to form relationships with people. Finally, on a grim housing estate in South London, young brothers Marcus & Jason (George & Frankie McClaren) try to fend off social workers from taking their druggie Mum (Lyndsey Marchal) away. But when tragedy strikes Marcus finds himself all alone & desperate to speak to his beloved brother one more time.
This is Eastwood's quietest film & one of his very best. The director has always exhibited a fondness for emphasising character over plot but here he goes further than ever before. Hereafter has almost no plot, a third of it is subtitled, there's no villain, the film ask questions without supplying answers, the actors don't 'act' in any Hollywood sense of the term, the most spectacular scene comes right at the start instead of at the end & death is the starting point for both the characters & the story rather than the climax.
All things that are clearly going to alienate a section of the movie- going public simply because they're so unaccustomed to experiencing that. And yet the same film features three ordinary people - not the buffed up superheroes of so much contemporary American cinema - the mood isn't one of overriding anger or self-pity (again, as so much modern American cinema tends to be) but compassionate & thoughtful, kind of contemplative, & in its quietness remarkably compelling. As the American critic Roger Ebert said, it induces in the viewer something akin to the feeling of a reverie.
The actors are extraordinary. Matt Damon gives the best performance I've ever seen from him. His lonely psychic who aches for human contact & goes to sleep listening to Dickens audio books is so heartfelt you find yourself completely rooting for him but at the same time it's a totally unshowy performance. That same low key quality applies in fact to the whole cast. Cecile deFrance, looking a little like a young Julie Christie, is simply terrific here, both intelligent & vulnerable, & the McClaren twins have a rawness & authenticity that just works.
The craft side is equally impressive with the film moving smoothly between the three story lines in 10 min chunks thanks to Eastwood's ace editors Joel Cox & Gary Roach. Tom Stern's excellent photography gives each setting - Paris, San Francisco & London - a distinct look & on the musical side Eastwood himself contributes a lovely & sparingly used piano piece.
Those fearing some sort of preachy Hollywood confection needn't worry. Even Damon's psychic abilities are ambiguous. If you watch carefully you'll note that he tells his subjects nothing they don't already know or could have imagined themselves. Revealingly, what messages are delivered all reinforce screenwriter Peter Morgan's key point; there's no help to be had from the dead, you're on your own & what matters are the connections you make in this life.
Morgan's script gives short-shrift to both organised religion & the network of New Age frauds who profit from people's misery. One of the more amusing sequences shows Marcus visiting a succession of con men 'psychics' each of whom offers increasingly ludicrous methods of contact with the afterlife. Yet if all that sounds coldly secular Morgan's script is also deeply sympathetic towards the need for those who've lost loved ones, not just to grieve, but to talk publicly, & skewers a materialistic western culture that simply doesn't want that & sidelines anyone who does.
Hereafter doesn't say there is an afterlife. It doesn't pretend to have any answers, it simply asks the question & it does so with intelligence & compassion. It tells a story about people under the shadow of death yet comes down on the side of life, love & simple human connection. Not with ghosts, but with each other. I loved it.
Wo de fu qin mu qin (1999)
A knockout love story
An exquisitely crafted, emotionally overwhelming experience, The Road Home ranks as one of the all time great cinema love stories & one of the greatest of modern Asian films. It really blew me away! The tale is simplicity itself being essentially the story of how an illiterate teenage girl named Di (Zhang Ziyi, astonishingly good from her facial expressions to her body language) falls in love with Luo (Honglei Sun), a young man sent from the city to teach the local kids in her poverty- stricken town in 1950's China. One of the things that is so impressive here is that this is a love story in which little is said between Di & Luo & neither character gets to even physically touch the other, as cultural & political pressures contrive to keep them apart. Yet the film brilliantly evokes that sense of longing & the pain of being separated from the one you love with a poetic realism that is stunning. It's a world in which the gift of a hairpin can seem life-changing & its loss equally so.
What we have here is a beautifully rendered courtship through spring, summer, autumn & winter & one reliant on the repetition of actions in specific settings (the road of the title) that ultimately turn out to link the past with the present in ways that are profoundly moving. Di's first actual meeting - when Luo is walking his class home - is nothing more than an exchange of glances between the two & yet it feels like the most joyous thing in the whole wide world. When, later on, Luo is summoned back to the city for some perceived infraction & fails to return on the date promised it is Di who nearly dies waiting on the road in a terrible snowstorm for the man who has captured her heart. Yet so persuasive is the attraction between these two that any other action on her part seems inconceivable to us.
With a stirring score & outdoors cinematography that captures the seasons with a startling beauty (eat your heart out Terry Malick) Ymou's film also comes through with its modern day framing device in which the couples son (Hao Zheng) arrives from the city, having received news of his father's death, to comfort his mother & make the funeral arrangements. But he finds her obstinate in wanting her husband's coffin hand-carried several miles along the main road to his grave. Given that this involves literally dozens of people, plus food, drink & a procession of vehicles in freezing temperatures the son understandably wonders how any of this can possibly occur in a town bereft of its young. It's here that Yimou pulls off his greatest coup in bringing back all those former pupils - the infant boys & girls that are a delightful yet background presence in the flashback that comprises the bulk of the film - who never forgot the man who came to teach them & married one of their own. And as they come marching down the road in a dreadful snowstorm, having travelled from all over China, with people running from the back to push those at the front aside so they can have the honour of carrying Luo's coffin it's completely emotionally overwhelming. Personal, family & communal love all fused into one & a powerful affirmation of the value of education to boot. If you didn't already have tears streaming down your face you will when it gets to this bit.
