(Hughes Brothers, 2010)
The first act of The Book of Eli is terrific and suggests that it will be an impressive film. The Hughes brothers find a series of eerie images to capture this world, thirty years on from the 'big flash", Denzel Washington lend his magnetism to the taciturn, efficiently murderous protagonist, and the society we encounter is just complex and different enough to be interesting.
A small settlement run by Gary Oldman (who holds power due to his knowledge of where there is water) becomes the focus and correspondingly, the film becomes less impressive. Our hero, an "outlander" who wanders the wasteland, comes to town, gets into a saloon fight - just like in a classic western - and attracts the attention of Oldman's character, who is set on finding a Bible, realising he can use it to control everyone, with or without water. Oldman sets his road gangs - Mad Max style marauders - on Denzel, and there follows an increasingly weary succession of fight scenes, chases, captures and escapes..
The first few scenes contain the best action scene in the film; Washington is ambushed by a band of hijackers, retreats into the shade offered by an overpass, still wearing his shades, and proceeds to cut his way through them in a single unbroken take, all seen in silhouette. This scene and the lengthy, violent fight in the saloon suggest that the Book of Eli is really a post-apocalyptic take on Zaitoichi (confirmed by a late twist), and when it arrives at the town, the film takes on a series of Western codes and conventions.
It has moments of wit - the value of wet-wipes as barter in a post-apocalyptic world, for instance - and is nicely shot in a dry, desaturated style by Don Burgess. Oldman is good value as the villain, but Mila Kunis has no character to play beyond a series of bullet-pointed cliches, and Denzel Washington could do this in his sleep. In fact there are moments here when, shades on, you can't be sure he isn't having a sneaky nap.
What the film does well are the tough guy beats in the lead up to the action scenes, but they are fleeting.
Showing posts with label Denzel Washington. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Denzel Washington. Show all posts
Thursday, 23 July 2015
Friday, 3 October 2014
THE EQUALIZER
(Antoine Fuqua, 2014)
Is it Denzel Washington's unique star persona that makes so many of his vehicles feel like '90s throwbacks? He chooses projects which skew older in terms of target audience than perhaps any other major movie star, and that means that his action-thrillers in particular have a strangely retro "mature" feel. The Equalizer is no different. Over-long and over-familiar, it spends most of it's time setting up the world of Robert McCall, an ex-something-deadly-or-other-for-the-Government who has escaped his old life after the death of his beloved wife and lives an anonymous, normal existence, working in a DIY store.
That is, until, of course, the young prostitute (Chloe Moretz) he has bonded with over his nocturnal visits to a local coffee shop is beaten almost to death by her Russian pimp. So McCall - until now a perfectly normal bloke, albeit one with Serious OCD - confronts the Russian and his gang and, and when they mock him, he kills them all in more or less 20 seconds, shot by Fuqua in a meticulously fetishized slo-mo manner that goes on for about 2 minutes and is undeniably satisfying in time-honoured "they messed with the wrong guy and what a way to find out" style. So the Russian Mob send legendary psycho-fixer Teddy (Martin Csokas, hamming it up as ever) to figure out who has destroyed their Boston operation, which ultimately leads to McCall taking on the Russian Mafia single-handedly.
To the extent that it works at all, The Equalizer works because of Denzel Washington. He gives McCall a mournful intelligence crossed with a subtle sense of humour - not unlike Edward Woodward's performance in the tv show on which the movie is loosely based - and though there is never really any tension (his character is too smart to lose to these gangsters) it is pleasurable watching him kill many many goons in various creative ways.
Fuqua owes his journeyman career to Washington's star power turning Training Day into a huge hit over a decade ago, and he directs with slick, anonymous competence.
Is it Denzel Washington's unique star persona that makes so many of his vehicles feel like '90s throwbacks? He chooses projects which skew older in terms of target audience than perhaps any other major movie star, and that means that his action-thrillers in particular have a strangely retro "mature" feel. The Equalizer is no different. Over-long and over-familiar, it spends most of it's time setting up the world of Robert McCall, an ex-something-deadly-or-other-for-the-Government who has escaped his old life after the death of his beloved wife and lives an anonymous, normal existence, working in a DIY store.
