Review - Tsotsi (2005 - Dir. Gavin Hood)

When South African street hoodlum Tsotsi pinches a car from a well-to-do suburban couple the last thing he expects to find on the back seat is a baby. From this point on our hero’s life changes on a variety of levels as caring for the infant conjures up feelings of empathy, memories of his past and his hopes and aspirations. Yes it’s a little like a gritty version of 'A Christmas Carol', but how could that ever be a bad thing?

The film has its wince inducing moments, firstly as Tsotsi and his gang rampage around Johannesburg and latterly as he clumsily attempts to care for the baby. Any new parents could do a lot better than ignoring Tsotsi’s guide to looking after infants, especially nappy changing, feeding, transporting in a carrier bag and insect infestation. Ultimately, however the film leaves you with a lovely warm feeling as if you are soaking in a lovely warm bath of hopefulness for humanity, but without the candles and Lush bath bomb filth.

The lead, Presley Chweneyagae, deserves credit for producing this feel good factor as he struts around the township eliciting feelings of both fear and sympathy. Like the rest of his gang, he’s believable, detailed and likeable. Also worthy of special mention is the lovely Terry Pheto, who portrays a single mum who befriends Tsotsi. She oozes positivity, love and wholesomeness as if she’s some kind of supernatural South African earth mother on a mission to save the lost boys of the township.

It’s a great film without ever reaching the heights and complexities of City of God. South Africa has so much potential for gritty offerings and I’ll definitely be looking up other options from the country over the next year. Some lovely imagery, a great soundtrack and a meaningful story means that this is certainly worth a couple of hours of your time.

7/10
Doccortex

If you like this you could also try:
City of God, Gomorrah. 

Review - Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939 - Dir. Frank Capra)

I thought James Stewart had fluffed it in his attempts to triumph in his first round FA Cup of Actors match against laughing boy, Gael Garcia Bernal. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington is so saccharine sweet in the opening scenes that I thought I was in danger of redecorating my fine room with regurgitated Super Noodles. The children in particular are completely cringeworthy, almost making it unwatchable. Luckily things improve.

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington tells the story of what happens if you take an ordinary bloke (James Stewart in one of his many 'everyman' roles) and make him a senator. (A similar idea was explored in Harold Lloyd's The Cat's Paw albeit with the added threat of beheadings.) Jefferson Smith is chosen by a group of corrupt politicians and businessmen led by Jim Taylor (Edward Arnold) and Senator Joseph Paine (Claude Raines) who need someone naive to go along with them and vote as they do. They especially need him for putting through a bill for building a local dam that will provide a fair bit of work (and money) for Taylor's company. Smith has different ideas.

Being a Frank Capra film you can pretty much tell where it's going right from the off. Yet I couldn't help but getting carried along with Smith's plight. He's got a bit of a Naruto type personality in that even when the odds are completely stacked against him, he won't give up. The latter half of the film has him holding the floor of the senate for hour after hour to prove his point. The rules state that as long as he doesn't leave the room or sit down he can carry on speaking. Which he does. For a long time. The whole issue of toileting never comes up. Maybe he just has a sneaky little trickle like the woman in Threads. 

The script is great and has moments of brightness followed by everything going wrong with Smith getting hammered by the Taylor political machine. (His goons go so far as to use their trucks to ram paperboys off the road. Not polite or particularly pleasant.) There's also time for a small portion of love story with Smith and his aide Saunders (Jean Arthur) who initially is in league with Senator Payne but - amazingly enough - gets won over by Smith's boyish charm.

Supposedly on its initial release it didn't go down too well with the Senate. They didn't like the fact that it made them all look like corrupt mouthpieces led by outside industries and vested interests. Erm, surely that's the definition of the word 'politician'? 

James Stewart is perfectly cast in this role. Now I know he goes a bit creepy and obsessive in Vertigo, but from this performance it is hard to imagine him having a single corrupt bone in his body. My favourite moment has to be when he gets settled in for the long haul in the Senate, takes out a flask and sandwiches from his bag and proceeds to eat them as the Senators return to listen to his rather long speech. I chuckled.

So despite having a massively shaky start I was won over by this tale of one man going up against the might of politicians and big business. As relevant now as ever.
7/10
evlkeith

(So that puts James Stewart through to the next round and Gael Garcia Bernal is out. Hooray! To say that I was gutted in the first minutes of this film, what with the prospect of having to watch another Gael Garcia effort, is an understatement. But quality shone through. Phew.)

If you like this you could also try:
Anatomy of a Murder, Mr Deeds goes to Town, You Can't Take It With You.