Drop everything & go get yourself a copy of The Road Home. I can pretty much guarantee you won't regret it.
Yakusoku (1972)
Think of it as 'Brief Encounter', but with criminals
To the accompaniment of an instantly memorable score that sounds a little like something Dave Grusin might have conjured up from the same early 70's period, an attractive middle-aged woman (Keiko Kishi, Robert Mitchum's love in 'The Yakuza') sits alone on a park bench watching the world go by - children at play, couples arm in arm strolling past. At the end of the film we'll come back to this scene & understand its significance but after this bewitching opening we're on a train journey along the coast of snowy, northern Japan. Onboard is the mysterious woman we've just seen in the park. A young man joins the train & tries to engage her in conversation. It transpires that the woman is on the way to visit the grave of her recently deceased mother. Accompanying her is a stern faced older woman whom she enigmatically refers to as 'My guardian.' When two cops bring a handcuffed prisoner on board & we flashback to a shot of Keiko herself in handcuffs we begin to get a sense of what's going on. But there's more than one offender here & as attraction between the pair begins to grow the stage is set for a tragedy that will take us back to that sad & lonely woman in the park.
This largely train set romantic thriller, famous in Japan if largely unknown outside of it, won't win over the impatient viewer but for those who can cope with films that emphasise character & mood over plot, this melancholy, consistently engrossing study of two societal outcasts who connect builds to a knockout emotional punch & offers the pleasure of two terrific performances. Much of the appeal is due to Keiko Kishi's fabulous performance as the woman with a secret. Watching a smile flit across her face only to see it replaced almost instantly by one of sadness, to watch the young man (Hagiwara Kenichi, excellent) in his awkward, boyish enthusiasm trying to win her over, or to see her struggle with his offer of escape when their train is halted by a landslide, is both compelling & heartbreaking.
Although performance-wise the film is basically a two-hander there's notable support from Yoshie Minami in a near wordless turn as Keiko's guardian, one who watches the growing friendship between the young man & her charge with silent disapproval.
The Rendezvous is greatly aided by Saito Koichi's direction, a loose limbed, New Wave-ish approach that utilises long takes in real locations, hand-held camera, jump-cuts, what looks like lots of sequences shot in low/natural light & often drops the accompanying sound in favour of the score. The snowy locations are an appropriately bleak setting. The mood here is not unlike Jean-Pierre Melville at his most fatalistic & melancholy. Indeed, this Japanese film has a distinctly European vibe. Of special note is the wonderful score by Miagawa Yasushi. A great pity there's no soundtrack release because if more movie music fans were aware of Yasushi's score, presented here in a variety of arrangements from lushly emotional to trendy urban chic, they'd be snapping it up. It's a very memorable melody.
'The Rendezvous' really is the kind of film Criterion or Masters of Cinema should pick up. No doubt they've been trying. Perhaps it's the inevitable 'rights issues'? At any rate, if you can find it (and it's only currently available from Hong Kong suppliers in a scratchy full frame crop with basic English subs) highly recommended. It's not just a sad love story with a wonderful performance from its luminous leading lady, it's downright haunting.
Invictus (2009)
Quietly superb, emotionally stirring Eastwood movie
A quietly superb film from Clint Eastwood, Invictus is another genre defying entry from a director with a long track record of them, that is not quite a sports movie but neither is it a biography of its world famous central character Nelson Mandela.
Anthony Peckham's clever script is nominally about Mandela's support - over fierce objections from his own party - for the hated national Springbok rugby team & how their improbable victory at the 1995 world cup finally overcame the bitter divisions of the apartheid era to unite the country. But what we have here is equally a subtle study in Mandela's brilliant grasp of strategy & leadership (he has his aides test him on the names of the Springboks so that when he meets them for the first time he can greet them like old friends) & his shrewd recognition that unless the black majority can demonstrate forgiveness to a sceptical & suspicious white minority - one that controls the banks, the police & the army - the country is doomed. Key to this is attracting much needed foreign investment (the eyes of the world are watching anxiously) & when Mandela learns that a billion people will be watching the rugby cup final he instantly grasps the PR significance of this for his country & for the world if the Springboks can win the cup.
Freeman is impressively understated here not only capturing Mandela's physical mannerisms (the hunched shoulders from spending decades in a tiny cell) but also leaving it up to the audience to decide whether his public concern for those he must work with - expressed through a succession of carefully calibrated speeches - is genuine or simply the work of a brilliant tactician shrewdly exploiting his media image as a saint. There are hints, here & there, of Mandela's estrangement from his own family & these touchingly remind us that behind the public image is a man who paid a very high personal price for his actions. A convincingly beefed up Matt Damon is also excellent as the Springbok Captain Francois Piennar. Francois doesn't pretend to understand the politics of the situation but he can intuit immediately that the situation he's in concerns something far greater than just a sports victory as he tries to convince his sceptical team mates. As per Freeman it's delightfully understated acting & it's a very good demonstration of Damon's versatility.
