Film Reviews by Alphaville

Documentary-style actor’s film about Jackie Kennedy, focussing on Natalie Portman’s portrayal of her. If true-to-life it’s educational, but judged purely as a film there’s nothing here to tempt an audience disinterested in the subject matter. The West Wing TV series had more life.

A ‘slow burn’ trumpets the trailer. Yep, you know what that means. A slow, bleak, actorly film about mental illness that ends in mass murder. However well-meant, is this really what you want from a viewing experience? Do check out the trailer first. That should be enough to put you off.

Sunday-evening-TV-like rural Irish drama. ‘Beautifully understated’ trumpets the blurb. Translation: slow-paced and staidly directed with static shots held far too long. Our young quiet girl of the title is sent from a dysfunctional family to stay with more likable relatives on a dairy farm, where (guess what?) she likes it more. Nothing much happens, even at the cop-out ending, to a soundtrack of (guess what?) plinky-plonk piano muzak. There’s even a montage set to an embarrassing Irish ditty. You’ll know exactly where it’s going with not a single surprise along the way.

Minimalist drama can work in films, but not at this deathly pace. The whole shebang is saved from dross only by the luminous presence of Catherine Clinch as the girl. Little acting is required of her in this, her first film, but her screen presence augurs well for her future career. Take her out of it and there’s not a lot else to see here.

Even a jazzed-up soundtrack can’t disguise the fact that you’d run a mile to avoid the five vacuous post-university friends who meet up in a country house to celebrate a birthday. They swap inane and unfunny dialogue to the point of irritation. As in most such theatrical films, better suited to the stage, the camera is merely plonked down in front of the person speaking, so there’s no visual interest either. At the end the mood changes, but who cares? It’s because of critics who don’t know a turkey when they see one that the British film industry keeps making such stagey TV fillers.

Although it’s hard to believe, this colourful and rambunctious tale of a Lesbian nun who becomes an abbess is based on evidence from a real 17th century court case. In the hands of director Paul Verhoeven (Total Recall, Basic Instinct etc.) it’s a riot. There are moments when you may not be able to take your eyes away from the screen even if you want to.

It’s set in a convent where suffering is seen as the only way to salvation. And boy, do these Brides of Christ suffer. Benedetta has increasingly lurid and erotic dreams about Jesus while becoming involved in a Lesbian relationship with a fellow nun. Even the wooden Virgin Mary dildo they use is based on fact. And that’s just the start if it. Beginning as fun, the film dials up the excitement level, goes to some dark places and builds to provide an unexpectedly emotional punch.

Good to see one of cinema’s enfants terrible still on such good form and still causing trouble. The film has naturally been attacked in some quarters, but it’s good to see someone not afraid to make subversive art that refuses to tow the line. Rock on, Paul.

The DVD also has an enlightening interview with Verhoeven, including extracts from his previous films.

A low-key short story turned into a low-key overlong film filled to overflowing with filler scenes. It has won awards! The DVD blurb describes its director as ‘masterful’! Have film critics lost their senses?

The slow, solemn, deliberate, nearly-3hr film begins with an unnecessary 40min domestic preamble, at the end of which the main character’s wife dies. No spoiler – the trailer covers this in a few seconds. Cut to credits... after FORTY pointless minutes that a better film would have quickly covered as backstory. Then we have another 2hrs to sit through as our man (a stage director) comes to terms with his loss while we’re subjected to endless scenes of him rehearsing Chekhov’s ‘Uncle Vanya’.

The camerawork is unremarkable and the film is so unforgivably tedious and disdainful of its audience that it deserves all the brickbats it gets.

A promising opening has Frank Grillo reliving the same day Groundhog Day-style, fighting a motley crew of baddies who always kill him. But then we’re subjected to stolid scenes of dialogue to fill out the 90min run-time. Grizzled baddie Mel Gibson is especially wearing as he delivers never-ending speeches in a monotonic drone.

The plot picks up pace again as our hero seeks to extricate himself from his daily destiny. The action is played with a humorous slant that drains it of drama, but there are enough moments to make the film a worthwhile time-passer.

I wish this was a better film to introduce modern audiences to Godard and Truffaut. For those of us who rate their best films among the best of all time (eg Godard’s Alphaville, Truffaut’s Jules et Jim), it’s a fascinating and nostalgic wallow. If you’re new to the French New Wave of the 1960s, you’ll be seriously underwhelmed.

The narrative jumps around all over the place. Writer/director/narrator Emmanuel Laurent delivers his lines in a flat monotone. Even worse, there are endless pointless modern-day scenes of a woman reading old newspapers and magazines to accompany the voiceover. This is actress Isild de Besco, apparently intended to be a bridge for the audience between then and now, but the device fails completely.

Worst of all, the sense of excitement generated by New Wave movies is conspicuous by its absence. As a 1960s student who was blown away by their immediacy, daring and sheer cinematic joy, this documentary both enthralled and angered me.

