(Kevin MacDonald, 2014)
MacDonald is now that rare thing; an excellent genre craftsman who never makes a bad film. His work in fiction - setting aside his excellent documentaries - goes from pretty good (State of Play, How I Live Now) to excellent (The Eagle). He has a skilful way with actors and a feel for textures which makes each of his films smell and play very differently.
Black Sea is an old-fashioned men-on-a-mission movie transplanted into the submarine genre. As such, it features a great cast of grizzled character actors playing strong, instantly recognisable types. Jude Law (attempting a passable Scottish accent) is Robinson, fired by his long-term employers at the start of the film, sulking in his dingy Aberdeen flat (MacDonald finds the poetry in the net curtains dancing the breeze) and missing his ex-wife and son, who left him because he was at sea too much. An old colleague suggests he take on a dangerous job - leading a team into the black sea in search of a Nazi U-boat that sank during the Second World War, stuffed with tons of gold.
They have to get the backing of a wealthy patron, recruit a team of Brits and Russians, buy a second-hand submarine, and evade the Russian fleet en route to the gold. Only their team contains one shifty psychopath (Ben Mendelsohn, good as ever), a weaselly Corporate American (Scoot McNairy, doing Paul Reiser in Aliens, and doing him pretty well) and a bunch of Russians and Brits who do not trust one another and cannot communicate. Tensions rise as their journey begins, and inevitably lead to death and disaster.
The cast, MacDonald's intense direction and a taut script by Dennis Kelly mean that early on the tension settles in like an extra actor and it is never off screen. This is one of those submarine films that is excellent on the sheer terror of the alien world beyond the sub's hull ("Just cold, black death", as Michael Smiley's character puts it, sharing all of the film's best lines with David Threlfall) and features a terrifying diving sequence alongside some equally eerie shots of the sub cutting through the murk. Those scenes only increase the claustrophobic feverishness of the paranoia crackling between the men onboard, all of them familiar from the sort of mission movies that were popular four or five decades ago. I mean that as a compliment; Black Sea is a great little yarn, suspenseful, gripping and unexpectedly funny in places.
It is also a study in working class rage - Robinson is motivated by fury at "them", the men who have ruined his industry and taken his career, and he inspires his men with promises of wealth, only to find himself turned and somewhat corrupted by so much beautiful gold, captured by MacDonald glimmering and reflecting across his wide-eyed face. A mission movie for our times, then, and a thoroughly satisfying one, the odd lapse in plot logic aside.
Showing posts with label Scoot McNairy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Scoot McNairy. Show all posts
Wednesday, 10 December 2014
Sunday, 17 August 2014
THE ROVER
(David Michod, 2014)
What exactly is it that makes Antipodean filmmakers so good at post-apocalyptic stories? The Mad Max trilogy, The Quiet Earth...even The Road was directed by an Australian (John Hillcoat). Can it just be that the Outback is such a desolate landscape, or does it say something more complex about some aspect of the national character?
The Rover is another great Australian post-apocalyptic tale. Set ten years after "the collapse", it follows taciturn loner Guy Pearce in his determined efforts to recover his car after it is stolen by a trio of thugs fleeing a botched robbery. Dragging "halfwit" Robert Pattinson, brother of one of the car thieves but left for dead at the robbery, with him, they cross a landscape occasionally hellish in its casual violence and degradation, but also one that is darkly funny and stunningly beautiful.
Such a slight story relies hugely upon direction and performances to achieve some of the mythic status for which it strives, and director Michod delivers, his arty style never overwhelming of obfuscating the narrative. He keeps it simple - filming long tense scenes with uncluttered compositions in classic set-ups - two shots, some stunning establishing shots. The Australian landscape provides beauty but cinematography from Natasha Braier makes the most of that, and her work - twinned with a terrifically visceral score by Anthony Partos - means that this film is thick with atmosphere. This world is a different kind of post-apocalyptic wasteland; dingy, almost mundane in its abandonment of civilisation.