There's also a satisfying parallel storyline to Mandela's efforts which centres on his bodyguards. These guys are perpetually fearful of an assassination attempt & it's a task not made any easier by Mandela's habit of wanting to leave his entourage to go on impromptu walkabouts in the crowds. His security detail are a mixed team of black & whites who on first meeting view each other with barely disguised hostility. Indeed, on their initial encounter the first question out of the mouth of the black guard is 'Have you come to arrest me?'! In the hands of a lesser director & writer this would have descended into cringe-making backslapping & we're-all-brothers-under-the-skin proclamations, but Eastwood is too good a director to fall for this & the slow recognition that both teams are on the same side simply develops organically, without ever seeming forced.
The climactic rugby scenes are satisfyingly crunchy, clearly filmed (there's a refreshing absence of Paul Greengrass-style shaky-cam shots) & the gist of the game is communicated clearly even if the specifics remain obscure. There's also a jaw-dropping scene involving a 747 Jumbo that is one of those outrageous moments so WTF? that it could only have come from real life (& indeed did actually happen). The stadium sequences depicting thousands of cheering supporters are pretty staggering & demonstrate just how far crowd software has come since Gladiator's famous arena shot. As impressive as that was I always felt there was something not quite right about it but the CG crowds packing Ellis stadium here are completely convincing, indeed overwhelming at times. Invictus is also, I think, superbly edited & it seemed to go by remarkably quickly for a two hour plus movie.
As for Eastwood, he's a directorial marvel avoiding so many of the pitfalls inherent in this kind of material. There's no sense of self- importance about Invictus. The film is epic & yet intimate, if that makes any sense. It wears its themes very lightly, as if aware that the material is so strong it doesn't need amping up. Eastwood's understated, unemphatic approach amusingly drives the lazy, the impatient & the immature viewer up the wall but I found his approach so stirring it had me welling up with tears on more than one occasion. Whether it's Francois telling his stunned family he's been invited to tea with Mandela, an absolutely exquisitely judged sequence on the infamous penal colony of Robben Island, where Francois imagines Mandela reciting Invictus in his tiny cell, a blink & you'll miss it moment as a tough white bodyguard hurriedly puts his sunglasses on to hide the fact that he's tearing up at the Springboks having reached the final, or gently underscoring the reconciliation theme by crosscutting the climactic match with a black kid slowly edging closer to a group of cops listening to the match on their car radio, Eastwood makes this kind of ambitious filmmaking, so littered with obvious booby traps just look so bloody easy. Granted Invictus is unabashedly feel good but there's nothing wrong with that provided it's as well done as it is here. It's a film that leaves you buzzing & although corny to say it - yep - uplifted as well. Recommended, but do try & catch it on the biggest screen you can.
36 quai des orfèvres (2004)
Half French miserablism, half Hollywood cop movie - disappointing on both counts
*mild spoilers ahead*
Two cops (Daniel Auteuil & Gerard Depardieu) with a long standing personal rivalry tangle over a string of brutal bank robberies ..
Despite the quality cast & slick production values it pains me to say that '36' is another disappointingly lame thriller. The plotting is incoherent (at one point Depardieu triggers a firefight between cops & baddies in direct contravention of orders yet why he does so is never explained) & the writer/director has clearly used Michael Mann's 'Heat' as a template. As in that superior movie the film kicks off with an armoured truck robbery, there's an emphasis on the personal lives of the two protagonists (Daniel Auteuil even looks like Pacino) & there's a shootout with automatic weapons much like the one in Mann's film. But the movie doesn't work for several reasons.
First, the cops pursuit of the robbery gang is frustratingly sidelined about an hour in once Depardieu's character frames Auteuil's & gets him sent to prison. Great emphasis is then placed on Depardieu's efforts to ensure Auteuil's character stays there. Yet the cause of this hatred is never explained so we don't understand & therefore don't feel involved. Plus what's occurring on screen - such as Auteuil breaking out to meet his wife & daughter, the fallout amongst the other cops when they lose Auteuil as their boss - is just not that interesting compared to the pursuit of a ruthless gang specialising in armoured truck robberies.
Second, events become increasingly unlikely. At one point Depardieu has Auteuil's wife's car run off the road (why, when he has both ends of the road already blocked off?) with predictably tragic results. In the last half hour the armoured truck gang suddenly reemerge for no other reason than to give Depardieu's character the comeuppance he deserves.
There's a potentially good idea here but the execution feels all wrong. '36' gets uncomfortably stuck somewhere between the vicarious thrills of a modern Hollywood-style action movie & one of those miserabilist French exercises where everybody's having a bad time. Not only that but there's an amazingly intrusive use of incidental music. Whenever the filmmakers want to let you know that something emotional is happening the music hits you with all the subtlety of a brick in the face.
'36' is apparently due for a US remake which is ironic for two reasons. Firstly because the film already owes so much to 'Heat' & secondly because the star being lined up for the American version is none other than ... Robert DeNiro! Perhaps they can find a cameo for Al Pacino while they're at it.
The Negotiator (1998)
If you don't see the movie you're not missing anything
A hostage negotiator (Samuel Jackson) takes hostages of his own when he finds himself framed for murder ...