If Guy Ritchie geezer-gangster films leave you cold you’ll be tempted to give this one a body swerve, but it turns out to be a gritty LA-set heist thriller that has its moments. A bigger-budget remake of a better French film (Le Convoyeur – the Cash Truck), it has Limey Jason Statham infiltrating an armoured-vehicle security firm in search of vengeance.

Apart from the embarrassing title, two things let it down. (1) A long central flashback explains his motivation but becomes bogged down and confusing, with added unnecessary FBI agents. (2) Statham gives a deliberately even more impassive performance than usual (yes, really), making it hard to get inside his character.

Still, the plot does its job of linking the gung-ho action set-pieces and it’s these that make the film worth a look if you’re partial to a spot of gunplay. The prolonged climactic battle, full of minor characters we’ve either come to care about or hate, is perhaps the best Ritchie has directed.

A romantic comedy adventure in the Romancing the Stone mould, but with unconvincing romance and excruciating ‘comedy’. Much of the dialogue between romantic novelist Sandra Bullock and irritatingly klutzy companion Channing Tatum seems to be improvised. If you’ve seen Uncharted, which tried a similar disastrous ploy, you’ll know what to expect.

Check the bloopers reel where they practise one-liners on each other. They’re certainly having a fun time making the movie, but it’s embarrassingly bad on screen. At least Romancing the Stone had a proper script.

With such toe-curling dialogue, lacklustre direction, bog-standard action scenes and an annoying subplot concerning Bullock’s obese editor, this would be a one-star enterprise were it not for the Dominican Republic scenery and a scintillating scene-stealing cameo from Brad Pitt as the Michael Douglas character.

It opens as it means to continue, with Doctor Strange running from a mess of pixels masquerading as a monster. Why is he running when he can fly? Don’t ask silly questions. Even with low expectations, the heart sinks.

The trouble with such Marvel films is that there’s no jeopardy for the characters. After all, they’ll be needed for the next sequel. So it’s just one cartoonish set-to after another with various cardboard goodies and baddies flying around and flailing their hands to shoot flames or throw large objects at each other, in-between swapping inane banter.

At one point we’re in an alternate-universe New York. Surely there’s plenty of room here for something imaginative. Sadly, no. The only thing our hero notices is that, at traffic lights, green is stop and red is go. That sums up the whole boring film.

Good work if you can get it, Benedict. Along with director Sam Raimi, here slumming it, just take the money and run.

If you’ve seen either of Robert Eggers’ two previous films (The Witch, The Lighthouse) you’ll know what to expect: a dreary, gloomy, deathly slow film that’ll have your finger hovering over the FF button. With a medieval Norse vibe that is atmospheric and beautifully observed, it’s a shame that the morbid atmosphere, cartoon characters and drawn-out revenge plot hold so little interest.

Much of it is filmed in gloomy interiors or darkness – even the brief boring final duel between goodie and baddie. There’s so much wailing and grunting and cavorting around campfires, and appeals to various spirits, that it soon it becomes laughable and irritating. Likewise the incessantly downbeat score. It has its moments during its 2hr run time, but goodness it’s a long haul.

Film is a visual medium, so a stagey talkie set on a restricted set (in this case two rooms) is asking for trouble. It can be done (eg Twelve Angry Men) and director Graham Moore does his best to shift camera positions, but The Outfit remains an actorly talkie. At its centre, Mark Rylance gives his usual underpowered performance, but for once it fits a lo-key chamber piece about rival gangsters discussing off-screen action. The intricate plot holds interest, but if you’re expecting the thriller the blurb promises you’ll be disappointed. While never engrossing, it remains watchable if not re-watchable.

Batman noir. Literally. It’s shot almost entirely in darkness for the whole nearly 3hrs. All the characters are expressionless, especially Batman himself (Robert Pattinson – normally watchable but here just a lifeless caricature). Everyone speaks slowly and earnestly in sleep-inducing monotones. The brief action set-pieces are ruined by the overall dismal pall of the film, all excitement drained out of them.

You want it to be an involving antidote to kiddy superhero cgi-fests, but the whole film has had the life squeezed out of it. The slow-paced plot goes nowhere fast and you’ll soon tire of the monotonous talking heads. There’s even a morose score to make the whole enterprise even more soporific as your eyes glaze over at the darkened screen. It’s as though the wrong choices were made at every level. Could no-one tell the filmmakers they were making a dud and liven it up a tad? Such a disappointment.

Two Brit and three Nazi airmen are shot down in Norway’s snowy wilderness and have to learn to live together in a mountain hut, where the bulk of the film takes place. You can predict how their relationship will develop from enmity to shared friendship in order to survive, which takes the edge off the plot. The two Brits are such caricatures (toffee-noised captain and working-class squaddie) that it’s hard not to side with the more well-drawn Nazis. It’s not a bad film, given heft by the setting, but it’s based on a true story and one wishes it was better.