Yes there are guns and grotesquerie, but nothing quite so gothic as in George Miller's vision (which has donated more or less all of post-apocalyptic cinema since Mad Max 2 was released). Here are tired, sweaty, dirty people selling water and petrol in empty, run-down towns. Soldiers patrol the wasteland, unsure of what policies they are enforcing or why. Endless trains cross the desert from the mines.
Pearce's character begins as a mystery; a grim-faced loner who kills without hesitation, and seems ridiculously fixated on getting his car back. But the actor's terrific performance slowly reveals the character to us as the film goes on; here is a man broken by what has happened, suffering because of each murder he has committed, and finally, a man clinging to what little sentiment he has left. He speaks little save for one scene with a soldier, so much of his work is in long unbroken close-ups and we have to read it in his eyes. But there it is - pain, rage, a sort of angry desperation. His is a great performance.
If The Rover is unquestionably (and like many films in this genre) a Western, which even its title suggests, it is also a weird sort of buddy movie, intent as much of it is with the odd dynamic between the two men on a journey together at the heart of its story. Pattinson has the showier role, turning and nervously grinning his way through thickly-accented monologues as his character grows more confident and assured, somehow gaining strength from his relationship with Pearce's cold-eyed killer. But again, Pattinson finds depth there, giving the climax of the film some charge.
But despite the quality of the two leads work, this is really Michod's film. His precise direction is crucial; muscular and assured, it gives The Rover it's own distinctive tone and emotional feel.
This is a mesmeric, tense film which also manages to be mordantly funny and genuinely beautiful.
What exactly is it that makes Antipodean filmmakers so good at post-apocalyptic stories? The Mad Max trilogy, The Quiet Earth...even The Road was directed by an Australian (John Hillcoat). Can it just be that the Outback is such a desolate landscape, or does it say something more complex about some aspect of the national character?
The Rover is another great Australian post-apocalyptic tale. Set ten years after "the collapse", it follows taciturn loner Guy Pearce in his determined efforts to recover his car after it is stolen by a trio of thugs fleeing a botched robbery. Dragging "halfwit" Robert Pattinson, brother of one of the car thieves but left for dead at the robbery, with him, they cross a landscape occasionally hellish in its casual violence and degradation, but also one that is darkly funny and stunningly beautiful.
Such a slight story relies hugely upon direction and performances to achieve some of the mythic status for which it strives, and director Michod delivers, his arty style never overwhelming of obfuscating the narrative. He keeps it simple - filming long tense scenes with uncluttered compositions in classic set-ups - two shots, some stunning establishing shots. The Australian landscape provides beauty but cinematography from Natasha Braier makes the most of that, and her work - twinned with a terrifically visceral score by Anthony Partos - means that this film is thick with atmosphere. This world is a different kind of post-apocalyptic wasteland; dingy, almost mundane in its abandonment of civilisation.
Yes there are guns and grotesquerie, but nothing quite so gothic as in George Miller's vision (which has donated more or less all of post-apocalyptic cinema since Mad Max 2 was released). Here are tired, sweaty, dirty people selling water and petrol in empty, run-down towns. Soldiers patrol the wasteland, unsure of what policies they are enforcing or why. Endless trains cross the desert from the mines.
Pearce's character begins as a mystery; a grim-faced loner who kills without hesitation, and seems ridiculously fixated on getting his car back. But the actor's terrific performance slowly reveals the character to us as the film goes on; here is a man broken by what has happened, suffering because of each murder he has committed, and finally, a man clinging to what little sentiment he has left. He speaks little save for one scene with a soldier, so much of his work is in long unbroken close-ups and we have to read it in his eyes. But there it is - pain, rage, a sort of angry desperation. His is a great performance.
