(John Hillcoat, 2016)
A Cops and Robbers movie!
Hillcoat gathers a really impressive cast here, and embeds them in a world thick with macho atmosphere and sticky Atlanta, Georgia authenticity. Matt Cook's screenplay was on the Black List a few years ago, and it's easy to see why: it's full of great pulp characters and moments, and ripe for muscular action treatment. Hillcoat delivers in that department, opening the film with a heist carried out by Michael Belmont (Chiwetel Ejiofor) and Russell Welch (Norman Reedus), two ex-military contractors now working for hire for the Russian Mob in the sinister form of Kate Winslet's cold gang boss. Russell and Michael enlist Russell's junkie ex-cop brother (Aaron Paul in another loser role) and he in turn calls in dirty cops Marcus (Anthony Mackie) and Rodriguez (Clifton Collins Jr) for the heist on a downtown bank, focused on recovering a single safety deposit box. The heist goes wrong and attracts the attention of burned out detective Allen (Woody Harrelson). Meanwhile, the gang have to perform another job, and the decision is made to kill a cop as a massive distraction - the police band code for this is a 999 - and the chosen victim is Chris (Casey Affleck), an Iraq-war veteran and nephew of Allen, recently transferred from a cushy suburb to the gangs unit, where he and Marcus make for uneasy partners.
Along the way, Hillcoat throws in an extended police raid on a projects gang den, the second heist and a handful of tense confrontations in great urban neo-noir locations. He plays with colour and composition. Lost of reds, lots of reflections, visually portraying the bloodiness and duplicity of this world.
The whole thing is more or less ludicrously macho, all shape charges and assault rifles, but the characters are surprisingly rich and convincing for a world as pulpy as the one, and the excellent cast (Ejiofor, Affleck and Winslet in particular) make it extremely compelling.
It's grim - but then isn't every Hillcoat film - but always entertaining.
Showing posts with label Teresa Palmer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Teresa Palmer. Show all posts
Friday, 26 February 2016
Friday, 8 March 2013
THE SORCERERS APPRENTICE
(Jon Turteltaub, 2010)
The makers of The Sorcerers Apprentice don't seem to know quite what they want it to be.
It's a Jerry Bruckheimer-produced Summer Blockbuster, but despite the tens of Millions of dollars lavished upon the many special effects sequences and the location shooting in New York City, somehow it never quite feels like one. It is a kid-friendly action-fantasy, but it has a strange setting, seemingly borrowed from Spider-Man comics. It's hero Dave (Jay Baruchal, whose wonky charm works surprisingly well surrounded by so much nonsense) is a geeky Science whizz at a Manhattan University, with no girlfriend or social life. That all goes back to the traumatic episode in his childhood when he encountered Balthazar (Nicolas Cage, in relatively restrained mode) a powerful, ancient sorcerer, who revealed that Dave is himself destined to be a powerful sorcerer before the appearance of Horvath (Alfred Molina doing his stock villain routine) led to a destructive magical battle and Dave's humiliation before his entire school class, including a girl he liked.
The plot resumes a decade later, with Dave engaged in mad scientist experiments (channelling his sorcery into science, you see), that girl from school, now revealed as pretty Becky (Teresa Palmer) reappearing in his life, and Horvath and Balthazar suddenly freed from the urn in which they have been sealed together for the last ten years. They both seek a Russian Doll which imprisons Morgan Le Fay, Horvath to free her and destroy the world, Balthazar to ensure she remains trapped, and Dave, of course, gets caught in the middle while Balthazar tries to teach him how to become the sorcerer he is destined to be.
That makes it sort-of-a-superhero film, since it deals with the origin of a young hero with supernatural abilities, but despite all the magical battles in the streets and skies of New York, it has no iconography, no costumes, no secret identities. Baruchal and Toby Kebbell (as Horvath's apprentice, a celebrity Magician who lives like a Rock star) both seem to play much of it for laughs, but Cage is, well, Cage, all loony intensity and odd delivery, and the tone is all over the place.
Turteltaub is an odd director, a successful hack who has made romcoms, big family blockbusters, and semi-serious dramas, all without ever evincing any particular personality or great talent beyond efficiency, and he might be the problem with the Sorcerers Apprentice. Despite a nice cast (also including Monica Bellucci and Alice Krige as Sorceresses), some interesting elements, particularly some of the clever ways magic in the modern world is manifested, and several good moments, it all feels quite anonymous and tired and the last act is a bit of a trudge to the inevitable ending.
The makers of The Sorcerers Apprentice don't seem to know quite what they want it to be.
It's a Jerry Bruckheimer-produced Summer Blockbuster, but despite the tens of Millions of dollars lavished upon the many special effects sequences and the location shooting in New York City, somehow it never quite feels like one. It is a kid-friendly action-fantasy, but it has a strange setting, seemingly borrowed from Spider-Man comics. It's hero Dave (Jay Baruchal, whose wonky charm works surprisingly well surrounded by so much nonsense) is a geeky Science whizz at a Manhattan University, with no girlfriend or social life. That all goes back to the traumatic episode in his childhood when he encountered Balthazar (Nicolas Cage, in relatively restrained mode) a powerful, ancient sorcerer, who revealed that Dave is himself destined to be a powerful sorcerer before the appearance of Horvath (Alfred Molina doing his stock villain routine) led to a destructive magical battle and Dave's humiliation before his entire school class, including a girl he liked.
The plot resumes a decade later, with Dave engaged in mad scientist experiments (channelling his sorcery into science, you see), that girl from school, now revealed as pretty Becky (Teresa Palmer) reappearing in his life, and Horvath and Balthazar suddenly freed from the urn in which they have been sealed together for the last ten years. They both seek a Russian Doll which imprisons Morgan Le Fay, Horvath to free her and destroy the world, Balthazar to ensure she remains trapped, and Dave, of course, gets caught in the middle while Balthazar tries to teach him how to become the sorcerer he is destined to be.
That makes it sort-of-a-superhero film, since it deals with the origin of a young hero with supernatural abilities, but despite all the magical battles in the streets and skies of New York, it has no iconography, no costumes, no secret identities. Baruchal and Toby Kebbell (as Horvath's apprentice, a celebrity Magician who lives like a Rock star) both seem to play much of it for laughs, but Cage is, well, Cage, all loony intensity and odd delivery, and the tone is all over the place.
Turteltaub is an odd director, a successful hack who has made romcoms, big family blockbusters, and semi-serious dramas, all without ever evincing any particular personality or great talent beyond efficiency, and he might be the problem with the Sorcerers Apprentice. Despite a nice cast (also including Monica Bellucci and Alice Krige as Sorceresses), some interesting elements, particularly some of the clever ways magic in the modern world is manifested, and several good moments, it all feels quite anonymous and tired and the last act is a bit of a trudge to the inevitable ending.
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