AKA The Terrorists
(Caspar Wrede, 1974)
Ransom wastes Sean Connery. Easily the greatest leading man of his generation, Connery was often misused in the decades between leaving the James Bond franchise and a sort of rebirth as an elder statesman megastar. Only Sidney Lumet seemed to understand his acting ability, and his outsized charisma and macho presence were really only truly capitalised upon by the series of brilliant historical adventures he made in the 1970s. Alongside those he starred in some odd misfires and oddities - thrillers and dramas of questionable value, of which Ransom is a prime example.
Following the machinations and politics around the handling of a dual hostage and hijacking situation in the nation of "Scandinavia" (which appears to be Norway), Connery plays the security chief of the nation who finds himself at odds with his own and the British Government about how to deal with the terrorists involved. Ian McShane plays one, though he, like everyone else, like Connery, has barely any character to speak of.
Finnish director Wrede is competent but his staging and style are inarguably dull; despite cinematography by the legendary Sven Nykvist and a score by the equally legendary Jerry Goldsmith, Ransom rarely feels like a movie, instead carrying a lingering whiff of television with it. The plot sees Connery arrange various plans to end the twin sieges, and even the action scenes feel flat, though there are a few moments of tension. The best thing here is the location work - wintry Norwegian locations are instantly atmospheric, and even the cynically-appropriated library material of bombing in '70s Britain adds to the feel of Europe during a low, dirty decade. Connery is always watchable, but his character, Nils Tahlvik, is a gruff military man who seems more irritated by the situation in which he finds himself than he is emotionally torn. The actor is capable of so much more than this film.
Saturday, 28 March 2015
Sunday, 22 March 2015
RUN ALL NIGHT
(Jaume Collet-Serra, 2015)
Neeson has an obvious advantage over all of his current competitors for the title of King of Action Movies: he can really act. When the Rock or Vin Diesel or Jason Statham turns in a performance with any depth or emotion, we are surprised that they've managed that "Any". With Neeson, it's expected.
His only real current rival in that area is Keanu Reeves, who has added a surprising amount of melancholy and gravity to his persona as age has taken hold.
But Neeson has always been melancholy - he wears it like a cloak, swishing in his massive wake - its just that these days his action parts seem tailor-made for his presence. In Run All Night he plays an ageing, useless hit man for the Irish mob in New York, Jimmy Conlon. Apparently kept around out of sentimentality by mob boss Sean Maguire (Ed Harris, adding to his list of Irish mobsters), a childhood friend, Jimmy is a broke alcoholic , crippled by memories of all the people he has murdered. A convoluted first act sets up a situation whereby Jimmy ends up killing Sean's reckless gangster son in order to protect his own, civilian boy Michael (Joel Kinnaman), setting the two of them off on a night of chase and survival through New York as Sean sets hit men and flunkies after them. Also in on the hunt are the NYPD, though the detective who has been after Jimmy for decades (Vincent D'onofrio) may be their only hope of survival.
Collet-Serra is one of the more talented craftsmen working in mainstream American cinema right now and his classy, slick touch makes Run All Night one of the better Neeson actioners of the last few years. If the action scenes are somewhat underwhelming - and the low-key, small scale, determinedly local feel to the whole thing may even explain that to some extent - then the fine work by a great cast is more than enough to compensate. Crucially, Neeson is actor enough to rise to the task of playing opposite the likes of Harris and D'Onofrio, and his scenes with the former, particularly, lend this film an oddly poetic sense of longtime male friendships in the twilight years.
That's not to criticise the action scenes - a brutal, to-the-death fight between Neeson and Holt McCallany in a public toilet is a highlight, closely followed by a lengthy car-chase that avoids most of the cliches of that convention - rather to emphasise that the elements that really set Run All Night apart are the gritty feel it has for New York and the character acting throughout.
Probably the weakest element is the one that feels most like it has come from a different sort of genre film - Common as a preppy assassin Price, sporting a trench-coat and a laser-sighting on his pistol.
But generally Run All Night works splendidly; it is an unusually emotional, visceral mix of crime, thriller and action movies, and it uses Liam Neeson about as well as any recent film has.