A good cast & a promising setup are let down by a belief that having actors running around yelling at the top of their lungs is the same thing as character development. You can add to that heavy-handed incidental music that tries to bludgeon you into feeling emotions that aren't there & an irritating performance from Paul Giametti as a small time crook accidentally caught up in events. The clichés are never ending - the loyal wife who won't leave the scene, a cringe-makingly cutesy intro for Spacey, the police marksman who can't take the kill shot because ol' Sam is one of their own, a corrupt cop who has one expression (shifty) & whom hack director F.Gary Gray cuts to every single time the corruption scandal is mentioned just so, y'know, we know that he's a baddie. When Kevin Spacey as ace negotiator Chris Sabian is introduced & he & Jackson begin an impromptu discussion about the merits of Shane you really do wonder if this is nothing more than a sop to Jackson's role as the pop culture obsessed hit-man of Pulp Fiction. As the story unfolds the events become increasingly hard to swallow, managing to be both predictable & ludicrous. The Negotiator may not be a bad picture (although that's debatable) but it's certainly no more than routine. I suppose what distresses me the most is that it has that cookie cutter feel of so many studio movies these days. It's loud, brash & noisy yet at the same time hollow, mechanical & wearyingly familiar. What should be a tight & claustrophobic experience feels bloated & overproduced.
Kairo (2001)
Outstanding movie
*review contains spoilers!*
This is an excellent Japanese movie. It's thoughtful, creepy, unsettling & very well directed by Kurosawa Kiyoshi. On the one hand you have your standard urban horror themes of loneliness & technology-as-villain (in this case computers & the net). On the other there's this speculation about what might be waiting for us 'on the other side.' Is death, as one of the characters wonders aloud at one point, a chance to be reunited with loved ones & so no longer endure the day to day loneliness of life? But as it turns out, being dead is just as miserable & painful an experience for the ghosts as being alive is for the human characters, something Kurosawa demonstrates in a number of genuinely unsettling sequences.
Kiyoshi has an excellent & mature style - demonstrating a preference for long takes (a style that'll likely drive impatient teenage horror fans up the wall) & shocks achieved within the frame rather than through flashy editing. Two sequences epitomise this - in one a young woman searches an apartment for her co-worker in vain while a shadowy figure rises silently from a chair at the back of the room behind her. It might not sound terribly creepy but honestly I think my heart skipped a beat when that happened. In the other - & this is undoubtedly one of the films most talked about moments - a woman jumps to her death & the camera unblinkingly records her fall & impact with no cutting away.
But don't get the idea this is some J-horror gorefest because it isn't. What's so refreshing for me about 'Pulse' is that rather than harping on gore & shocks for two hours the director takes the time to lay out an intriguing story. One in which ghosts are flooding back into our world because there's no more room in theirs. The only trouble being that when ghosts & real people come into physical contact with each other neither can survive. Throughout Pulse Kurosawa balances the increasingly apocalyptic imagery of a hi-tech Tokyo in which life has all but ceased with an insistently humanist theme. Our characters clearly care for each other & the story culminates with a small group of survivors setting sail toward an uncertain future. Meanwhile the heroine of the story comes to realise that having found a temporary happiness with the young student who helped her escape she now has the strength to go on.
I'd like to think that's really what Kurosawa is getting at here. Not for him the simple scares of a ghost story, nor the fashionable sense of nihilism (hey, we're all doomed!) which so appeals to moody teenagers, but the message that in life the small bonds we make with each other, those passing moments of happiness & kindness, these are what shield us from loneliness & enable us to keep going in an unforgiving universe. Seen that way it makes for an appropriate visual metaphor that the final shot of Pulse is a stunning birds-eye view of a tiny shipful of humanity adrift in a vast ocean.
I look forward to seeing more films by Kurosawa Kiyoshi.
One last point: a sequence in Pulse depicts a jetliner seen from street level falling out of the sky & crashing into a building. On the DVD featurette there's a behind-the-scenes glimpse of a location recce for this particular scene. The date? June 2000. Talk about prophetic.
Last Embrace (1979)
Disappointingly lacklustre thriller
Disappointingly lacklustre thriller stars Roy Scheider as an investigator targeted for death by a mysterious assailant. Janet Margolin plays the student who helps Scheider unravel the mystery. Frequently referred to as 'Hitchcockian' don't let that promise of quality fool you into thinking The Last Embrace is anywhere near the same level as a good Hitchcock movie because it isn't. Film is humourless, the performances are unmemorable & the whole thing just never catches fire in the way that distinguishes the truly gripping thriller. Miklos Rozsa's derivative Hitch-inspired score also gets tiresome pretty darn quick. I was going to give The Last Embrace three stars but seeing as it manages one exciting sequence in a climax set at Niagara Falls it can have four.
Flags of Our Fathers (2006)
Sad, haunting & one of the year's best movies
I'll walk alone / because to tell you the truth I am lonely / I don't mind being lonely when my heart tells me you are lonely too / I'll walk alone / they'll ask me why & I'll say that I'd rather / there are dreams i must gather / dreams we fashion the night ..
Those haunting lyrics, sung acapella over the opening credits by none other than Clint Eastwood himself, foreshadow the tragic fate of the three tortured souls at the heart of Flags of Our Fathers. This sad and moving elegy to the boys captured in Joe Rosenthal's famous photograph of the Iwo Jima flag-raising is one of the year's best movies. Even the jaw-dropping CG-enhanced Iwo Jima battle scenes are used not merely to wow audiences ala Pearl Harbor but to underline how & why the three survivors will remain haunted by their experiences for the rest of their lives.
The screenplay by Paul Haggis & William Broyles, Jnr. tracks three separate stories in three different time periods - key portions of the battle (the landing, the flag-raising(s) & individual skirmishes with the enemy), the post-Iwo bond tour across the US & a present day father/son bookend - then jumps back and forth between them in a chilly, unsettling manner that allows Eastwood and his superb editor Joel Cox to construct extraordinary juxtapositions between the horrors of the battlefield and the surreal acclaim experienced by the survivors on their bond tour. Some viewers have complained about this allegedly 'confusing' storytelling but in my humble opinion if you're paying attention and just go with the flow then the film is not particularly hard to follow. You just need to be paying attention.
