(Ava DuVernay, 2014)
David Oyelowo is astonishing in Selma. It can't be easy to play a historical figure whose voice and mannerisms are so ingrained in public consciousness, but Oyelowo makes his Martin Luther King Jr a breathing, flawed, emotional human being, never seeming to worry about the icon. King here is calculating, funny, worried, righteous but also as authoritative and charismatic as the man must have been. When Oyelowo has to orate before a crowd, he is inspiring and rousing. When he has to charm a smaller group, he can do that too. But he is perhaps best in the moments when his personal life is threatened by the march of the Civil Rights movement and its opponents attempts to squash it. The revelation of his infidelity and the panic in his eyes when he and his wife (Carmen Ejogo, also excellent) discuss it makes King vulnerable and believable in a way nothing else here quite does.
Aside from that magnificent lead performance, Selma is an interesting film.
Basically a piece of prestige Oscar-bait, it seems edgy thanks to the (still topical) racial content of the story it tells, but that edginess is entirely absent from the style or storytelling. Director DuVernay instead settles for an extremely conventional approach, often lapsing into hackneyed scenes and moments. There is that honeyed period look to everything here, reminiscent of Driving Miss Daisy or Forrest Gump in its warm portrayal of the South in the 1960s. There is the often cringeworthy use of music. If for the majority of the first act, DuVernay eschews any music at all, creating a terse, factual tone, when it starts to seep in, she abandons all semblance of taste, and runs a gospel-folk number over a key scene of marching and violence. Her treatment of the death of four young girls in a church bombing also feels somewhat off; she depicts them within a scene of almost Spielbergian perfection and innocence, and her cutting underlines what is about to happen before it actually does.
The story follows the efforts of King and a group of his colleagues to organise a protest march from the town of Selma to Montgomery in Alabama in order to encourage Lyndon B Johnson's Government to introduce a change to the laws of the nation, allowing blacks to vote without interference or difficulty. This is met with imprisonment, police brutality and intimidation, until media coverage sparks public outcry and Johnson seems forced to act.
A huge cast of black actors are all impressive, and despite the sporadic moments of tonal uncertainty, DuVernay generally maintains great control over this material - this is a film impressively content to linger on long conversations between activists over policy decisions and political strategy.
That is to say; Selma rarely patronises its audience, instead assuming that they will follow it wherever it goes. It is also nicely restrained; sorrowful rather than coruscatingly enraged about the awful events it depicts.
Showing posts with label David Oyelowo. Show all posts
Showing posts with label David Oyelowo. Show all posts
Saturday, 21 February 2015
Saturday, 29 December 2012
JACK REACHER
(Christopher McQuarrie, 2012)
Good things about Jack Reacher:
1. The return of Christopher McQuarrie to directing after a 12 year gap. His directorial debut, The Way of the Gun, is a blistering, nasty little piece of self-conscious pulp and it (together with his superb screenplay for Brian Singers The Usual Suspects) suggested he might be a talent to watch. Shame its taken this long for him to work as Director once more.
2. This is an unpretentious slice of genre from a director who understands the appeal of pulp very well. As such it recalls the action movies from previous decades in focusing on simple pleasures. There is a car chase here, reminding us that, done well, car chases actually don't have to be boring. It ends like any number of bad action movies, with the heroine, attorney Helen Rodin, kidnapped by the villains, and the eponymous hero (Tom Cruise) coming to save her. He does this with guns and combat acumen, basically, so that there are lots of fights and gun battles here too. No cgi, no green screens, no wires or trickery. Just stunts and exciting editing and cinematography.
3. This is the kind of film where the hero deliberately tosses away his weapon and the advantage it gives him in order to engage in a climactic fistfight with the chief henchman (Jai Courtney). In the rain. In a quarry. I mean this in a good way, of course.
4. For the most part, this is both a whodunnit and a whydunnit, with Reacher - who is ex Military police, and now wanders the Earth unencumbered by possessions or responsibilities - and Rodin investigating an ex-military sniper's seemingly random gunning down of five innocent pedestrians. All of that is beautifully established in an entirely wordless opening ten minutes or so, and McQuarrie reveals a gift for painless exposition throughout, introducing Reacher himself via a montage with a conversation about his mysterious lifestyle over the top, and filling in the sniper's character and history by similar means.
5. Werner Herzog plays the villain. He's only in about two scenes as The Zek, but he is terrifying here, one eye milked up, most of his fingers chewed off in a Siberian Labour Camp, the terror he inspires in his underlings evident in his first scene, where he has a whispered, horrifying monologue. More European directors should play villains in Hollywood action movies: Michael Haneke would work.
6. Its not set in New York or Los Angeles, no; this is Pittsburgh, a more interesting and gritty location, and one that the film - shot by the legendary Caleb Deschanel - uses to nice effect.