Review - Outside the Law (2010 - Dir. Rachid Bouchareb)

Outside the Law (or to give its original title Hors la loi which sounds like it's from a way dirtier genre) is the entry of cheery rank outsider Jamel Debbouze in this year's FA Cup of Actors. Debouzze was entered into the competition by Doccortex because he'd seen him in Days of Glory and quite liked the little fellow. I have to say that I was a bit sceptical, mainly due to this picture:

But the lad's done well. Outside the Law is a pretty decent film. In fact, a very decent film. Well above the standard of film making that I'm used to. Everything about it reeks of professionalism. Let's start with the script. It is based on the real events surrounding Algeria gaining independence from France. It does so through the eyes of three brothers: Abdelkader, a local leader of the FLN, determined to free Algeria, Messaoud, a soldier who comes back to be Abdelkader's right hand man in an honourable struggle, and Said (Debbouze) who starts off as a pimp then graduates to owning his own cabaret theatre and boxing empire. He's not too bothered about independence, he's more concerned with wearing a nifty hat and smoking big cigars. 

The director has an unintrusive style that draws the viewer into the events. No fancy tricks here, he just cracks on and tells the story. Despite being 138 minutes long my attention was held throughout, which is pretty good considering my threshold is normally 90 minutes. The only problem I had was my own ignorance of these events which made some of the early scenes quite hard to follow. But it's not the film's fault that I'm a thick northerner.

I do actually have a couple of legitimate problems with Outside the Law though. Firstly - and this is a picky "matter of taste" technical issue - I didn't think that there was enough contrast in the image. I had recently watched To Catch a Thief on blu-ray and the textures looked so crisp and, well, textured that I was mightily impressed for such an old film. Outside the Law meanwhile looks a tad pale and washed out in comparison. The textures in the shanty town are all present and correct but didn't wow me. A little tweak to the contrast during the grading process would have sorted this out. Other people may like this look but I wasn't too keen. 

Secondly, it was not as emotionally affecting as I thought it was going to be. I had empathy for the characters but I didn't care for them as much as I should. The only scene that helped to endear them to me in the slightest was at a wedding where the three brothers do an amusing dance. Funny, but not quite enough to make me really bothered about them.

Now let's get to Debbouze. I've really warmed to him and his cigar smoking ways. The other two brothers are generally very serious and Debbouze adds a touch of lightness to the proceedings, although he's still able to turn on the emotion when he needs to. All in all he's a likeable fellow who I think has earned his place as part of the obscurendure family.

You may feel that my final rating is a bit on the harsh side and you'd be right. It's a really well made film with an engaging story that many people will rate more highly. So why the low score? It's just not my cup of tea. Even with the above problems fixed it would have had a limit of 8/10. Doccortex meanwhile, will probably like it a lot more than me. I've no doubt he'll give it a watch and tell you in a comment what he thinks about it.

Nevertheless, it's a very respectable score for Debbouze and Jennifer Jason Leigh has certainly got her work cut out. (I'm secretly hoping that Debbouze makes it through so I can watch another of his offerings, but we'll see...)
7/10
evlkeith

If you like this you could also try:
Days of Glory, Waltz with Bashir.

Review - Stories We Tell (2012 - Dir. Sarah Polley)

Stories We Tell has intrigued me since I first read about it: a look into a family's life through interviews, old Super 8 footage and photographs, and it's Sarah Polley's family to boot. Seeing as though I love Shooting the Past and Perfect Strangers, I was always going to like this.

And in a predictable fashion, I do. Whereas the stories in the above dramas were completely cracking little tales, usually involving nazis somewhere along the way, the main story in Stories We Tell isn't really that interesting. But that's what makes it good. 

The film is all about the relationship between Sarah's parents, Michael and Diane Polley. Michael is a bit of a loner who quite likes the company of solitary flies (he's not that keen if there's more than one though) - a man after my own heart if ever there was one. Diane is a fun-loving extrovert who loves going out dancing. Not really a couple that you'd put together, but Stories We Tell documents their life together.

Interviews with Michael and his three other children (Sarah is the interviewer) form the bulk of Stories We Tell. There are other players in this tale, other people from the past, who also get their fair share of interview time. The stories they tell don't always gel, possibly due to their perspective and the unreliability of memory. 

These interviews are supplemented with photos and Super 8 films, both real and fake. The photos and real footage are great, as you'd expect. The fake footage meanwhile has the effect of pulling the viewer out of the story. At its worst, its like a really bad Crimewatch UK reconstruction. Except with a comedy porn tache. The actor playing Michael gets the job of wearing the offending furry item and it always raises a smile. It would have been preferable to have 100% real footage but obviously this isn't always possible. The fake footage is a compromise that is probably needed to help tell the story. Shame about the tache though.