If The Rover is unquestionably (and like many films in this genre) a Western, which even its title suggests, it is also a weird sort of buddy movie, intent as much of it is with the odd dynamic between the two men on a journey together at the heart of its story. Pattinson has the showier role, turning and nervously grinning his way through thickly-accented monologues as his character grows more confident and assured, somehow gaining strength from his relationship with Pearce's cold-eyed killer. But again, Pattinson finds depth there, giving the climax of the film some charge.
But despite the quality of the two leads work, this is really Michod's film. His precise direction is crucial; muscular and assured, it gives The Rover it's own distinctive tone and emotional feel.
This is a mesmeric, tense film which also manages to be mordantly funny and genuinely beautiful.
Thursday, 24 July 2014
NON-STOP
(Jaume Collet-Serra, 2014)
Over the course of a few mid-budget genre entertainments, Serra has transformed himself into one of Hollywood's premier craftsmen. His movies operate as efficient thrill-machines, yet there is undoubtedly more on offer if you want it; in Non-Stop it's not too difficult to detect an allegory for modern America and its troubled relationship with its security services. But it works perfectly well as an action-thriller too, giving Liam Neeson more to do than the Taken franchise does.
Neeson possesses an air of soulful melancholy and Serra has utilised that both here and in Unknown, in each film pushing Neeson's protagonist through a sort of identity crisis before he can really indulge in teh sort of righteous ass-kicking his fanbase presumably expect.
Here he plays Marks, an Air Marshall with numerous problems - debts, alcoholism, guilt over the death of his daughter a decade before. What should be a routine New York to London flight is derailed when Marks starts receiving texts from a mysterious passenger who knows an awful lot about him. Demanding $150 Million be wired to an account, the mystery man tells Marks that if he does not co-operate then a passenger will die every 20 minutes.
Marks then has to figure out who his opponent is, keep the passengers safe, and keep himself together, while the stakes keep on escalating; the plan is seemingly to frame Marks, and his own actions don't help him prevent that - he stumbles from mistake to disaster while the media decides he is a hijacker and the passengers begin to panic.
Over the course of a few mid-budget genre entertainments, Serra has transformed himself into one of Hollywood's premier craftsmen. His movies operate as efficient thrill-machines, yet there is undoubtedly more on offer if you want it; in Non-Stop it's not too difficult to detect an allegory for modern America and its troubled relationship with its security services. But it works perfectly well as an action-thriller too, giving Liam Neeson more to do than the Taken franchise does.
Neeson possesses an air of soulful melancholy and Serra has utilised that both here and in Unknown, in each film pushing Neeson's protagonist through a sort of identity crisis before he can really indulge in teh sort of righteous ass-kicking his fanbase presumably expect.
Here he plays Marks, an Air Marshall with numerous problems - debts, alcoholism, guilt over the death of his daughter a decade before. What should be a routine New York to London flight is derailed when Marks starts receiving texts from a mysterious passenger who knows an awful lot about him. Demanding $150 Million be wired to an account, the mystery man tells Marks that if he does not co-operate then a passenger will die every 20 minutes.
Marks then has to figure out who his opponent is, keep the passengers safe, and keep himself together, while the stakes keep on escalating; the plan is seemingly to frame Marks, and his own actions don't help him prevent that - he stumbles from mistake to disaster while the media decides he is a hijacker and the passengers begin to panic.
Serra is excellent on the claustrophobia of his setting. This is a red-eye flight and cinematographer Flavio Martinez Labiano lights it in purples and blues. The rows of seats become as much a plot point as a visual motif - they obscure the actions of passengers from Marks, and one great shot pans from his anxious, doubtful face to a sea of eyes on faces turned and peering at him over seat-backs.
The action is sparse here; this is more of a pure thriller, with lots of slow-burning suspense, but Serra pulls off a couple of fine set-pieces, most obviously the brutal fist-ight inside the onboard toilet.
The final act is undoubtedly silly, as the villains and their motivations are revealed, but by then its too late and most audiences will be hooked. Neeson is excellent and the supporting cast are all fine, but Serra is the real star here, taking such unpromising material and making a rousingly skillful entertainment of it.