Neeson has an obvious advantage over all of his current competitors for the title of King of Action Movies: he can really act. When the Rock or Vin Diesel or Jason Statham turns in a performance with any depth or emotion, we are surprised that they've managed that "Any". With Neeson, it's expected.
His only real current rival in that area is Keanu Reeves, who has added a surprising amount of melancholy and gravity to his persona as age has taken hold.
But Neeson has always been melancholy - he wears it like a cloak, swishing in his massive wake - its just that these days his action parts seem tailor-made for his presence. In Run All Night he plays an ageing, useless hit man for the Irish mob in New York, Jimmy Conlon. Apparently kept around out of sentimentality by mob boss Sean Maguire (Ed Harris, adding to his list of Irish mobsters), a childhood friend, Jimmy is a broke alcoholic , crippled by memories of all the people he has murdered. A convoluted first act sets up a situation whereby Jimmy ends up killing Sean's reckless gangster son in order to protect his own, civilian boy Michael (Joel Kinnaman), setting the two of them off on a night of chase and survival through New York as Sean sets hit men and flunkies after them. Also in on the hunt are the NYPD, though the detective who has been after Jimmy for decades (Vincent D'onofrio) may be their only hope of survival.
Collet-Serra is one of the more talented craftsmen working in mainstream American cinema right now and his classy, slick touch makes Run All Night one of the better Neeson actioners of the last few years. If the action scenes are somewhat underwhelming - and the low-key, small scale, determinedly local feel to the whole thing may even explain that to some extent - then the fine work by a great cast is more than enough to compensate. Crucially, Neeson is actor enough to rise to the task of playing opposite the likes of Harris and D'Onofrio, and his scenes with the former, particularly, lend this film an oddly poetic sense of longtime male friendships in the twilight years.
That's not to criticise the action scenes - a brutal, to-the-death fight between Neeson and Holt McCallany in a public toilet is a highlight, closely followed by a lengthy car-chase that avoids most of the cliches of that convention - rather to emphasise that the elements that really set Run All Night apart are the gritty feel it has for New York and the character acting throughout.
Probably the weakest element is the one that feels most like it has come from a different sort of genre film - Common as a preppy assassin Price, sporting a trench-coat and a laser-sighting on his pistol.
But generally Run All Night works splendidly; it is an unusually emotional, visceral mix of crime, thriller and action movies, and it uses Liam Neeson about as well as any recent film has.
Tuesday, 10 March 2015
CHAPPIE
(Neill Blomkamp, 2015)
Blomkamp has nothing to say about anything. Three movies in, and he has included themes and references in his movies that are consistently interesting and topical - the gap between rich and poor, racism, violence in law and order, crime, what constitutes consciousness, corporate influence - and yet he has never really investigated any of them in any meaningful way. They're there. And that's it.
What he seems really interested in is technology. That and ultra-violence. Preferably a combination of the two.
Chappie follows the Blomkamp formula in that it includes many elements reminiscent of his first 2 films, only it is less successful than either. Set in a very near future Johannesburg (lacking a single major black character, let it be noted) where the police are using robot "Scout" officers to deal with the overwhelming rate of violent crime, Chappie is really the story of Dev Patel, the engineer creator of the Scouts, who decides to repurpose a damaged unit in order to test out his new AI program. Only this test coincides with his own kidnapping at the hands of lowlife small-timers Ninja and Yolanda (the members of Die Antwoord) who want him to hit the off switch on all the scouts so that they can pull off a massive heist, and pay back their crimelord boss Rhino. When the criminals spot Chappie, awoken into the world like a baby, all blank slate innocence-cum-stupidity and clumsiness, Ninja immediately spots a way to exploit his abilities for financial gain, while Yolanda takes to motherhood like a natural, bonding with her baby instantly.
Complicating this is Hugh Jackman's dangerous rugby playing, gun-toting, ex-soldier Christian engineer, envious of Patel's success and just itching to be allowed test his massive Robocop ED 209 rip-off, "the Moose". When all these interests converge for the climax is when Blomkamp seems at his most comfortable. Mayhem, lots of firepower, blood and guts and the apocalyptic destruction of a warehouse.