The story isn't stunning in any shape or form. It is a slice of real life and that's what makes it so powerful. In films we generally expect stories to be really cleverly written with twists and turns and exciting incidents. But here we get a relatively simple story (not to say that there aren't some little twists) and we  can watch the effect it has on a family and the real emotional impact. This film has surely got something that will resonate with everyone. (Okay, maybe not with a reclusive pig coveting mountain man called Mary.)

This isn't a film that I would rewatch on a regular basis but it was an enjoyable experience nonetheless. I think, based on this evidence, that Sarah Polley has booked her place in a future FA Cup of Actors.
7/10
evlkeith

If you like this you could also try:
Shooting the Past, Perfect Strangers, Joe's Palace.

Review - Whip It (2009 - Dir. Drew Barrymore)

After Natalie Portman's just above average performance in Hesher, let's see how she fares against the strike power of Ellen Page in Drew Barrymore's directorial debut Whip It.

Bliss Cavendar (Ellen Page) is a girl living in Bodeen, Texas (not too far from Austin, Texas which in turn is not a million miles away from Denton, Texas). Her mum (the legendary Mrs Carmody from The Mist, Marcia Gay Harden) takes her to beauty pageants in the style of Little Miss Sunshine. Obviously, Bliss isn't too happy with this arrangement and when the opportunity comes along to try out for a roller derby team with some tattooed fishnet wearing ladies, she decides she'll have a go. 

This is an infuriating film, because it is so nearly great. Sadly, it falls at two hurdles and one of them is a pretty major fall. Let's get the one out of the way that could be excusable first: the slinky little turd. Bliss meets up with a bloke out of a band in Austin, Texas and quickly falls for him due to his slinky little turd nature. The problem is that I hated him from the instant I set eyes on him and knew that he was very probably going to be a wrong un. He's just so slimy. The scenes with him and Bliss are the equivalent of the 'plot' scenes in specialist films: flick them and get straight on to the meat of the film.

And the meat in this case is the roller derby action. This is where things come good. It's standard issue in terms of sports films but that's exactly what I want from this sort of film. Do what's expected, maybe in a way that's unexpected, but do it well. For the most part that's what Whip It does. It starts off with a completely useless team that never wins and builds them up to have a crack at the championship. This sort of film needs a villain though, someone for our plucky heroine to triumph over (and no, slinky little turd doesn't count). Iron Maven (Juliette Lewis) is that villain.

It helps no end that Juliette Lewis looks completely evil. But her performance is equally nasty too. She is pretty abrasive towards Bliss on numerous occasions. She never passes up on an opportunity to have a dig at her. She becomes such a splendid villain that hands are rubbed in glee at the prospect of seeing Bliss nutmeg her (or whatever the roller derby equivalent is).

This is where we get to huge problem two that is very nearly a film-breaker. Film genres have different conventions that you've pretty much got to stick to. You can mess around with them to a certain extent but if you shoot a romantic comedy where the female lead dies in the final seconds leaving the male lead alone with some razorblades and aspirins, it's going to have very limited appeal. I'm all for taking risks but if you've set something up in a film you've got to deliver. If not, you'll end up with many disappointed people. That's exactly what happens in Whip It; it spends a lot of time setting up something great and then it all falls a bit flat. If I'd reviewed it after the first time I watched it, it would have got a lot lower rating. But after watching it again, in a state of preparedness, I can just about cope with it and the final scenes almost manage to pull it around. 

What does shine through though are the performances of all of the actors (apart from slinky little turd, although he does act the part of a slinky little turd perfectly well). Ellen Page is a bit like Cary Grant in the way that Cary Grant generally played the Cary Grant persona. Ellen Page always seems to play the Ellen Page persona. Whether that's who she actually is or not, it's a part she plays very well and is always a pleasure to watch. Marcia Gay Harden is fantastic as her mum, never getting overly sentimental, but her dad (Daniel Stern - C.H.U.D.) is a complete crowd pleaser, (he even gets to wear a cowboy hat at one point). Every scene he is in is a winner (in stark contrast to the slinky little turd). It doesn't end there. All of the minor roles are also extremely well done too, with not a duff note in sight. It's this and the lack of sugary Disney sick flavoured sweetness that bring it back into likeable territory.

I always knew that I was going to lose one cracking actress from the FA Cup of Actors in this match and it made rating this film particularly hard. As I finished watching it, I was going to give it a 6/10, exactly the same as Hesher, forcing yet another replay in the FA Cup of Actors. But as I thought about it, I knew that I preferred this film to Hesher and it seemed harsh that they should both get a 6. Plus I knew that I would watch this again, but I'm not so sure about Portman's effort. So I've given Whip It the benefit of the doubt, we'll call it 6.517 out of 10 and round it up to a respectable:
7/10
evlkeith

So that means that Ellen Page is through to the next round and will play either David Warbeck or Radha Mitchell. Doccortex will be so happy that Portman is out. Meanwhile, I will shed a little tear. Sorry, Natalie...