Any other director could have easily gotten carried away with ramping up the battle scenes or over-indulging an emotional moment but Eastwood's uncanny knack for understatement allows him to navigate around distressing material without ever seeming exploitative or heavy-handed. Indeed some of the most affecting moments in Flags - subdued Marines listening to music the night before battle, Ira walking down a winding country road after delivering a message to a dead comrades father, a joyous swim in the ocean - are amongst the quietest.
The ensemble cast is uniformly fine & although Adam Beach has the meatiest role as tormented Indian Ira Hayes, Ryan Phillippe as a Navy corpsman who takes a stoic attitude to his experiences & Jesse Bradford as a good looking Marine hoping to capitalise on his luck are just as effective.
If the film has a flaw it's that the story arguably loses focus & pace in the third act. Although the Iwo Jima scenes & the bond tour scenes are very powerful the third storyline between 'Doc' Bradley & his son feels perhaps insufficiently developed. I couldn't help feeling that it would have benefited the film had the writers spent more time in the third act dramatising what it was like for young James to grow up in the same household as a war hero thus helping us fully appreciate the final touching reunion between father & son in the hospital when the former apologises for not being able to ever talk about his experiences. As it is the third act follows the bond tour & the post-war fates of the flag-raisers instead. That's interesting but one senses that this is not what the movie should be concentrating on. I suppose another way of putting it would be to argue that Flags is overly ambitious & tries to do too much. On the other hand is that such a bad thing? After all, better that than a film which tries too little or not at all.
Flags also deserves appreciation because it gives centre stage to the PR aspects of fighting a war. What happens on the home front can be just as important in winning a fight as what happens on the battlefield. The film dissects the public's need for heroes and the enormous weight that need places on those lucky or unlucky enough to have to live up to that. The story also underlines how the experience of combat becomes a closed book even to family members. There is more thematic depth in this film than in a dozen Saving Private Ryan's & combined with an impressionistic structure, which attempts to mimic the disorientation & trauma felt by the survivors, it makes for a movie worthy of your attention.
Overall Flags is a fine if flawed effort & that Eastwood surpassed this with an even greater work - a companion piece entitled Letters from Iwo Jima - (two films back to back at the age of 76, incredible!) is testament to his status as America cinema's greatest living director.
Gangs of New York (2002)
Violent, incoherent & very long; typical Scorsese
There's this director called Martin Scorsese, okay, he's really good with camera placement - his movies always look hip & trendy - plus he's a not untalented director of actors. He usea lots of pop music & his movies are usually full of the kind of excessively bloody violence & profanity strewn dialogue that delights the teen crowd. This combination has so far proved persuasive enough to elevate him into the Top 10 lists of 'The World's Greatest Directors' courtesy of hip, trendy mags like Empire. Fair enough. Unfortunately what this acclaimed director cannot do is deliver a coherent, well told story about characters we actually take to heart. Case in point - Gangs of New York, aka another example of Scorsese's shockingly inept storytelling.
Seriously, what is the story in GoNY about? The film is thematically incoherent & badly structured. It wanders from an initial revenge set up between DiCaprio's Dad and Day-Lewis's baddie to scenes involving immigration, the draft, local politics, racism and corruption. Some of this is sporadically interesting but none of it coheres into anything meaningful so that when the end finally arrives the viewer is left with a 'Huh, is that it?' feeling (and it must be conceded that a similar sense of frustration attends the ending of almost every other movie from this overrated director).
Even the performances are dreadful. Leonardo DiCaprio is simply miscast in a heroic role for which he does not possess the required presence. Whenever this guy is on screen you can feel your eyes sliding away in the direction of whatever else is going on in the frame. As Bill the Butcher, Day-Lewis blows DiCaprio off the screen & yet he's the villain! Word of advice, Marty: when you're trying to make an audience empathise with your protagonist's near three hour quest for revenge it's really not a good idea to make your villain approx 100 times more charismatic & interesting than your hero.
Okay, let's cut the crap. Gangs of New York is a mess & its heavy handed marketing by Miramax, which secured it 11 Academy Award nominations, received swift and well deserved justice when it won precisely ... none.
Juggernaut (1974)
Terrific British suspense thriller
**This comment may contain spoilers**
I've just had the pleasant experience of rewatching Juggernaut which I haven't seen since I was a kid back in 1975. What a terrific film! The story concerns a luxury cruiser - the HMS Brittanic - caught in a storm at sea when a terrorist, the 'Juggernaut' of the title, announces that he has planted seven bombs on board and demands a ransom in exchange for the passengers lives (the passengers can't take to the lifeboats because of the storm). So it's up to bomb disposal expert Fallon (Richard Harris) and his team to get on-board the ship by parachuting into the sea with their equipment from an RAF plane. But when negotiations between the terrorist and the police collapse Fallon and his men find themselves in a desperate race against time.
Sounds promising, huh? And the cast is amazing. In addition to Harris you've got David Hemmings as Fallon's sidekick, Anthony Hopkins as the policeman whose wife and kids are trapped on-board the stricken liner, Roy Kinnear (in a scene stealing performance) as the ships hapless entertainments officer and Omar Sharif as the ships captain. There's lots of great British character actors too including Freddie Jones (Firefox), Julian Glover (For Your Eyes Only), Ken Collee (The Empire Strikes Back, Ripping Yarns) and Ken Cope (who played the ghost in Randall & Hopkirk (Deceased).