Blomkamp loves lingering on the damage hardware can do to the human body, and he shoots action with a real feel for the visceral impact of combat. Combine these traits with a love of video-game tropes (lots of HDU shots and POV 1st person shooter cutaways) and a distinctive nose for a grungey cyberpunk tech fetish, and what you have here is nine tenths an almost generic Blomkamp film.
That other tenth is filled by Chappie himself, a beautifully seamless cgi creation, sensitively, and at times hilariously voiced by Sharlito Copley. Chappie has an actual arc here, losing his innocence before finding something new to replace it, and much of the film's humour comes from watching him act like a gangster, mangle swearwords and misinterpret simple instructions.
The cast are fine, the wooden Die Antwoord aside. Jackman is having a rare old time as this bad guy, all mullet and shorts, and Dev Patel is believably geeky and terrified when called to do so.
What it's really missing, though, especially in the draggy middle section, is a point, a reason to exist.
Blomkamp has nothing to say about anything. Three movies in, and he has included themes and references in his movies that are consistently interesting and topical - the gap between rich and poor, racism, violence in law and order, crime, what constitutes consciousness, corporate influence - and yet he has never really investigated any of them in any meaningful way. They're there. And that's it.
What he seems really interested in is technology. That and ultra-violence. Preferably a combination of the two.
Chappie follows the Blomkamp formula in that it includes many elements reminiscent of his first 2 films, only it is less successful than either. Set in a very near future Johannesburg (lacking a single major black character, let it be noted) where the police are using robot "Scout" officers to deal with the overwhelming rate of violent crime, Chappie is really the story of Dev Patel, the engineer creator of the Scouts, who decides to repurpose a damaged unit in order to test out his new AI program. Only this test coincides with his own kidnapping at the hands of lowlife small-timers Ninja and Yolanda (the members of Die Antwoord) who want him to hit the off switch on all the scouts so that they can pull off a massive heist, and pay back their crimelord boss Rhino. When the criminals spot Chappie, awoken into the world like a baby, all blank slate innocence-cum-stupidity and clumsiness, Ninja immediately spots a way to exploit his abilities for financial gain, while Yolanda takes to motherhood like a natural, bonding with her baby instantly.
Complicating this is Hugh Jackman's dangerous rugby playing, gun-toting, ex-soldier Christian engineer, envious of Patel's success and just itching to be allowed test his massive Robocop ED 209 rip-off, "the Moose". When all these interests converge for the climax is when Blomkamp seems at his most comfortable. Mayhem, lots of firepower, blood and guts and the apocalyptic destruction of a warehouse.
Blomkamp loves lingering on the damage hardware can do to the human body, and he shoots action with a real feel for the visceral impact of combat. Combine these traits with a love of video-game tropes (lots of HDU shots and POV 1st person shooter cutaways) and a distinctive nose for a grungey cyberpunk tech fetish, and what you have here is nine tenths an almost generic Blomkamp film.
That other tenth is filled by Chappie himself, a beautifully seamless cgi creation, sensitively, and at times hilariously voiced by Sharlito Copley. Chappie has an actual arc here, losing his innocence before finding something new to replace it, and much of the film's humour comes from watching him act like a gangster, mangle swearwords and misinterpret simple instructions.
The cast are fine, the wooden Die Antwoord aside. Jackman is having a rare old time as this bad guy, all mullet and shorts, and Dev Patel is believably geeky and terrified when called to do so.
What it's really missing, though, especially in the draggy middle section, is a point, a reason to exist.
Sunday, 1 March 2015
IT FOLLOWS
(David Robert Mitchell, 2014)
The American suburbs. Daytime. Synthesisers.
Why this particular combination of elements should be so creepy I have no idea, but it undeniably is. And it's just the starting point for David Robert Mitchell's chilling It Follows.