Wednesday, 14 May 2014
FRANK
(Leonard Abrahamson, 2014)
Frank does many difficult things extremely well.
It is a black comedy which is, at it's core, about mental illness. Not only that; it addresses lots of the unpalatable truths of human interaction - insecurity, ambition, weakness, jealousy. And it is funny despite that.
It creates an interesting portrayal of musicians at work which lacks most of the usual cliches applied to musicians in cinema. And the music is pretty good, too.
One of it's central characters spends 95% of the story wearing a papier mache head. And this only makes him more hypnotic.
It follows Jon (Domhnall Gleeson), a frustrated young office drone from a seaside British town with dreams of rock stardom from the time he encounters Soronpfrbs, an American band on a shambolic tour in a battered old van. Their singer and leader is Frank (Michael Fassbender), who constantly wears that head. He eats in it, sleeps in it, showers in it (wrapped inside a plastic bag). He also seems to be a sort of genius; improvising songs at will, inspired by everything, dragging the rest of the band along in his wake.
After their keyboard player attempts suicide, Jon fills in on keyboards for a gig in his hometown, then gets a phonecall offering him the role on a long-term basis. He travels to rural Ireland, where they set to work on an album, the recording of which takes months. During this time, the web of co-dependencies and rivalries in the band, mostly revolving around Clara (Maggie Gylenhall) grows more complex, as Jon pushes for a more commercial, "likeable" direction, surreptitiously filming their sessions and posting the results on YouTube, where they develop a cult following (this film makes excellent use of twitter as a comedic device). That following results in the offer of a gig at South By Southwest in Austin, Texas. But Frank starts to feel the pressure of performing before a large audience as the band starts to crumble around him, and Jon struggles to hold everything together.
Abrahamson has a gift for observation and for texture; and Frank is full of funny, precisely nuanced scenes in vivid locations, each of them ably captured. The characters seem like they are types, exaggerated for comedic effect...until the pathos starts to seep into this story, and the melancholy heart of Frank himself and of Dan (Scoot McNairy) becomes evident. This is contrasted with Jon's desperate desire to be a star despite a shortfall of talent, and Clara's manic need for control.
Occasionally we even see them play music, a sort of droning eclectic mix of post-rock and electronic experimentation that actually is interesting and good.
Fassbender is as magnetic as ever, using beautifully concise movement and body language to let that blankly surprised giant head act for him. It works. It's hard to drag your eyes away from him whenever he is onscreen.
Gleeson gives great support as the wide-eyed, painfully human Jon, while Gyllenhall is deadpan deliciousness as Clara, casually devastating with her brutal one-line dismissals. The script is full of sly wit, but it is tender to its characters too. All of this, and it still manages to say moving, near-profound things about creativity, inspiration and selfishness. It is magnificent, and quite, quite unique.
Frank does many difficult things extremely well.
It is a black comedy which is, at it's core, about mental illness. Not only that; it addresses lots of the unpalatable truths of human interaction - insecurity, ambition, weakness, jealousy. And it is funny despite that.
It creates an interesting portrayal of musicians at work which lacks most of the usual cliches applied to musicians in cinema. And the music is pretty good, too.
One of it's central characters spends 95% of the story wearing a papier mache head. And this only makes him more hypnotic.
It follows Jon (Domhnall Gleeson), a frustrated young office drone from a seaside British town with dreams of rock stardom from the time he encounters Soronpfrbs, an American band on a shambolic tour in a battered old van. Their singer and leader is Frank (Michael Fassbender), who constantly wears that head. He eats in it, sleeps in it, showers in it (wrapped inside a plastic bag). He also seems to be a sort of genius; improvising songs at will, inspired by everything, dragging the rest of the band along in his wake.