If you like this you could also try:
Juno, The Tracey Fragments, Rollerball.

Review - Hell's Ground (2007 - Dir. Omar Khan)

This has really got me thinking about what makes a great film.  I've ranted recently about Uninhabited with its dull story and irritating characters who are incredibly adept at making stupid decisions. Then along comes Hell's Ground that has some stupid characters and at times, a very cliched story. But I like it. I think I've worked out why. 

If you had to write down a list of the top ten critically acclaimed films of all times using all of your film buff knowledge, there would probably be stuff like Battleship Potemkin, Vertigo and Citizen Kane in there. Now if you write down your top ten films they would probably be very different. So even though the films loved by critics worldwide have great stories, acting, etc they're still missing something. I actually think its two things that decide whether we personally love a film rather than merely appreciate it: atmosphere and tone. 

Without an atmosphere or tone that I like, a film better be pretty strong in other areas or I'm just not going to enjoy it. But for me a film can be lacking in terms of story, acting, characterisation, technical ability etc and still be great if the atmosphere and tone are right. It's the irrational secret ingredient that can make me love a film.

Uninhabited didn't have it. Hell's Ground does. Not in huge amounts but enough to make the viewing experience strangely pleasurable.

A group of five teenagers lie to their parents and slip away for a night of drugs and rock and roll. Ayesha (Rooshanie Ejaz) comes from a conservative family but due to peer pressure goes along for the ride. They have petrol problems on the way (funnily enough), take an enticing short cut (oh dear), pick up a mildly unhinged passenger (one of many, ahem... homages) and meet up with a Crazy Ralph type figure who sells them some dubious drugs whilst cackling and ranting (I did say it was cliched). Contaminated water has turned some locals into flesh eating zombies and the group of plucky chums soon come into contact with the drooling horde. Then things fly off on a bit of a tangent with the appearance of a mad killer who knocks about in a bloodstained white burka, slinging a spiky ball round on a chain at passersby.

So it's a film of two halves. The zombies look great. The special effects guy made them from tissue paper, latex and other zero budget stuff but they're not bad at all, very reminiscent of the zombies from Zombie Flesh Eaters. They get far too little screen time, although this is made up for by the insane serial killer, Baby.

The scenes that contain Baby are brilliant. Easily one of my favourite screen villains of recent times. The sight of Baby swinging that ball of death around is always unnerving. The killings are nicely disturbing but never become nasty and unpleasant (that all important tone I talked about earlier).

Wide angle lenses, smoke machines and lights were all completely abused during the making of Hell's Ground yet they add up to a very pleasing atmosphere. The short lenses aren't used for scene setting landscape shots, but for medium shots in scenes containing the characters, producing plenty of distortion. Due to its overuse, it becomes part of the style of the film rather than just a mark of a low budget horror enterprise. The smoke machines may as well be visible in some shots because they're constantly chucking out smoke. The operator had obviously had way too many Space Raiders and Red Bulls for brekkie. As for the lighting, well it cant be described as naturalistic. Huge inexplicable lights are just there, smack bang in the frame. Yet again, they add to the otherworldly atmosphere.

Being a Pakistani zombie film it shows some interesting differences between cultures. When Ayesha gets ready to go out on her dubious evening's jaunt she takes some risque clothes to get changed into. Risque for Pakistan anyway. In the UK her clothes would probably be considered too safe and dull to even have as a school uniform. It was also interesting to hear in the director's commentary that he was worried about some extreme swearing getting cut by the sensors. After all it was two utterances of a word that means... poo. Wild edgy stuff. 

Despite being fairly standard teen slasher characters, taking drugs and dancing to pop music they're actually fairly likeable. They feel more like real children rather than the stereotypes seen in the usual American fare. I wouldn't go as far as saying that I really cared about what happened to them; I didn't hate them though which has to be a good sign.

Finally a mention has to go to the music. The main theme is fantastic. In the review of A Bay of Blood I went on about how I could listen to the music on the Blu-ray menu for ages. The same applies here. The theme tune was acquired from a seventies film from Pakistan and what a cracker it is. Possibly worth the entrance fee alone.

I've struggled to decide on a final rating for this because it has so many faults but my overall feeling is positive. Plus I want to buy it so that I can watch it again at my leisure (in fact I've just ordered it this very minute). I think I'm going to have to make it a:
7/10
evlkeith

If you like this you could also try:
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Halloween.