The story follows Jay (Maika Monroe, excellent), a teen in the Northern suburbs of Detroit. Early on, she sleeps with a guy, and afterwards, he changes instantly. Not just being distant and never calling her; no - he drugs her and ties her to a wheelchair, the better to demonstrate exactly what he means to tell her. He tells her that he has passed something onto her, a curse of sorts. It means that she is now being followed by something undefinable, a shape-shifting creature which is always walking directly towards her, wherever she is, wherever it is. It never runs and it never stops. And if it touches her, she is dead. Sometimes it will take the form of a perfect stranger, sometimes a loved one. Only she can see it.
Her anguished, desperate attempts to escape compose the film, as she and her friends run away, then try to destroy the creature. If that bogeyman sounds a little lame, it becomes quickly apparent that it instead has more or less unlimited potential for frights. Every shot of a doorway becomes drenched with tension. Every window. Every exterior with figures walking in the background. Mitchell knows well enough that if he features enough of these shots then the rise in tension gives his actual scares more impact when they eventually do come. And come they do, in a series of beautifully mounted set-pieces, which inventively play on the specific terror of this implacable, blank-eyed shape-shifter.
The tone is sober and muted throughout. Like Mitchell's terrific debut, The Myth of the American Sleepover, It Follows is set in a strangely timeless sort of suburban world, all big lawns and wide streets. The characters are earnest, serious, lacking the flip cynicism of the teens in most modern horror cinema. But then this is nothing like most modern horror cinema, being artier and far more ambiguous, the moody synth score by Disasterpiece helping maintain that feeling of low, sickly dread throughout. There is also ample, obvious subtext here, themes of teenage alienation running alongside the key ideas of sexually transmitted disease and social stigma.
But they never get in the way of the chief aim: to frighten the audience, which is something It Follows does tremendously well.
The American suburbs. Daytime. Synthesisers.
Why this particular combination of elements should be so creepy I have no idea, but it undeniably is. And it's just the starting point for David Robert Mitchell's chilling It Follows.
The story follows Jay (Maika Monroe, excellent), a teen in the Northern suburbs of Detroit. Early on, she sleeps with a guy, and afterwards, he changes instantly. Not just being distant and never calling her; no - he drugs her and ties her to a wheelchair, the better to demonstrate exactly what he means to tell her. He tells her that he has passed something onto her, a curse of sorts. It means that she is now being followed by something undefinable, a shape-shifting creature which is always walking directly towards her, wherever she is, wherever it is. It never runs and it never stops. And if it touches her, she is dead. Sometimes it will take the form of a perfect stranger, sometimes a loved one. Only she can see it.
Her anguished, desperate attempts to escape compose the film, as she and her friends run away, then try to destroy the creature. If that bogeyman sounds a little lame, it becomes quickly apparent that it instead has more or less unlimited potential for frights. Every shot of a doorway becomes drenched with tension. Every window. Every exterior with figures walking in the background. Mitchell knows well enough that if he features enough of these shots then the rise in tension gives his actual scares more impact when they eventually do come. And come they do, in a series of beautifully mounted set-pieces, which inventively play on the specific terror of this implacable, blank-eyed shape-shifter.
The tone is sober and muted throughout. Like Mitchell's terrific debut, The Myth of the American Sleepover, It Follows is set in a strangely timeless sort of suburban world, all big lawns and wide streets. The characters are earnest, serious, lacking the flip cynicism of the teens in most modern horror cinema. But then this is nothing like most modern horror cinema, being artier and far more ambiguous, the moody synth score by Disasterpiece helping maintain that feeling of low, sickly dread throughout. There is also ample, obvious subtext here, themes of teenage alienation running alongside the key ideas of sexually transmitted disease and social stigma.
But they never get in the way of the chief aim: to frighten the audience, which is something It Follows does tremendously well.
Saturday, 21 February 2015
SELMA
(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.
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.
Friday, 20 February 2015
BLACKHAT
(Michael Mann, 2015)
Nobody but Michael Mann could possibly have made this film.