The production values are equally impressive. The actors are actually on-board a real ocean liner in what looks like fairly rough weather. In some of the deck scenes you can actually see them sliding back and forth across the deck against rolling, grey, choppy seas. There isn't one faked up shot of actors in front of a back projection setup that I could spot and the realism adds a palpable 'you are there' sense of authenticity.
Juggernaut was directed by Richard Lester who demonstrates real talent for making the personal lives of those trapped on the ship as watchable as the suspense sequences. The crew and cast of the Brittanic aren't the laughable cardboard cut-outs of an Irwin Allen epic like The Poseidon Adventure but recognisable individuals with problems sharply observed by Lester with dry, British understatement. Chief amongst them is pretty American actress Shirley Knight who starts off as the Captain's mistress but wins our sympathy by discovering she has more in common with Kinnear's sensitive loser than Sharif's handsome but heartless Captain.
The unique setting of an ocean liner is also very well exploited, especially in one edge-of-your-seat sequence where a kid and a steward end up trapped between sealed bulkheads with a bomb about to explode. The dialogue (credited in part to Alan Plater) is consistently sharp and makes some pointed political digs. When the head of the company (Ian Holm) which owns Brittanic offers to pay Juggernaut's ransom a creepy Govenment rep advises him against it because of the subsidies HMG is paying to the company. When several people get killed even Holm's businessman can't stomach the callousness of risking several hundred lives for the sake of a Government investment, 'Tell him to go stuff his subsidies!' he yells at the adviser in one of many audience-pleasing moments.
Juggernaut is a work of rock solid professionalism and boasts a nail-biting climax. It's a reminder of what suspense thrillers used to be like before the Die Hard's and their successors twisted the format almost beyond recognition. I enjoyed Juggernaut a lot and I think you will too.
The Sweeney (1975)
Much imitated but never equalled
**This comment contains spoilers**
The Sweeney is not well known outside the UK but on the list of great British TV series it's up there alongside I, Claudius, Fawlty Towers and The Avengers. Mention The Sweeney to almost anyone in Britain and you will probably be greeted by a reply of 'Shut it!' or 'Get yer trousers on, you're nicked!' Both are lines from the show and have long since become much quoted catchphrases. Quite an accomplishment for a series that ended over 25 years ago.
So why is The Sweeney so great? Well, for a start it features two marvellous characters. The late John Thaw (of Inspector Morse fame) stars as Detective Inspector Jack Regan of Scotland Yard's famed 'Flying Squad' (so called because of their use of high performance squad cars to get them to the scene of major crimes). Routinely mixing with violent criminals, gangsters, informers, strippers and prostitutes in those parts of London tourists never get to see, Regan is a 24/7 copper with an ex-wife and an 8 yr old daughter he rarely sees. And he's nothing like Inspector Morse. At all.
Jack Regan is as hard as they come. He displays no hesitation in beating up villains, threatening suspects, or even, in the episode 'Queen's Pawn', organising a kidnapping(!) so as to put pressure on a suspect. For UK viewers accustomed to the traditional saintly image of the English policeman, Regan was a truly startling creation and Thaw's performance remains utterly convincing not least because, with his craggy features and gruff manner, Thaw never looks like some pretty-boy poseur trying to 'act hard'.
Of course every great star has to have a loyal sidekick with whom to share the good times and the bad and Regan's best mate also happens to be his second-in-command - Detective Sergeant George Carter, superbly played by Dennis Waterman. Although ready to use his fists when required Carter is initially a bit more reluctant to use Regan style methods (although the tragic death of his wife in the sensational second series episode 'Hit and Run' brings him closer to Regan) and the pair spend much of their time exchanging insults, chasing birds and smoking like chimneys whilst trying to drink every pub in the London area dry. The delightful on screen chemistry between Regan and Carter, (one that was mirrored off screen by Thaw and Waterman) is one of the main reasons viewers adore the show. For Regan and Carter feel like real working people caught up in the stresses and strains of increasing bureaucracy, long hours, an unsympathetic boss and a shrinking home life. Like all great popular drama, regardless of setting or era, Regan and Carter's attitude to life connected directly with the millions of viewers who tuned in every week to watch them.
The other key to the success of The Sweeney was the extraordinarily high standard of writing and direction on the show. The crew were much influenced by The French Connection and Dirty Harry and, in a revolutionary approach to TV production they used that documentary style; shooting entirely on location in and around the London suburb of Hammersmith using lightweight 16mm cameras and radio mikes on the actors for a raw documentary feel. Dialogue scenes were kept short and pace, action and humour emphasised. Even more boldly, the villains sometimes got away scott-free. The team also pushed the envelope in the depiction of violence. Excitingly choreographed fight scenes were a hallmark of The Sweeney right from the start and more than 25 years after it finished the brutality still has the power to take your breath away.
The fears and perceptions of crime harboured by the British public and the problems endemic in the police service were all superbly dramatised by a tight-knit group of some of Britain's top scriptwriters. These stories included police brutality ('Big Brother'), know nothing career climbers ('Taste of Fear'), personal involvement with villains ('Lady Luck'), European terrorism ('Faces'), police corruption ('Bad Apple') and hi-tech crime ('Tomorrow Man'). That all of these concerns are still major problems in British policing just goes to show how little the series has dated.
