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Reviews
Losing Gemma (2006)
Typical ITV Drama!
I was looking forward to seeing 'Losing Gemma' as I had read the book a couple of years ago and really enjoyed it. However, typical ITV messed it up! Alice Eve, who played Esther, wasn't too bad although her accent veered in and out. The actress playing Gemma was so annoying that if I was on holiday with her, I could quite easily lose her on the first day and never want her back! Jason Flemyng hammed it up as the creepy Zac and Jonas Armstrong was OK in a fairly undemanding role as Gemma's ex-boyfriend Steve.
Esther and Gemma meet in a nightclub through a mutual friend who is supposed to be going to India with Gemma. When the friend breaks her leg and can't travel, Esther steps in to accompany Gemma. The first part was genuinely unsettling as the pair meet Zac and Gemma and are invited on a boat trip with them. Esther is suspicious of the couple, but Gemma, presumably being more naive, doesn't share her suspicions.
All the characters are rather one-dimensional - Esther is whiny, Gemma is loud and annoying, Zac is creepy, Steve is shouty. It is hard to care about Gemma's fate and you can see the twist coming a mile off! I think a screen adaptation of 'Losing Gemma' could make a great TV or film drama, unfortunately, this was not it!
Once Upon a Time in America (1984)
Flawed, but captivating
Once Upon a Time in America tells the story of Noodles (De Niro), a Jewish gangster, who returns to New York in the 1960's and reminisces about his childhood and the events which led to the deaths of his friends and his subsequent flight from the city.
The film has a number of twists and turns and sometimes it is difficult to keep up with the story. However, stick with it and you will be rewarded by an evocative recreation of the period.
The main characters are Noodles and his best friend Max (Woods) who grow up together in the early 20th Century carrying out mostly petty crimes until a tragic confrontation with a neighbourhood rival. A few years later, it is Prohibition era in the US and the friends have moved on to become feared gangsters involved in violent crime and organised labour disputes.
Robert De Niro gives a restrained performance as Noodles as a man haunted by who he is and what he has done; he is not a hero and his actions mean we should not view him as a sympathetic character, yet he is in contrast to the domineering Max (a slick performance by James Woods).
This film is by no means standard Hollywood fare - its long and meandering with a number of side stories which don't seem to go anywhere and you'll need to watch it more than once to try and work out what it's all about. Plus the women in the cast fit neatly into Madonna (Deborah) or whore (Carol) categories and don't get much to do apart from become victims. However, it is a film which stands up to repeated viewings and you'll get something new from it each time.
The Island (2005)
Am not sure why this was a flop in the US
I didn't have high hopes for The Island as I heard it had not done very well in America, despite starring Ewan McGregor and Scarlett Johansson. However, I was pleasantly surprised as I found it watchable and exciting, despite some cheesy dialogue and implausible action.
It's the year 2019 and the population lives in 'the Institute' as the outside world is contaminated. Every so often, someone wins the 'Lottery' and can go and live on 'the Island'; the last uncontaminated area in the world. Everyone wants to win the Lottery! However, we (the audience) know that there is something else going on here! Lincoln 6 Echo (McGregor) accidentally stumbles across the real reason why people get sent to the Island - everyone at the Institute is a clone paid for by someone in the outside world to harvest if they need an organ transplant or to have a baby without going through pregnancy for example. He manages to escape with Jordan 2 Delta (Johannson).
The film then changes pace as Lincoln and Jordan are on the run from a group of mercenaries hired by Dr Merrick (Sean Bean), the head of the Institute, to recapture the 'products'. A high-octane (and highly improbable) chase sequence ends with Lincoln and Jordan tracking down Tom Lincoln (the sponsor of his Lincoln 6 Echo). There follows some amusing (perhaps not intentionally funny) scenes with two Ewan McGregors on screen with 6 Echo trying to get Lincoln to help him expose the Institute.
The Island seems to be caught between being a futuristic sci-fi film (with its elements of outside contamination, an unobtainable Utopia, cloning) and being an action, shoot 'em up type of film and ends up being neither one or the other. Don't go and see it if you expect to see an intelligent examination of the ethics about cloning, but if you want to go and see a good thriller which is a bit different to other action films out at the moment, then you can't go too far wrong!
Crash (2004)
Heavy-handed
I was really looking forward to seeing Crash, but I'm afraid I found it quite dull and heavy handed. While the quality of the actors on screen is not in doubt, the large ensemble cast means that no one set of characters has much screen time and it is hard to get to know the characters and empathise with their actions. The handling of the race elements, although well-intentioned, came across as heavy handed, particularly the part of the film involving Matt Dillon's character, his background story and how he interacts with the health care/medical insurance clerk. However, what I did like about Crash was how the different elements of the story came together; I particularly enjoyed the strand involving Daniel the locksmith who was trying to make a better life for his family. I really wanted Crash to make me think about the issues it raised, but I left the cinema feeling a bit disappointed and let down.