In his later, digitally shot movies, Mann's narrative brusqueness has become something more refined and deliberate; a seemingly premeditated step towards abstraction. This echoes the visual abstraction that has always been a part of his work, but has become more pronounced since his decision to embrace new technologies. In Blackhat, exposition and character development are either rattled off in a let's-get-this-done hurry or faded out mid-dialogue; lines crucial to the plot are mumbled, figures given no time to establish who they are before they are processed through the film. And yet, to a grown-up, attentive viewer, it always make sense. I never wondered what was going on, or who was who, or why they were doing what they were doing, because Mann is such a bold, confident visual storyteller. He tells his story through sounds and images. The meltdown at a Chinese Nuclear plant, so crucial to the plot, is depicted, thrillingly, without any dialogue whatsoever. In this sequence, Mann shows us how information flows across a network between computers with dizzying tracking shots across the landscapes of hard drive interiors, where data washes over his speeding camera like a wave, the whole thing resembling nothing so much as an action scene from Tron. This is pure cinema, and it is wonderful.
The story traces the efforts of a small team of American and Chinese agents to find and capture a "blackhat" computer hacker responsible for that meltdown and some financial market chaos in the US. To this end they recruit Nicholas Hathaway (Chris Hemsworth), a jailed hacker and college roommate to the Chinese Commander of the operation, Chen Dewai (Wang Leehom). Hathaway soon proves his worth as they follow the trail from America to Hong Kong and Jakarta as the stakes grow increasingly higher.
In some ways, this plays like a compendium of Mann's tropes and obsessions. There are images, plot points, and characterisations here familiar from his other films, even a few phrases hardcore fans will recognise ("That's what you're doing, isn't it, you son of a bitch?"). The themes are a constant. He has always addressed the difficulties of communication in the modern world, and likes to contrast that idea with a romance which is instinctual and near-wordless. In Blackhat, Hathaway and Chen's sister Lien (Tang Wei) conduct a courtship composed chiefly of glances and gestures before they end up in bed together. This - like much of the material in Mann's universe - is the stuff of deepest cliche, and yet Mann does it so well, and with such earnest poetry, it is impossible not to be compelled by it. A sequence here of Hathaway noticing the details of Lien's beauty as they travel together to a meet is beautifully evocative and detailed - Mann is one of modern cinema's great sensualists, and moments like this one recall Wong Kar-Wai.
This film is filled with such moments. If this director is celebrated as a visual stylist, it is with good reason. Few filmmakers have directed architecture as well, and here he captures cites in spare, devastatingly beautiful shots, yet is generally more interested in the faces and bodies of his cast. Hemsworth is all swagger with a hint of melancholy, and as such is perfect for this part, and his chemistry with Tang Wei gives their romance a charge and grip which is crucial in the final act. Viola Davis does an awful lot with a small but crucial role and the way Mann stages and shoots her last scene is beautiful.
That is the thing about Mann; he makes a film like this, about the cold violence and loneliness of the modern world (among other things), and he makes it look ravishing. His use of digital tools allows for a new sort of cinematic beauty, one no other director has really grappled with yet - the halogen glare of a highway at night, the glitter of a cityscape at sundown, the murk of dawn through apartment blinds. And then of course, is his way with action. Blackhat is, after all, an action film. And he retains that ability to immerse us in the action, starting with a fistfight in a Koreatown restaurant, shot the same way he handled a few of the fights in the magnificent Ali - the camera so close to the combatants it judders with impact, and continuing through a handful of blistering gunfights in various urban spaces that are terrifyingly visceral and brutal.
Through all this we stay close to Hathaway, another in a long line of Mann's existential romantic heroes, and though this narrative has been hugely refined, all inessentials removed in favour of textures and poetic detail, it is still gripping and moving, still more intelligent than most American cinema ever dares contemplate. Mann occupies that blessed spot where the multiplex meets the arthouse, which is why his films so often flirt with commercial failure, and also partly why they are so impressive.
Blackhat isn't quite the perfect statement of Heat or the late masterpiece of Miami Vice, but it isn't far off, either.
Nobody but Michael Mann could possibly have made this film.