The Sweeney ultimately ran for four seasons, 53 episodes in all with two feature film spin offs, Sweeney! (1976) and Sweeney 2 (1978). A definitive DVD presentation of the show (immaculate digital restoration from the original film elements, commentaries, exhaustive extras, etc, etc) has recently been released in the UK and stands as testament to the show's continued popularity among viewers of all ages.
Mystic River (2003)
Another Clint masterpiece
Mystic River makes for incredibly intense & uncomfortable viewing. It's the tale of three childhood friends - Dave, Jimmy & Sean - & how they & their families become caught up in a cycle of tit for tat violence. Although superficially a murder mystery Mystic River is first & foremost a character study. Those expecting a predominantly plot-driven thriller could end up disappointed.
The performances by all concerned are exceptional. The triumvirate of Sean Penn, Tim Robbins & Kevin Bacon deserve all the praise they get but the smaller roles are equally good - amongst them a splendid turn by Eli Wallach (Clint's co-star from The Good, the Bad & the Ugly) as the owner of a liquor store.
Clint's direction is exceptional. On the surface it appears low key & unassuming yet nothing could be further from the truth. Eastwood understands that story & character is what counts, not flashy, show-off camera angles just for the sake of it. Like those great directors of old - Michael Curtiz & John Ford amongst them - Clint makes directing look easy & that's the biggest compliment one can pay him.
In a story about the way acts of violence affect individuals the only way to break the cycle of violence, the movie suggests, is to start by recognising what you've done. Jimmy starts down this path but is tragically dissuaded from it by his wife who, in a pivotal scene, asserts that their children & his standing in the community is what matters most. It's an uncomfortably believable moment. Only Sean, in a series of one-sided phone calls from his estranged wife finally emerges into the light. The key moment? When he, alone of all the characters, is able to utter to his hurting wife the magic words, 'I'm sorry'.
Captain Scarlet (2005)
Vastly superior to the original
To borrow a phrase from our American cousins, Gerry Anderson's New Captain Scarlet 'kicks serious ass!' This 26-part CG animation epic retains the basic setup of Earth caught in a war of nerves against The Mysterons, shapeless, disembodied entities from Mars with the ability to destroy objects and people and then reconstruct them for their own ends.
The 1967 original is of course fondly remembered by fans for its air of menace and that aspect is just one of many elements the new series embraces and improves on with glee. Each week hapless humans die in spectacular 'accidents' and Mysteron agents are shot, electrocuted, blown up and flung off cliffs with impunity. In 'Skin Deep' the delightfully villainous Captain Black even shoots a woman in the face, at point blank range. This kind of deliciously dark mayhem is exactly what young and old love about the show.
The scripts (the majority of them by Phil Ford) are not only pacey, varied and imaginative but exploit aspects of the basic format that were simply beyond the abilities of the original. For example, 'Chiller', sees Scarlet so badly injured in a Mysteron explosion that his spirit literally frees itself from his mangled remains. The result is that Scarlet finds himself invisible to everyone else on Skybase. Not only invisible but insubstantial, able to walk through walls and people like a ghost. All of which poses a major problem given that Scarlet knows a traitor has carried a bomb on board. But how can a ghost warn his friends? In 'Swarm', a plague of Mysteron nanobots takes over Skybase, wrapping its human prey in spider-like cocoons. 'Mercury Falling,' features Captain Blue and Destiny piloting a nuclear powered space shuttle (a tribute to 'Fireball XL5') which has been transformed into a flying bomb aimed at Washington D.C. And 'Rat Trap' sees our heroes dispatched to a spooky Martian colony to face some killer robots on the rampage.
But for all the visceral hi-tech wizardry on display the new series also offers a satisfying emotional core. A blossoming love affair between Scarlet and Destiny Angel is a real pleasure to watch and surprisingly heartfelt in its impact. Although aimed at children this is, as Thunderbirds was before it, a show with genuine adult appeal. And if Scarlet is predictably loyal and heroic his worry about his invulnerability and the way it sets him apart from other humans adds another layer of depth to his character.
As for the photorealistic CGI animation one word sums it up and that word is 'spectacular'. Given that the original Captain Scarlet was a puppet (marionette) show - with all the inherent limitations of movement and expression that entails - the new version is nothing short of miraculous. The characters can finally move without having to be in a vehicle or stand on a conveyor belt! They can smile, look sad, angry, frustrated, and have thrilling hand to hand fights. The new series exploits all of these possibilities to the hilt.
In conclusion all I can say is that anyone who lives outside the UK should contact their local station and request them to carry this show. If you like Gerry & Sylvia Anderson's work but were horrified by Jonathan Frakes' Thunderbirds movie yet still want to see one of the old puppet shows updated with love and skill then New Captain Scarlet is a must. It's easily the best thing Anderson has done since Year One of Space:1999 and far better, IMO, than the BBC's recently relaunched Doctor Who.
The Aviator (2004)
A gorgeously dressed corpse of a movie
So many people have already posted about the liberties this movie takes with Hughes' life that I won't waste time repeating them here. That said, I can always ignore a movie that plays fast and loose with history if there's an original point to be made. Unfortunately The Aviator doesn't have a point. After nearly three hours the film fails to demonstrate why we should ever have been interested in Hughes in the first place.
