(Nima Nourizadeh, 2015)
American Ultra probably looked great in the conceptual stage. A small-town stoner and his girlfriend wind up dodging assassins and kill-squads in a sleepy anonymous North Carolina town. Give it a few nasty action sequences, a little comedy quirk, charmingly convincing performances from stars Jesse Eisenberg and Kristin Stewart, and some millennial style from director Nima Nourizadeh and we should have a winner, right?
But it never really works. The tone lurches unpredictably around from scene to scene. It looks and feels like it should be an action-comedy, but there is barely any comedy, and what there is, isn't particularly funny. The action scenes are peculiarly bloodthirsty and violent without ever really becoming exciting. The moment where Eisenberg discovers that he is actually a highly trained sleeper agent killing machine feels ripped straight out of The Bourne Identity but here it lacks any of the adrenalised glee of that moment. Supporting characters aren't fleshed out enough - wasting an actor like Walton Goggins on a one-dimensional psycho called "Laugher" (he laughs a lot) is particularly unforgivable even if a late speech tries to humanise him - though Topher Grace is good as his usual smug self in the villain part.
Eisenberg and Stewart are both fine too, rekindling the chemistry they showed in the vastly superior Adventureland, but even their relationship is a narrative mess. A twist halfway through and the resultant emotional explosion feels like the film hasn't earned it, and is never in keeping with the light tone some scenes attempt.
There are some great ideas here, a few big laughs and some good scenes, but it's not enough to stop the whole thing feeling like an undercooked dud.
Showing posts with label John Leguizamo. Show all posts
Showing posts with label John Leguizamo. Show all posts
Monday, 7 September 2015
Saturday, 17 January 2015
JOHN WICK
(Chad Stahelski, David Leitch, 2014)
John Wick achieves a strange sort of perfection.
It keeps certain elements blessedly simple; the plot, for example, finds former legendary assassin Wick (Keanu Reeves, arguably the leading action star of the last couple of decades in terms of pure strike rate - The Matrix, Speed and this is some action c.v...) brooding on the recent death of his beloved wife (a Bridget Moynihan seen only in flashback and on iphone videos). Prior to her death she has arranged for a puppy to be delivered to give him something to love, but when nasty Russian gangster (Alfie Allen) takes a fancy to Wick's vintage Mustang, a nocturnal invasion of his house leaves Wick badly beaten, without his car, and with a dead puppy.
Thus we have a revenge thriller, and you know it is going to be bloody by the response of the elder gangsters to the youngster's impulsive act - their terror of Wick evident in a few facial expressions and awed dialogue exchanges. After the first big action set-piece we realise that this film is set in a sort of comic book universe wherein the criminal underworld exists by a set of odd rules, trading gold coins for a body clean-up service or access to a hotel and bar called the Continental, where there is no violence or business permitted. That explains the heightened colours of the photography here, which is stylish and often beautiful.
Even more beautiful is the action choreography. Action scenes are often misleadingly labelled "balletic", when more usually they are chopped up and hyperactively edited for visceral impact. But this film - directed by two former stuntmen and second unit directors, who obviously intimately know their stuff - is shot like a classic musical. While the camera moves steadily, the takes are long and beautifully choreographed and blocked; combatants dart and tumble in and out of frame as Reeves despatches them in ludicrous numbers, generally with a pistol but also with his fists and feet, blades, assault rifles and even automobiles. There is a dark wit to some of this - notably in the inventive, quick solutions Wick improvises to certain problems in combat -and it is all incredibly satisfying on a couple of levels. It has the obvious pleasure of the righteous revenge film - they killed his puppy!! - and the satisfaction of watching action that is coherent, stylish and pleasingly impactful.
It goes on a little too long but it has lots of great character actors in minor roles (a couple of The Wire alumni, Willem Dafoe, Ian McShane and John Leguizamo all pop up), always looks and sounds beautiful, is brilliantly serious in its goofy silliness, and generally makes you wish every action film could be so good. It is also great to see Reeves embrace action, where he is effective as Liam Neeson; brawny, broody and elegant of movement, he is perfect here. And in those intricate, hilarious action scenes, it feels almost transcendent and tremendous; perfect.
John Wick achieves a strange sort of perfection.
It keeps certain elements blessedly simple; the plot, for example, finds former legendary assassin Wick (Keanu Reeves, arguably the leading action star of the last couple of decades in terms of pure strike rate - The Matrix, Speed and this is some action c.v...) brooding on the recent death of his beloved wife (a Bridget Moynihan seen only in flashback and on iphone videos). Prior to her death she has arranged for a puppy to be delivered to give him something to love, but when nasty Russian gangster (Alfie Allen) takes a fancy to Wick's vintage Mustang, a nocturnal invasion of his house leaves Wick badly beaten, without his car, and with a dead puppy.
Thus we have a revenge thriller, and you know it is going to be bloody by the response of the elder gangsters to the youngster's impulsive act - their terror of Wick evident in a few facial expressions and awed dialogue exchanges. After the first big action set-piece we realise that this film is set in a sort of comic book universe wherein the criminal underworld exists by a set of odd rules, trading gold coins for a body clean-up service or access to a hotel and bar called the Continental, where there is no violence or business permitted. That explains the heightened colours of the photography here, which is stylish and often beautiful.