In his later, digitally shot movies, Mann's narrative brusqueness has become something more refined and deliberate; a seemingly premeditated step towards abstraction. This echoes the visual abstraction that has always been a part of his work, but has become more pronounced since his decision to embrace new technologies. In Blackhat, exposition and character development are either rattled off in a let's-get-this-done hurry or faded out mid-dialogue; lines crucial to the plot are mumbled, figures given no time to establish who they are before they are processed through the film. And yet, to a grown-up, attentive viewer, it always make sense. I never wondered what was going on, or who was who, or why they were doing what they were doing, because Mann is such a bold, confident visual storyteller. He tells his story through sounds and images. The meltdown at a Chinese Nuclear plant, so crucial to the plot, is depicted, thrillingly, without any dialogue whatsoever. In this sequence, Mann shows us how information flows across a network between computers with dizzying tracking shots across the landscapes of hard drive interiors, where data washes over his speeding camera like a wave, the whole thing resembling nothing so much as an action scene from Tron. This is pure cinema, and it is wonderful.
The story traces the efforts of a small team of American and Chinese agents to find and capture a "blackhat" computer hacker responsible for that meltdown and some financial market chaos in the US. To this end they recruit Nicholas Hathaway (Chris Hemsworth), a jailed hacker and college roommate to the Chinese Commander of the operation, Chen Dewai (Wang Leehom). Hathaway soon proves his worth as they follow the trail from America to Hong Kong and Jakarta as the stakes grow increasingly higher.
In some ways, this plays like a compendium of Mann's tropes and obsessions. There are images, plot points, and characterisations here familiar from his other films, even a few phrases hardcore fans will recognise ("That's what you're doing, isn't it, you son of a bitch?"). The themes are a constant. He has always addressed the difficulties of communication in the modern world, and likes to contrast that idea with a romance which is instinctual and near-wordless. In Blackhat, Hathaway and Chen's sister Lien (Tang Wei) conduct a courtship composed chiefly of glances and gestures before they end up in bed together. This - like much of the material in Mann's universe - is the stuff of deepest cliche, and yet Mann does it so well, and with such earnest poetry, it is impossible not to be compelled by it. A sequence here of Hathaway noticing the details of Lien's beauty as they travel together to a meet is beautifully evocative and detailed - Mann is one of modern cinema's great sensualists, and moments like this one recall Wong Kar-Wai.
This film is filled with such moments. If this director is celebrated as a visual stylist, it is with good reason. Few filmmakers have directed architecture as well, and here he captures cites in spare, devastatingly beautiful shots, yet is generally more interested in the faces and bodies of his cast. Hemsworth is all swagger with a hint of melancholy, and as such is perfect for this part, and his chemistry with Tang Wei gives their romance a charge and grip which is crucial in the final act. Viola Davis does an awful lot with a small but crucial role and the way Mann stages and shoots her last scene is beautiful.
That is the thing about Mann; he makes a film like this, about the cold violence and loneliness of the modern world (among other things), and he makes it look ravishing. His use of digital tools allows for a new sort of cinematic beauty, one no other director has really grappled with yet - the halogen glare of a highway at night, the glitter of a cityscape at sundown, the murk of dawn through apartment blinds. And then of course, is his way with action. Blackhat is, after all, an action film. And he retains that ability to immerse us in the action, starting with a fistfight in a Koreatown restaurant, shot the same way he handled a few of the fights in the magnificent Ali - the camera so close to the combatants it judders with impact, and continuing through a handful of blistering gunfights in various urban spaces that are terrifyingly visceral and brutal.
Through all this we stay close to Hathaway, another in a long line of Mann's existential romantic heroes, and though this narrative has been hugely refined, all inessentials removed in favour of textures and poetic detail, it is still gripping and moving, still more intelligent than most American cinema ever dares contemplate. Mann occupies that blessed spot where the multiplex meets the arthouse, which is why his films so often flirt with commercial failure, and also partly why they are so impressive.
Blackhat isn't quite the perfect statement of Heat or the late masterpiece of Miami Vice, but it isn't far off, either.