7. Its a little reminiscent of the attempts in the 1960s and 70s to adapt various series of crime novels to the big screen in that it doesn't entirely work, its not massively exciting, but its kind of cool anyway. Also: it seems aimed (mostly) at adults, not teenagers.
Bad things about Jack Reacher:
1. Yeah, we've seen it all before. Often on tv, in low budget action series. Its undeniably done better here, but not by that much...
2. Tom Cruise. He is famously miscast as the (in the books) 6"5 Reacher, but he gets past that by playing the character as an unremitting bad-ass, who generally has the smarts and skill-set to get out of any situation. The problem is more the effect his presence has on the rest of the film. Early scenes depicting him - his face as yet unseen by the audience - buying clothes in a shop virtually show the staff swooning behind the counter at his movie star looks. The same thing happens when he enters a bar. Later, he has a pointless topless scene, all the better to reveal his ridiculously buff 50 year old physique.
3. A brilliant supporting cast are largely wasted. Pike - the perfect Hitchcock ice-queen blonde a few decades too late, and a fine actress - is more a plot device than a character, David Oyelowo as the Detective on the case does more posing than performing, and the brilliant Richard Jenkins has nothing to do as Pike's D.A. father. Robert Duvall shows up late on and plays the same crusty old character he's played in the majority of his films over the last ten years or so, chuckling through lines that aren't all that funny.
So hey, the positives outweigh the negatives.
Good things about Jack Reacher:
1. The return of Christopher McQuarrie to directing after a 12 year gap. His directorial debut, The Way of the Gun, is a blistering, nasty little piece of self-conscious pulp and it (together with his superb screenplay for Brian Singers The Usual Suspects) suggested he might be a talent to watch. Shame its taken this long for him to work as Director once more.
2. This is an unpretentious slice of genre from a director who understands the appeal of pulp very well. As such it recalls the action movies from previous decades in focusing on simple pleasures. There is a car chase here, reminding us that, done well, car chases actually don't have to be boring. It ends like any number of bad action movies, with the heroine, attorney Helen Rodin, kidnapped by the villains, and the eponymous hero (Tom Cruise) coming to save her. He does this with guns and combat acumen, basically, so that there are lots of fights and gun battles here too. No cgi, no green screens, no wires or trickery. Just stunts and exciting editing and cinematography.
3. This is the kind of film where the hero deliberately tosses away his weapon and the advantage it gives him in order to engage in a climactic fistfight with the chief henchman (Jai Courtney). In the rain. In a quarry. I mean this in a good way, of course.
4. For the most part, this is both a whodunnit and a whydunnit, with Reacher - who is ex Military police, and now wanders the Earth unencumbered by possessions or responsibilities - and Rodin investigating an ex-military sniper's seemingly random gunning down of five innocent pedestrians. All of that is beautifully established in an entirely wordless opening ten minutes or so, and McQuarrie reveals a gift for painless exposition throughout, introducing Reacher himself via a montage with a conversation about his mysterious lifestyle over the top, and filling in the sniper's character and history by similar means.
5. Werner Herzog plays the villain. He's only in about two scenes as The Zek, but he is terrifying here, one eye milked up, most of his fingers chewed off in a Siberian Labour Camp, the terror he inspires in his underlings evident in his first scene, where he has a whispered, horrifying monologue. More European directors should play villains in Hollywood action movies: Michael Haneke would work.
6. Its not set in New York or Los Angeles, no; this is Pittsburgh, a more interesting and gritty location, and one that the film - shot by the legendary Caleb Deschanel - uses to nice effect.
7. Its a little reminiscent of the attempts in the 1960s and 70s to adapt various series of crime novels to the big screen in that it doesn't entirely work, its not massively exciting, but its kind of cool anyway. Also: it seems aimed (mostly) at adults, not teenagers.
Bad things about Jack Reacher:
1. Yeah, we've seen it all before. Often on tv, in low budget action series. Its undeniably done better here, but not by that much...
2. Tom Cruise. He is famously miscast as the (in the books) 6"5 Reacher, but he gets past that by playing the character as an unremitting bad-ass, who generally has the smarts and skill-set to get out of any situation. The problem is more the effect his presence has on the rest of the film. Early scenes depicting him - his face as yet unseen by the audience - buying clothes in a shop virtually show the staff swooning behind the counter at his movie star looks. The same thing happens when he enters a bar. Later, he has a pointless topless scene, all the better to reveal his ridiculously buff 50 year old physique.
3. A brilliant supporting cast are largely wasted. Pike - the perfect Hitchcock ice-queen blonde a few decades too late, and a fine actress - is more a plot device than a character, David Oyelowo as the Detective on the case does more posing than performing, and the brilliant Richard Jenkins has nothing to do as Pike's D.A. father. Robert Duvall shows up late on and plays the same crusty old character he's played in the majority of his films over the last ten years or so, chuckling through lines that aren't all that funny.
So hey, the positives outweigh the negatives.
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