Even more beautiful is the action choreography. Action scenes are often misleadingly labelled "balletic", when more usually they are chopped up and hyperactively edited for visceral impact. But this film - directed by two former stuntmen and second unit directors, who obviously intimately know their stuff - is shot like a classic musical. While the camera moves steadily, the takes are long and beautifully choreographed and blocked; combatants dart and tumble in and out of frame as Reeves despatches them in ludicrous numbers, generally with a pistol but also with his fists and feet, blades, assault rifles and even automobiles. There is a dark wit to some of this - notably in the inventive, quick solutions Wick improvises to certain problems in combat -and it is all incredibly satisfying on a couple of levels. It has the obvious pleasure of the righteous revenge film - they killed his puppy!! - and the satisfaction of watching action that is coherent, stylish and pleasingly impactful.
It goes on a little too long but it has lots of great character actors in minor roles (a couple of The Wire alumni, Willem Dafoe, Ian McShane and John Leguizamo all pop up), always looks and sounds beautiful, is brilliantly serious in its goofy silliness, and generally makes you wish every action film could be so good. It is also great to see Reeves embrace action, where he is effective as Liam Neeson; brawny, broody and elegant of movement, he is perfect here. And in those intricate, hilarious action scenes, it feels almost transcendent and tremendous; perfect.
Friday, 6 April 2012
VANISHING ON 7TH STREET
(Brad Anderson, 2010)
There's a pleasing shade of John Carpenter to director Brad Anderson's work in the horror genre. It's there in his clever visual economy, and in his use of the edges of the frame, and in the sustained tone of creeping, quiet dread he establishes.
Vanishing on 7th Street even has the sort of premise Carpenter would surely appreciate; an apocalyptic darkness falls upon the world for an instant, and when it lifts, almost everybody is gone. Small piles of clothes litter the ground. The shadows seem alive as the days shrink in length and the few survivors, brandishing flares and flashlights and fleeing the steadily encroaching dark, desperately seek escape. In a touch straight from Carpenter's love of Hawks' Rio Bravo, a few survivors hole up in a bar powered by a stuttering back-up generator.
That is all set up with confidence and aplomb and a fair degree of creepy imagery in the first twenty or so minutes. After that, the film is less successful, a bit talkier than it needs to be as it's players discuss their situation and reveal various emotional backstories, and - a common flaw in apocalyptic movies - settling for a small drama when it's opening had suggested the endlessly epic possibilities of this altered world.
So we settle in for an act at the bar, with Hayden Christenson efficient as the hero and Thandie Newton and John Leguizamo emoting and gurning much more in the character roles.
This is a neat enough B-movie; short, generally well-paced and full of creepy set-pieces, it is another reminder (after the superior Session 9) of Anderson's superb craftsmanship. It admirably refuses explanations - a peek at Leguizamo's book and it's chapter on Dark Matter together with his talk of Croatoan and the Lost Colony are as close as we get - and finds just the right tone for an ending which is pessimistic, but with a single optimistic note and a lovely final image; two children on horseback, riding out of the city.
Hopefully at some point Anderson will get the backing of a big studio and a big budget to make the great movie of which he is evidently capable.
There's a pleasing shade of John Carpenter to director Brad Anderson's work in the horror genre. It's there in his clever visual economy, and in his use of the edges of the frame, and in the sustained tone of creeping, quiet dread he establishes.
Vanishing on 7th Street even has the sort of premise Carpenter would surely appreciate; an apocalyptic darkness falls upon the world for an instant, and when it lifts, almost everybody is gone. Small piles of clothes litter the ground. The shadows seem alive as the days shrink in length and the few survivors, brandishing flares and flashlights and fleeing the steadily encroaching dark, desperately seek escape. In a touch straight from Carpenter's love of Hawks' Rio Bravo, a few survivors hole up in a bar powered by a stuttering back-up generator.
That is all set up with confidence and aplomb and a fair degree of creepy imagery in the first twenty or so minutes. After that, the film is less successful, a bit talkier than it needs to be as it's players discuss their situation and reveal various emotional backstories, and - a common flaw in apocalyptic movies - settling for a small drama when it's opening had suggested the endlessly epic possibilities of this altered world.
So we settle in for an act at the bar, with Hayden Christenson efficient as the hero and Thandie Newton and John Leguizamo emoting and gurning much more in the character roles.
This is a neat enough B-movie; short, generally well-paced and full of creepy set-pieces, it is another reminder (after the superior Session 9) of Anderson's superb craftsmanship. It admirably refuses explanations - a peek at Leguizamo's book and it's chapter on Dark Matter together with his talk of Croatoan and the Lost Colony are as close as we get - and finds just the right tone for an ending which is pessimistic, but with a single optimistic note and a lovely final image; two children on horseback, riding out of the city.
Hopefully at some point Anderson will get the backing of a big studio and a big budget to make the great movie of which he is evidently capable.
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