After their keyboard player attempts suicide, Jon fills in on keyboards for a gig in his hometown, then gets a phonecall offering him the role on a long-term basis. He travels to rural Ireland, where they set to work on an album, the recording of which takes months. During this time, the web of co-dependencies and rivalries in the band, mostly revolving around Clara (Maggie Gylenhall) grows more complex, as Jon pushes for a more commercial, "likeable" direction, surreptitiously filming their sessions and posting the results on YouTube, where they develop a cult following (this film makes excellent use of twitter as a comedic device). That following results in the offer of a gig at South By Southwest in Austin, Texas. But Frank starts to feel the pressure of performing before a large audience as the band starts to crumble around him, and Jon struggles to hold everything together.
Abrahamson has a gift for observation and for texture; and Frank is full of funny, precisely nuanced scenes in vivid locations, each of them ably captured. The characters seem like they are types, exaggerated for comedic effect...until the pathos starts to seep into this story, and the melancholy heart of Frank himself and of Dan (Scoot McNairy) becomes evident. This is contrasted with Jon's desperate desire to be a star despite a shortfall of talent, and Clara's manic need for control.
Occasionally we even see them play music, a sort of droning eclectic mix of post-rock and electronic experimentation that actually is interesting and good.
Fassbender is as magnetic as ever, using beautifully concise movement and body language to let that blankly surprised giant head act for him. It works. It's hard to drag your eyes away from him whenever he is onscreen.
Gleeson gives great support as the wide-eyed, painfully human Jon, while Gyllenhall is deadpan deliciousness as Clara, casually devastating with her brutal one-line dismissals. The script is full of sly wit, but it is tender to its characters too. All of this, and it still manages to say moving, near-profound things about creativity, inspiration and selfishness. It is magnificent, and quite, quite unique.
Wednesday, 14 November 2012
ARGO
(Ben Affleck, 2012)
Though it tries very hard to feel like a film from the era in which it is set - the end of the 1970s and dawn of the '80s - there is in fact something awfully 1990s about Ben Affleck's Argo. It is so careful and earnest in its attempts to be an adult entertainment - not too funny, not too political, not too talky, just exciting enough - that it instead feels slightly drab at times, despite its outlandish "true" story.
That story traces the attempts of CIA extraction specialist Tony Mendez (Affleck, sporting a true-to-period beard and semi-mullet which always look just a tad too styled) to smuggle six US embassy staff out of Tehran following the Islamic Revolution in Iran. His plan involves the creation of a fake movie project - the sci-fi epic Argo - which has a script, storyboards, production company and a couple of cynical Hollywood old-timers (Alan Arkin and John Goodman, sharing all the films best lines between them). Argo is to shoot in Iran and Mendez means to smuggle the embassy workers out as part of his film crew, the story being that they have been scouting locations in the country.
The action is split between intense conversations amongst groups of suited men in rooms, most with fringes and sideburns, arguing and blustering over their plans; and scenes of angry Iranians in the streets of Tehran. The Iranians we see here are generally granted no individuality, rather they are a shouty, scary mob, or intensely focused anti-American zealots, and Affleck shoots the Tehran scenes differently than those set in the USA. In Tehran the camera is jittery and handheld, the film grainier. The sequences in Langley and Washington are slightly smoother - the camera circles and roves insistently but without that same nervous energy, the more measured cutting amplifying this to an extent.
But then there are few real characters here. Affleck's Mendez has no personality, instead being fitted out with a series of gestures in the direction of one; he is separated from his wife and son, he drinks too much, he seems somewhat mournful. With other figures he has avoided the impression of shallow characterisation through casting - his actors are largely superb, and the likes of Bryan Cranston and Scoot McNairy give these people more meat than the script perhaps allowed for their bones.
That script is filled with great lines and snappy exchanges and Affleck keeps the whole thing pacy, particularly in the difficult expository sections of the first act. It is atmospheric too, with a nicely textured sense of that world, filled with cigarette smoke and creaking leather.
