Shockingly, a film fight that’s on time. Onward.
Interview is Steve Buscemi’s latest directorial work, and it’s a bit of an oddity. It focuses on only two characters: a gossip magazine featured actress (Sienna Miller) and a political journalist (Steve himself). What we get is an acting piece; a real opportunity for the two stars to show off their chops. It’s somewhat self-indulgent, with the little story given really suffering from the quick mood changes. Not awful, but not great.
I’m not against adaptations making major changes to the source material but 30 Days of Night really gets it badly wrong. It keeps the same premise (vampires realising that during the heart of winter an Alaskan town has 30 days of darkness in which they are free), some of the same character names (Stella, Eben), but loses much of the rest (like the character). Instead of an interesting premise, subtly done, we get a bad action-horror movie. The vampires are idiotic, with their new language, and the human cast are annoying. Really poor.
Robert Rodriguez knows B-movies and, more importantly, how to parody them with a deft touch. This is all too evident in the smirkingly good Planet Terror. All the over the top trappings are present: lame-but-funny dialogue, oddball characters, comically gruesome monsters, and a nutty plot. Everything has just the right mix of polish and rust to keep the film entertaining. A must-see film.
Ridley Scott manages to pull together a great cast (Denzel Washington, Russell Crowe) for the excellent American Gangster; the story of a Harlem druglord taking over the business from his mentor. As good as most of Scorsese’s work in the area, Ridley finds the right balance between building up his characters and boring people with excessive slow backstory. The pacing is spot-on, except for a slightly extended ending, and the cast really shine throughout. Very good stuff.
The story of Beowulf has been adapted many times before, so it seems like an odd choice for Robert Zemeckis. The main difference this time is that the film is animated, in 3D. The 3D (RealD) works surprisingly well once you put the glasses on, with no real colour oddities seen in previous 3d attempts. The depth really adds something to the feel of the movie. Sadly, that’s where the praise ends. Almost the entire film reeks of being an extended showcase for the admittedly interesting technology. Ray Winstone is dreadful as the titular hero, and the rest of the cast are all over the place. Not a great film, by any stretch.
I’m a big fan of Wes Anderson films (older readers may remember that The Life Aquatic won the 2005 Film Fight Finale), they tend to be a whole lot more interesting than most mainstream releases. His latest, The Darjeeling Limited, has all the trappings: dialogue light characters, quirky framing shots, beautiful art direction, a plot about finding yourself and letting go of the past etc. It’s all very familiar ground, with one exception: it’s lacking a lot of the humour of his previous films. While it’s by no means a bad movie, it is his weakest. Worth seeing, but not a patch on other efforts.
Finally, Eastern Promises is a gangster film that gets a lot wrong: flat or steretyped characters, plodding pace, predictable plot, notably bad sound direction, and very little else going for it. If someone told me a first year film student had directed it, I would not be shocked. Instead, it was the usually excellent David Cronenberg (let’s forget eXistenZ). The one saving grace for this film is Viggo Mortensen who puts in a great performance, settling comfortably into uncomfortably levels of violence as easily as showing an almost tender side. It doesn’t make up for everything else though, and the film is something of a failure.
This month is a genuinely tough call between American Gangster and Planet Terror. I think the latter slips past, with it’s tongue in cheek comedy. So the winner is Planet Terror.