Low Life in High Places

I love a good conspiracy theory, they always make a good film.  Going back over the years, there have been some great examples: Capricorn 1, The Parallax View, No Way Out and Vantage Point being just a few off the top of my head.

At this point I have to admit I’m not a great fan of Russell Crowe.  He has a nasty knack of reverting to his native accent when the dialogue gets tough and although he has screen presence, his acting talent is not great.  Admittedly, he’s no Keanu Reeves, but then neither is he John Guilgud.  He’s just a middle weight actor who can spot a good vehicle.

And yes, he has picked a really good vehicle in State of Play.  Mind you having Ben Affleck, Jeff Daniels and Helen Mirren in the cast is always going to help a film’s cause.   The script was tight and Kevin McDonald did an excellent job with the pace from the directors chair.

The premise of the film is that there has been the shooting of two people after one of the victims tried to sell back a bag to the person he’d stolen it from.  Meanwhile, a Washington staffer throws herself under a subway train.  Apparently, these two incidents are unconnected.  Then along comes Cal McAffrey (Crowe) as a crusty news reporter following up on the deaths of the shooting victims, whilst having a peripheral interest with the subway death, as his friend, Stephen Collins (Afleck), is her employer.

At this point, it looks like the investigations are heading in different directions until McCaffrey takes down the numbers off the shooting victims mobile phone and starts calling.

This film kept its secrets almost all the way to the end. The trouble with many of the films of this type is that they try to deceive by increasing the complexity to the point that anyone could be the perpetrator – the star, the victim, the Foley editor, anyone.  I’m glad this film didn’t go that far.  However, I have to admit that I was just a bit disappointed by the final revelation as I feel it didn’t life up to the standard of the rest of the film.  It wasn’t a bad ending, but it could have been so much better.

Finally, the watch was observed passing 1 hour and 7 minutes into the movie – not bad at all.

Deep Water – Tragedy on the High Seas

My latest movie watch is Deep Water, a documentary covering the yachtsman Donald Crowhurst’s attempt to be the winner of the first single-handed round the world solo yacht race.

Crowhurst was one of a group of world renowned yachtsmen who entered the event.  The first person home to England got the Golden Globe Trophy.  There was a further award for the fastest time.  The mystery entrant was Crowhurst himself, who was a dark horse with apparently little experience of yachting and none of ocean racing.

Despite all the odds he had a trimaran built with funding from a businessman, but only on the proviso that if he turned back he would have to pay for the yacht.

As a result Crowhurst set sail into the Atlantic in an ill prepared boat and trailed the other yachtsmen south.  During this period he developed leaks that made it apparent that an attempt to take it into the treacherous waters of the southern oceans would be suicide.

This documentary is a mixture of film taken by Crowhurst himself, BBC footage and other film stock taken at the time.  Audio is provided by Crowhurst as part of the tape recordings he made during the voyage, interviews with Robin Knox Johnson (the first to return), Claire Crowhurst, his son Simon and various commentators overlaid with a modern commentary holding it together.

This has to be one of the most gripping films I have seen in a long time.  The downfall of an ordinary man penned into a corner by ill-judged decisions is hypnotic and tragic.  As each problem overcomes him you realise that his cause is hopeless, as fate takes one turn after another to thwart his hopes and plans.

Many documentaries are dull re-enactments and voice-overs.  This story steps way beyond that and grips you from start to finish.  If you’ve not seen it, please do, you will not be disappointed.

I looked at my watch after 52 minutes.

The Hangover – yeah, it’s painful

Todays watch was The Hangover, starring Bradley Cooper.

When my daughter and I went to see Star Trek this film was one of the trailers that was showing at the time. Looking at that trailer, it looked like an hilarious comedy reminiscent of Dude, Where’s my Car and Bachelor Party. Unfortunately, it was neither of these.

The plot is that four pals go to Las Vegas to enjoy a stag night.  In the morning there is only three of them and none have any idea either where their fourth friend is or any idea of what happened during their night of celebration.

During the next hour and forty minutes the truth of the night is revealed with all the humour of a wake.  The actors seem to be unable to live in their roles, its like they are filming the first dress rehearsal – that stage where they can remember the words but can’t add any depth to the characters.  I’ve laughed more in a hospital bed.

Even at the end, where everything gets resolved, the laughs just aren’t there.  It’s just embarrassing.  It’s like looking at a couple having a public set to, you feel embarrassed at their display and want to look away, feeling ashamed, but you just can’t stop yourself, and you feel nothing but self loathing.

There are two questions I want to ask about this film, how did it ever get an IMDB score of 8.1?  What were you watching?  And why oh why are they making a sequel?  Does the world really need to be given another dose of this cinematic botulism?

It took me 16 minutes to look at my watch.  Go figure.  I’ve included the trailer here, so you can see how conned I was.

Pontypool – so much more than another zombie movie

Got to see the movie Pontypool yesterday. I have to admit I’m not a great fan of zombie movies. The problem is that most of them are just standard fare – try to reach safety without being bitten and therefore becoming a zombie yourself.  There are some examples where this is done really well: Shaun of the Dead and 28 Days Later being two examples, but for the most part the zombie film is as dead as its victims.

Having said this, I felt it was with a heavy heart that I began watching.  Now, I need to tell you from the get go that I have a scoring system for telling whether a movie works for me or not – it’s how long I get into the film before I look at my watch.  To give you two examples; Gangs of New York lasted 1 hour 50 before I looked at my watch, and that was only because I needed to empty my bladder fairly desperately.  As a contrast, Open Water had me looking at my watch after five minutes.  After 15 minutes I was praying for the two characters to drown and put us out of our misery.  Never was a review line so cruelly used – “Jaws meets The Blair Witch Project” – bollocks, more like.

Anyway, back to the film.  This is an Indy Canadian production, set in a small town Ontario radio station.  As the plot unfolds it is apparent that something is going seriously wrong in the local town of Pontypool as the main characters try to understand what is happening via the reports coming in from their ‘eye in the sky’ and police radio and try to put it on the air.

By this point I was feeling the tension rise as my imagination started to put the picture together of what was going on outside.  A tension that the director, Bruce McDonald, kept rising throughout the film.

The acting talent was excellent, with an outstanding job done by Stephen McHattie as the grizzled talk show presenter drifting downwards in the twilight of his career.

This is another great example of the quality films that the independent producers are putting out nowadays.  It’s unfortunate that these movies often never see the lights of a cinema due to the lack of being picked up for distribution.

I looked at my watch after 42 minutes, not a bad score at all for a zombie movie.  But beware, if all you are looking for is another zombie gore fest, you’ll be very disappointed by this film, as this is more like a taut thriller than a horror film.  The tension keeps coming all the way up to the finale, which is not obvious.  If you can’t see this film at the movie theatre, look out for it on DVD, it’s well worth the watch.