That is, until, of course, the young prostitute (Chloe Moretz) he has bonded with over his nocturnal visits to a local coffee shop is beaten almost to death by her Russian pimp. So McCall - until now a perfectly normal bloke, albeit one with Serious OCD - confronts the Russian and his gang and, and when they mock him, he kills them all in more or less 20 seconds, shot by Fuqua in a meticulously fetishized slo-mo manner that goes on for about 2 minutes and is undeniably satisfying in time-honoured "they messed with the wrong guy and what a way to find out" style. So the Russian Mob send legendary psycho-fixer Teddy (Martin Csokas, hamming it up as ever) to figure out who has destroyed their Boston operation, which ultimately leads to McCall taking on the Russian Mafia single-handedly.
To the extent that it works at all, The Equalizer works because of Denzel Washington. He gives McCall a mournful intelligence crossed with a subtle sense of humour - not unlike Edward Woodward's performance in the tv show on which the movie is loosely based - and though there is never really any tension (his character is too smart to lose to these gangsters) it is pleasurable watching him kill many many goons in various creative ways.
Fuqua owes his journeyman career to Washington's star power turning Training Day into a huge hit over a decade ago, and he directs with slick, anonymous competence.
Tuesday, 3 April 2012
UNSTOPPABLE
(Tony Scott, 2010)
Unstoppable is probably Tony Scott's worst film since the risable The Fan, and yet, almost all of what is good about it is down to him.
Based on an actual incident, the film follows the efforts of various railroad workers to halt a driverless, runaway train before it reaches a large population centre where the chemicals amongst it's cargo are likely to cause a deadly accident. Chief amongst those workers are a predictably mismatched pair in the cab of another train on the same line, each with his own, not-all-that-interesting backstory (Denzel Washington and Chris Pine).
The acting is efficient enough, both leads displaying their different brands of starry charisma, but this is thin stuff, using characters as muscles to move the plot jerkily along, giving them the barest possible personality types, and massively over-reliant on tv news for exposition.
What makes it worthwhile is Scott's direction. He takes material which demands extremely repetitive imagery - trains, trains and more trains - and with his usual aggressive editing, he fills the frame with these powerful machines hurtling across beautifully desolate industrial landscapes, all rattling freight carriages and roaring engines. The people - and the story, even - seem almost irrelevant as he layers and builds his shots up into thrilling montages of locomotives crossing the earth, the sense of peril surrounding them never quite as arresting as it might be.
Unstoppable is probably Tony Scott's worst film since the risable The Fan, and yet, almost all of what is good about it is down to him.
Based on an actual incident, the film follows the efforts of various railroad workers to halt a driverless, runaway train before it reaches a large population centre where the chemicals amongst it's cargo are likely to cause a deadly accident. Chief amongst those workers are a predictably mismatched pair in the cab of another train on the same line, each with his own, not-all-that-interesting backstory (Denzel Washington and Chris Pine).
The acting is efficient enough, both leads displaying their different brands of starry charisma, but this is thin stuff, using characters as muscles to move the plot jerkily along, giving them the barest possible personality types, and massively over-reliant on tv news for exposition.
What makes it worthwhile is Scott's direction. He takes material which demands extremely repetitive imagery - trains, trains and more trains - and with his usual aggressive editing, he fills the frame with these powerful machines hurtling across beautifully desolate industrial landscapes, all rattling freight carriages and roaring engines. The people - and the story, even - seem almost irrelevant as he layers and builds his shots up into thrilling montages of locomotives crossing the earth, the sense of peril surrounding them never quite as arresting as it might be.
Friday, 2 March 2012
SAFE HOUSE
(Daniel Espinosa, 2012)
Safe House functions as perhaps the ultimate compliment to Director Tony Scott (who has no involvement here). Featuring his usual leading man in Denzel Washington, making extremely pungent, evocative use of a distinctive location (in this case Cape Town), shot and cut with a hyperactive, almost exaggerated beauty and no little style, and full of action scenes staged for maximum violence and brutality, Espinosa's action-thriller appears to assume Scott as a sub-genre in his own right.