The Aviator's production values are indeed as lavish as the hype suggests and no one can deny Scorsese's ability to move his camera in ways that make every film-school wannabee go weak at the knees. But a slick way with a camera is meaningless if your central character is unengaging. Not only that but The Aviator's woes are compounded by a meandering narrative that lacks a unifying theme (poor Marty has never been at ease with mainstream narrative).
I also question the emphasis on Hughes' time in Hollywood given that those years occupied such a small proportion of Hughes' own life. In terms of the overall theme of the film it's not at all clear what point is being made as we watch Hughes make 'Hell's Angels' and romance Katie Hepburn. I have the horrible feeling that everyone involved felt that lavishly recreating the golden years of Hollywood, complete with some of its most famous names, would be a sure fire route to that coveted Best Picture statuette. For once I'm glad to see that the Academy was not so easily fooled.
Then there's the fatal miscasting of Leonardo DiCaprio as Howard Hughes. He's a good actor but in both looks and ability he's at least a decade too young for this role. Is there really any surprise that The Aviator crashed and burned at this year's Oscars? There shouldn't be. The Aviator's technical credentials are impeccable - it looks sumptuous and sounds great - but that elusive spark capable of bringing a character memorably to life, allied to a vision that knows how to take real life and shape it into a compelling dramatic unity, all of that is absent here. The Aviator is the kind of movie you find yourself forgetting as you watch it. Truly, a 'gorgeously dressed corpse of a movie.'
Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004)
Gripping stuff
Kill Bill: Volume Two confirms as if confirmation were needed - that writer/director Quentin Tarantino's genius lies in giving audiences exactly what they want but not in the WAY they expect it. This approach has inevitably upset less imaginative viewers, especially those who wanted nothing more than a re-run of Volume One's bloodbath. But if you're willing to go with the flow you'll find yourself rewarded with one of the best movies of the year.
**Warning, Potential Spoilers ahead:**
One of the reasons I say that is because Volume Two pulls off the unlikely feat of making us feel sympathy for Bill. For instance, would you be surprised to learn that Volume One's wedding chapel massacre was as much an act of revenge on Bill's part as the Bride's is on him? Exactly what the Bride did to deserve such savage retribution is just one of the many surprises in store in Volume Two.
Talking of surprises, then perhaps the biggest of all is Volume Two's deeply satisfying emphasis on character and back story. Volume One's 'roaring rampage of revenge' is here subsumed into a titanic hymn to motherhood. Some have likened the second half of Kill Bill to Kramer vs Kramer and - amusing as that may sound - in a way it is accurate. For all its brilliantly staged action scenes the Kill Bill story culminates not in a re-run of The House Of Blue Leaves fight from Volume One but in two estranged parents battling over their child. As the story reaches its climax both gain our sympathy but only one can win.
But if talk of Kramer vs Kramer - in a Tarantino film no less - is starting to make you feel queasy, then let me reassure you that the fight scenes do not disappoint. Action highlights include an impossible 'Now get out of that!' situation for the Bride devised by Bill's brother, Budd. There's also a very funny 1970's style training sequence in which we learn exactly how the Bride gained her lethal fighting prowess. But the undisputed action highlight is a vicious catfight between our heroine and Daryl Hannah's one-eyed hellbitch Elle Driver. Ingeniously staged, the sight of two statuesque women knocking seven bells out of each other inside a cramped trailer home is truly something to see and the climax is delightfully, ah, squishy.
Acting-wise, Uma Thurman demonstrates impressive versatility as the Bride - really suffering in this second half both physically and emotionally - and Miss Thurman nails it every time. As the titular villain, David Carradine has just the right mix of leathery charm and ruthless pragmatism. When he and the Bride finally meet there's a convincing chemistry between them - enough to spark hope in the viewer that maybe, just maybe, they'll be able to resolve their differences peacefully.
As Budd, Michael Madsen has a sensational supporting role as the one assassin who regrets his part in the wedding massacre. There's an extraordinary unpredictability about Madsen. Even when he's doing something as mundane as mixing a drink you find you can't take your eyes off him for fear of missing something. He dominates the screen effortlessly and his character is a complex one. Whilst acknowledging that he and the others deserve to die for what they did to the Bride, Madsen's trailer trash loser is nevertheless intent on seeing her suffer (and then some!) for breaking his brother's heart.
From the biggest star to the smallest bit-part actor, all in Volume Two appear galvanised by Tarantino's enthusiasm. Tiny cameos, the potential of which would probably remain unfulfilled in any other film, are here given their full weight. Actors like Larry Bishop (Budd's strip club boss) and Michael Parks (Cuban pimp Esteban Vihao) seize the opportunity to create memorable characters. Even better, Tarantino is so good a writer that he never fails to ensure these scenes dovetail with the whole. When Bishop chews out Madsen's character for turning up late it's not only a stunning reversal of Madsen's tough guy persona, it also totally convinces us he'll be easy prey for the Bride BIG mistake, that!
Parks' Cuban pimp also makes it clear where Bill got his way with women from. But despite his surface charm and status as Bill's 'father figure', Esteban is commendably shown as nothing more than a sadistic thug, not at all like Bill. Remember Bill's line as he prepared to put a bullet in the Bride's head at the start of Volume One? 'This is me
at my most masochistic' he told her. Well, as Volume Two reveals, poor, heart-broken Bill really was telling the truth.
In every respect - acting, music, photography, design etc etc - Kill Bill Volume Two is stunning film-making and compulsively, hypnotically watchable.