Film Reviews by Strovey

Caleb works for the biggest Internet company in the world, one morning he receives a message telling him he has won a company competition to spend a week with the companies CEO, Nathan, in his isolated private home. When Caleb arrives on his ‘adventure of a lifetime’ he finds it not the expected holiday to hang out with and pick the brains of one of the world’s leading geniuses but in fact he has to take part in a ‘working’ experiment as Nathan, wants him to interact and study his most exciting project. An apparently fully autonomous robot which is for all intents and purposes a beautiful young woman.

Alex Garland is no stranger to writing interesting and different stories but this is his first dip in the waters of directing a film. He jumped in fully clothed and swam with utter confidence in those waters too. Make no mistake this is science-fiction for grown-ups. Whilst the special effects are up on the screen, there is a robot, there is a mystery, this film asks many questions once we get to Nathans ‘fortress of solitude’ but like good stories it doesn’t lead you by the nose and it doesn’t provide you with answers. Those are for you to make up for yourself. Therefore Ex Machina has as many endings and motivations to the tale as you want.

Certainly, we are here in the territory of Blade Runner, Channel 4’s Humans and the newest video game Detroit: Become Human among a few that come to mind. In all honesty, it is a topic, subject and line of thought that endlessly fascinates me and if it is approached with some skill and thought then I’m in. I’m biased. So it stands to reason I was always going to like this film.

Throw into this mix of great ideas a three-handed cast of top young actors with the film-making universe at their feet, Oscar Issac, Domhnall Gleeson, film by film eclipsing his father, and the utterly perfect Alicia Vikander and you have a fantastic prospect before you.

For a film the really does look at some very heavy and philosophical topics the story, running at just over 1 hour and 45 minutes, doesn’t drag and zips along at a pace. As I have said the film is asking nothing new nor will it stop you in your tracks, Phillip K. Dick had been asking these type of questions in his stories nearly fifty years ago so to my mind it is not the question but how it is asked. Ex Machina asks them in such an entertaining way that I was ‘in’ from the start.

The single location, for most of the story, is simple, uncluttered yet semi-futuristic and does not distract, it is the sort of the place you imagine the next centuries Elon Musk would inhabit. The visual effects are sublime with the slight Vikander looking as much like an advanced robot as you could wish. It may sound as if Ex Machina is a solemn, serious and pompous science-fiction film yet the story is infused with a playful sense of humour and yet richly dark vein as well.

Plot holes? Of course there are, this is a film about a robot so advanced you cannot tell if it is a robot or not so they are there. I enjoyed the questions it asked as much as the story. Oh dear I think I’ve said the thing about ‘asking questions’ about three times now.

I highly recommend this film to anyone unless you really are just an action film aficionado and even then give it a go.

Consciousness. What is it?

Chuck Wepner is a ‘club boxer’ he’s the Bayonne Bleeder. After a few fair to middling fights the stars shine down on him and he gets a chance at the World Championship against Muhammed Ali. The fight is expected to be a non-contest but Chuck can take a punch and doesn’t give up. He goes fifteen rounds and this makes him instantly famous and a hero to many. Elevated to the man that took Ali to fifteen rounds and despite being the inspiration for the Rocky film series, Chuck starts on a path that is going to cost him his family and eventually his freedom. Will there ever be redemption for Chuck, will his life pan out like the movies and end up happily ever after?

The story of Chuck Wepner needed to be told and it needed to be told in the this more realistic way rather than the bleached and neatly folded Rocky which is based on his life – yes Mr Stallone it really is and it is really obvious.

It’s difficult to make a film about a selfish a-hole but make you feel sorry for him, make him sympathetic but director Phillippe Falardeau has done this along with the not inconsiderable talents of Liev Schreiber. In his hands, Chuck appears to be aggressive and definitely in love with fame throughout the film. Not the greatest of attributes in a person but somehow during the running time you don’t think ‘Chuck is a dick I’m glad this is happening to him’. You can sympathise with Chuck but equally, you feel full empathy for his first wife Phyliss and his daughter Kimberley as they traversed the waters of the hurricane known as Chuck Wepner before they finally abandoned ship.

The look and feel of the seventies, spliced in with genuine footage is spot on without looking stagey or false and the idea of the protagonist’s spoken narrative whips the story along at a pace. After all, a lot of Chuck’s later life must have been an utter blur and no one who was there can probably remember it.

It is a truism to say there is nothing new in The Bleeder that you haven’t seen before, many celluloid characters have tripped down the path of excess that leads to ruin. This story is true and doesn’t too clean and sanitised for its screen outing. It has an interesting take on jail-time too and the ‘scales falling from his eyes’ moment is handled without much fanfare and did not neatly wrap up the story in happily ever after but told the truth of how these situations can play out.

Husband and wife team Schreiber and Watts real-life chemistry easily transfers to the film and the whole story is better for it and further to this, the easy chemistry between Elizabeth Moss and Schreiber makes the story much more believable from the start and helps to draw into the story. Schreiber is the main star and figure and his shoulders take the strain easily he is supported in his endeavour with some consummate ease by reliable stalwarts Ron Perlman, Jim Gaffigan and Michael Rapaport it’s an enjoyable ensemble.

This film must have been a labour of love for Liev Schreiber as he had a finger in nearly all the pies, starring, writing and producing and that love for the story, for the fragile human at the centre shows through. There’s no judgment of his ways, of his idiocy and throughout Chuck’s highs and lows., The Bleeder shows the simple honesty humanity of all the main characters. This is a film more people should see, this is a film Liev Schreiber should be proud of.

Sometimes life is like a movie. And sometimes it’s better.