As such, it's a decent, if somewhat generic Tony Scott film.
Ryan Reynolds takes the lead here, allowing Washington to assume the same sort of almost mythic bogie man role he took in Training Day. Washington plays Tobin Frost, an ex-CIA Agent gone rogue and trading secrets who has come into possession of a crucial computer file when he is cornered by a team of assassins in Cape Town and, desperate, hands himself in at a US Consulate. Delivered to a Safe House run by frustrated junior agent Reynolds, Washington's interrogation is interrupted when the assassins assault the house and kill the CIA Extraction team, forcing Reynolds to flee with his prisoner. The usual game of cat and mouse, double-cross and shoot and punch follows.
That is a little unfair. The plot is never riveting, but the story mechanics generally work and the odd adversarial relationship between Reynolds and Washington drive that. Reynolds plays the whole thing as if his character is a confused boy; always frightened, always unsure, generally on the edge of complete collapse. Its a slightly constricted, one-note performance, but then the script doesn't give him much else to do beyond the action stuff. At least that action stuff is often extremely well-done; each of the gun battles and car chases are exciting, visceral experiences. Best are the fist fights: in this post-Bourne world, they are gripping, brutal struggles to the death, convincingly exhausting in their physicality. Espinosa shoots it all with vivid colours and designer grit to the fore.
Washington gets his fair share of action too, but mainly he lends that intelligent poised movie star presence to his part; his character is always the smartest person in the room. That's what Denzel brings, that and tried, true charisma. The supporting cast backs him up; filled with classy character actors like Brendan Gleeson, Vera Farmiga, Liam Cunningham and Sam Shepherd, who do a great job of selling such material.
The real star here, however, is South Africa itself, and Cape Town in particular, captured as a bustling, beautiful, cruel city by Espinosa, a fine stage in which his action sequences unfold.
Safe House functions as perhaps the ultimate compliment to Director Tony Scott (who has no involvement here). Featuring his usual leading man in Denzel Washington, making extremely pungent, evocative use of a distinctive location (in this case Cape Town), shot and cut with a hyperactive, almost exaggerated beauty and no little style, and full of action scenes staged for maximum violence and brutality, Espinosa's action-thriller appears to assume Scott as a sub-genre in his own right.
As such, it's a decent, if somewhat generic Tony Scott film.
Ryan Reynolds takes the lead here, allowing Washington to assume the same sort of almost mythic bogie man role he took in Training Day. Washington plays Tobin Frost, an ex-CIA Agent gone rogue and trading secrets who has come into possession of a crucial computer file when he is cornered by a team of assassins in Cape Town and, desperate, hands himself in at a US Consulate. Delivered to a Safe House run by frustrated junior agent Reynolds, Washington's interrogation is interrupted when the assassins assault the house and kill the CIA Extraction team, forcing Reynolds to flee with his prisoner. The usual game of cat and mouse, double-cross and shoot and punch follows.
That is a little unfair. The plot is never riveting, but the story mechanics generally work and the odd adversarial relationship between Reynolds and Washington drive that. Reynolds plays the whole thing as if his character is a confused boy; always frightened, always unsure, generally on the edge of complete collapse. Its a slightly constricted, one-note performance, but then the script doesn't give him much else to do beyond the action stuff. At least that action stuff is often extremely well-done; each of the gun battles and car chases are exciting, visceral experiences. Best are the fist fights: in this post-Bourne world, they are gripping, brutal struggles to the death, convincingly exhausting in their physicality. Espinosa shoots it all with vivid colours and designer grit to the fore.
Washington gets his fair share of action too, but mainly he lends that intelligent poised movie star presence to his part; his character is always the smartest person in the room. That's what Denzel brings, that and tried, true charisma. The supporting cast backs him up; filled with classy character actors like Brendan Gleeson, Vera Farmiga, Liam Cunningham and Sam Shepherd, who do a great job of selling such material.
The real star here, however, is South Africa itself, and Cape Town in particular, captured as a bustling, beautiful, cruel city by Espinosa, a fine stage in which his action sequences unfold.
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