By the last act much of this has ceased to matter. By then the escape attempt has begun, and it is unbearably, giddily gripping and suspenseful. Affleck may lack a distinctive style or voice, but he is a fine craftsman, and his handling of suspense here is textbook stuff which works brilliantly in its every predictable, triumphant beat, twist and reversal.
This may be his most roundly entertaining and accessible film yet, but for me it is also his worst. The understanding of Boston so evident in Gone Baby Gone and The Town is here replaced by a touristic awe at Tehran, the relatively intense character studies of those films replaced by a more functional approach to characterisation. That this is still a soundly entertaining film is tribute to the skill of Affleck as a director, his excellent ensemble, and to Chris Terrio's script. While the actor-director has been (inaccurately) compared to Sidney Lumet on the basis of this film, a more telling comparison would be with Sydney Pollack, who also specialised in high-class middlebrow entertainments aimed solidly at grown-ups. Pollack turned out more than his fair share of classics over the years and I can see Affleck doing the same, if he continues to pick his projects wisely...
Though it tries very hard to feel like a film from the era in which it is set - the end of the 1970s and dawn of the '80s - there is in fact something awfully 1990s about Ben Affleck's Argo. It is so careful and earnest in its attempts to be an adult entertainment - not too funny, not too political, not too talky, just exciting enough - that it instead feels slightly drab at times, despite its outlandish "true" story.
That story traces the attempts of CIA extraction specialist Tony Mendez (Affleck, sporting a true-to-period beard and semi-mullet which always look just a tad too styled) to smuggle six US embassy staff out of Tehran following the Islamic Revolution in Iran. His plan involves the creation of a fake movie project - the sci-fi epic Argo - which has a script, storyboards, production company and a couple of cynical Hollywood old-timers (Alan Arkin and John Goodman, sharing all the films best lines between them). Argo is to shoot in Iran and Mendez means to smuggle the embassy workers out as part of his film crew, the story being that they have been scouting locations in the country.
The action is split between intense conversations amongst groups of suited men in rooms, most with fringes and sideburns, arguing and blustering over their plans; and scenes of angry Iranians in the streets of Tehran. The Iranians we see here are generally granted no individuality, rather they are a shouty, scary mob, or intensely focused anti-American zealots, and Affleck shoots the Tehran scenes differently than those set in the USA. In Tehran the camera is jittery and handheld, the film grainier. The sequences in Langley and Washington are slightly smoother - the camera circles and roves insistently but without that same nervous energy, the more measured cutting amplifying this to an extent.
But then there are few real characters here. Affleck's Mendez has no personality, instead being fitted out with a series of gestures in the direction of one; he is separated from his wife and son, he drinks too much, he seems somewhat mournful. With other figures he has avoided the impression of shallow characterisation through casting - his actors are largely superb, and the likes of Bryan Cranston and Scoot McNairy give these people more meat than the script perhaps allowed for their bones.
That script is filled with great lines and snappy exchanges and Affleck keeps the whole thing pacy, particularly in the difficult expository sections of the first act. It is atmospheric too, with a nicely textured sense of that world, filled with cigarette smoke and creaking leather.
By the last act much of this has ceased to matter. By then the escape attempt has begun, and it is unbearably, giddily gripping and suspenseful. Affleck may lack a distinctive style or voice, but he is a fine craftsman, and his handling of suspense here is textbook stuff which works brilliantly in its every predictable, triumphant beat, twist and reversal.
This may be his most roundly entertaining and accessible film yet, but for me it is also his worst. The understanding of Boston so evident in Gone Baby Gone and The Town is here replaced by a touristic awe at Tehran, the relatively intense character studies of those films replaced by a more functional approach to characterisation. That this is still a soundly entertaining film is tribute to the skill of Affleck as a director, his excellent ensemble, and to Chris Terrio's script. While the actor-director has been (inaccurately) compared to Sidney Lumet on the basis of this film, a more telling comparison would be with Sydney Pollack, who also specialised in high-class middlebrow entertainments aimed solidly at grown-ups. Pollack turned out more than his fair share of classics over the years and I can see Affleck doing the same, if he continues to pick his projects wisely...