Thursday, 19 February 2015
BEYOND THE LIGHTS
(Gina Prince-Blythewood, 2014)
It took me a while to figure out exactly what it is about Beyond the Lights that feels so blessedly, brilliantly old-fashioned. It's not that it tells an old, classic love story wherein rising pop star Noni (Gugu Mbatha-Raw), isolated by the spotlight and struggling to express who she really is from behind the image created mainly by her driven, domineering mother (Minnie Driver) one night attempts suicide and is saved by LA cop Kaz (Nate Parker). He saves her by intensely telling her he "sees" her and a bond is formed that haltingly, touchingly, turns into romance. Yes, that comes straight out of The Bodyguard, as do a few of the scenes of backstage bitching and power struggles. The world portrayed her is scrupulously modern, too, with the importance of twitter and youtube hits made plot-points. But what is really old-fashioned is the sincerity of it all.
There is little new here, but it is all done with such emotional intensity that it feels fresh; these days romance is too frequently fodder for rom-coms and Nicholas Sparks weepies, but here it is the subject of the movie. This love story is about how love changes the people involved. Kaz, like Noni, is in the shadow of an ambitious parent (Danny Glover). In his case, his political ambitions have been stirred by the exposure the incident with Noni creates, but when the two lovers find one another, they also find themselves, even if the plot demands a few reversals and obstacles must be overcome.
The cast are excellent, which is a big part of why this never feels remotely like a tv movie. Mbatha-Raw is convincing both as the sexy R&B babe of her public image and the sensitive Brixton girl smothered beneath, while Parker brings a shy integrity to his man of few words. Minnie Driver is frightening as Noni's mother, and Prince-Blythewood directs them all with a great eye for the nuances and subtleties of body language and eye contact, as well as a good feeling for texture and mood.
Her script makes a virtue of its cliches: when Noni and Kaz escape the spotlight for a beachside idyll, it is affecting to watch them really get to know each other and fall in love. Kaz's reaction to an insult from Noni's rapper ex-boyfriend is funny and believable, for all that it is purest soap opera. And finally, the last act and it's revelatory voyage of self-discovery (for both characters) is moving and never less than entertaining.
It also says interesting things about our relationship with celebrity and the way we fabricate fame and drama, without ever becoming didactic.
It took me a while to figure out exactly what it is about Beyond the Lights that feels so blessedly, brilliantly old-fashioned. It's not that it tells an old, classic love story wherein rising pop star Noni (Gugu Mbatha-Raw), isolated by the spotlight and struggling to express who she really is from behind the image created mainly by her driven, domineering mother (Minnie Driver) one night attempts suicide and is saved by LA cop Kaz (Nate Parker). He saves her by intensely telling her he "sees" her and a bond is formed that haltingly, touchingly, turns into romance. Yes, that comes straight out of The Bodyguard, as do a few of the scenes of backstage bitching and power struggles. The world portrayed her is scrupulously modern, too, with the importance of twitter and youtube hits made plot-points. But what is really old-fashioned is the sincerity of it all.
There is little new here, but it is all done with such emotional intensity that it feels fresh; these days romance is too frequently fodder for rom-coms and Nicholas Sparks weepies, but here it is the subject of the movie. This love story is about how love changes the people involved. Kaz, like Noni, is in the shadow of an ambitious parent (Danny Glover). In his case, his political ambitions have been stirred by the exposure the incident with Noni creates, but when the two lovers find one another, they also find themselves, even if the plot demands a few reversals and obstacles must be overcome.
The cast are excellent, which is a big part of why this never feels remotely like a tv movie. Mbatha-Raw is convincing both as the sexy R&B babe of her public image and the sensitive Brixton girl smothered beneath, while Parker brings a shy integrity to his man of few words. Minnie Driver is frightening as Noni's mother, and Prince-Blythewood directs them all with a great eye for the nuances and subtleties of body language and eye contact, as well as a good feeling for texture and mood.
Her script makes a virtue of its cliches: when Noni and Kaz escape the spotlight for a beachside idyll, it is affecting to watch them really get to know each other and fall in love. Kaz's reaction to an insult from Noni's rapper ex-boyfriend is funny and believable, for all that it is purest soap opera. And finally, the last act and it's revelatory voyage of self-discovery (for both characters) is moving and never less than entertaining.
It also says interesting things about our relationship with celebrity and the way we fabricate fame and drama, without ever becoming didactic.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)