Saturday, 22 September 2012
KILLING THEM SOFTLY
(Andrew Dominik, 2012)
If the last couple of decades have brought about a proliferation of dramas and black comedies all set within the lower to middle management ranks of the mob - everything from Goodfellas and The Sopranos to Analyze This - then George V Higgins can be considered very much ahead of his time. He was writing novels like this from 1970 onwards, and Peter Yates' terrific adaptation of The Friends of Eddie Coyle captures the world of those books with grit and precision both.
Andrew Dominik's film adapts Higgins' book Cogans Trade, and aside from needlessly changing the title, alters little. The structure, characters and plot are generally identical, and much of the - quite brilliant - dialogue comes from Higgins verbatim. What is different is the setting. Higgins book was set in the grim mid-70s, but Dominick sets his film in 2008, the election year in which Barack Obama and John McCain battled to become US President while the American Economy virtually collapsed. He underlines this - a touch heavy-handedly - with recurrent cutaways to politicians discussing the economy on tv, and portions of scenes are soundtracked to similar speeches. This works mainly because Higgins was so interested in the workings of crime as a business. Here, Richard Jenkins is a harassed corporate stooge and middleman, needing committee approval to release funds, insisting that out of town hit men travel in economy.
Everybody is on the make, everybody is out for himself, everybody is desperate to make money, and in a final scene (not quite in the book), Brad Pitt's Jackie Cogan, a fixer-cum-assassin, makes that clear. This films last line is "Pay me my money".
The story is told in tangents and filled with extended riffs and monologues by newly introduced characters, but the central plot focuses on two inept, ragged young ex-cons (Scoot McNairy and Ben Mendelsohn, both outstanding) who hold up a mob card game, and the fallout from this act. The mobster who runs the game, Markie (Ray Liotta) has to pay for past indiscretions, the two young cons have to pay, and their backer has to pay. So Cogan is brought in and he in turn brings in New York Jimmy (James Gandolfini, essaying another fine portrait of decaying masculinity) and Kenny (Slaine), while throughout cons and hitmen swap anecdotes about jail time sodomy, dogshit, prostitutes, and preferred murder methodology. Eventually, however, the violence must begin. And you just know that in the universe created by Higgins and Dominik, that violence will be coruscating.
All of this might sound quite Tarantino-esque, and indeed it might be if not for the fact that Higgins influenced Tarantino but retains an essential, unique quality to his storytelling ably imitated here, and for Dominik's distinctively muscular sense of cinema.
Here is a Director with a Capital D, composing scenes with dazzling assurance, from the opening sound-clash walk through rubbish in the wind to the heroin high scored (familiarly but satisfyingly) by the Velvet Underground to the bravura scenes of shocking violence.
This world also sets itself apart from those of Tarantino's work by its grit; Dominik textures it so that it feels like the world we live in, rain-slicked and shabby as it is, its junkies looking like they stink, its cars and clothes and beer bottles all quotidian and weighted.
Pitt has rarely been better (though he chews on his lips as usual), age giving him a bearing and depth his youthful beauty never allowed, and his scenes with a mordant, droll Jenkins are a delight.
All this in a film with no real hero, no fixed character to root for; which may be Dominik's point; in a world as torn by economic trauma as todays, there is no space for honour, loyalty, no room for anybody to be a good guy. Instead there is only the struggle for money, the battle for survival, which gives the violence in Killing Them Sofly so much sting. Cogan says it in his slightly didactic last speech: "In America, you're on your own."
Dominik is a major filmmaker, and his ambition is to be applauded, even if it only partially comes off in this instance. Still, Killing Them Softly is big, bold, beautiful American filmmaking with wit and flash, that would not have looked out of place in the 1970s, and that is very high praise indeed.
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