Film Review: Hotel Artemis

"We've Been Here For Twenty-Two Years. This Hospital Was Built On Two Things: Trust And Rules..."

Written and directed by British filmmaker, Drew Pearce, whose previous credits include screenplays for the likes of Iron Man 3 and Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation, Hotel Artemis features a generously stellar cast set as they are whacked slap band in the middle of a dystopian riot zone and forced into the titular, secretive building where entry is gained for members only and is ran with strict rules and regulations by Jodie Foster's (The Silence of the Lambs) Jean Thomas AKA The Nurse. With flashes of neo-noir crime drama and a underlying, wacky black comedic sensibility, Pearce's movie is a strange, tonally manic mess of a movie which sacrifices plot for excruciatingly annoying characters and a narrative through line for dull set pieces, all taking place within a set location which seems to have forgotten to pay the lighting bill, and whilst Pearce in the past has worked alongside the likes of Shane Black, a filmmaker renowned for making dark comedy work successfully, Pearce's debut doesn't take any tips from his cinematic learning curve and is unfortunately a painfully dull and excruciatingly boring waste of ninety minutes in which stuff just happens without any sense of reason or point.  

With an opening backdrop which introduces a future-world Los Angeles in which privatisation of the area's water supply has sparked mass rioting and protest from the lower class of the populous, Pearce's movie follows Sterling K. Brown's (Black Panther) Waikiki after a bank heist gone wrong forces him into the Hotel Artemis, an off-the-books NHS for the criminal underworld which reeks heavily of The Continental Hotel influence from the John Wick series. Cue the introduction of Jeff Goldblum's (Thor: Ragnarok) The Wolf King, who seeks vengeance for the theft of his multi-million dollar priced jewels, and soon the action and violence breaks loose, resulting in the likes of Dave Bautista (Spectre), Zachary Quinto (Star Trek) and the ever radiant Sofia Boutella (Atomic Blonde) all flexing their action muscles in an attempt to overshadow their meaningless characterisation. With Charlie Day (Pacific Rim: Uprising) once again proving to be the most annoying Hollywood actor currently employed, Hotel Artemis fails on a fundamental movie-making level by not only lacking a straightforward central narrative, but also a movie which doesn't manage to be at all accessible or believable, and by the time the movie crawls its' way to the finish line, it almost felt heavenly to leave the seat in which I had been violently squirming in for the preceding ninety minutes. 

Overall Score: 3/10

Film Review: Den of Thieves

"Keep Your Eyes Open. Every Cop In The Country Is Going To Be Looking For Us..."

Being an avid hater of most things which bear the name Gerard Butler in the closing credits, the release of Den of Thieves unsurprisingly accompanied a heavy sense of sadness at potentially spending yet another two hours sat in a screening which results in time ultimately being well and truly wasted, and with London Has Fallen screenwriter, Christian Gudegast, on directorial duties for the very first time in his career, it's not exactly hard to imagine why on entering the auditorium in preparation for Gudegast's movie, my heart became just a tiny bit heavier. Whilst I'm more than adjusted through years of movie-going experiences to sometimes accepting and devouring a slice of humble pie, Den of Thieves is unebelieavably the sort of movie which raises above the sordid expectations set upon it in a somewhat miraculous fashion and leaves you shamelessly declaring out loud how wrong you were in the first place, a movie which presents itself as a slick, if sometimes silly and overly cliched, action romp which although is nothing entirely original or groundbreaking, still manages to be a worthwhile trip of high octane guilty pleasure. Praise the lord, we have a miracle. 

Focusing on two teams either side of the law, each with their own questionable moral compasses and a penchant for steroid infused workouts, Den of Thieves undeniably pays a significant homage to Michael Mann's 1995 crime masterpiece, Heat, in more ways than none, with the narrative essentially switching Al Pacino for Gerard Butler (300) and Robert De Niro for Pablo Schreiber (Orange Is The New Black), and whilst on paper such a switch seems similar to swapping Ferrari for Nissan, Gudegast's penchant for style and solid eye for action set pieces and well orchestrated heist scenes means that within a overly similar tale of cops and robbers, the debutante's movie packs a significantly entertaining punch and manages to hold your attention throughout its' bulky two and a half hour runtime. With Butler actually managing to not be entirely god awful, with even the staggeringly underplayed bad boy lifestyle in which his character partakes failing to undermine his performance, and the rest of the high profile cast including O'Shea Jackson Jr. (Straight Outta Compton) and Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson (Southpaw) all giving a solid case for their inclusion, Den of Thieves is undoubtedly one of the surprises of the year, and even with a "I gotcha!" style ending which wouldn't have gone amiss in Hustle, Gudegast's movie is actually pretty darn good, and for someone who was sharpening their knife going into it, that's damn fine praise indeed. 

Overall Score: 7/10

Film Review: War Dogs

"When Does Telling The Truth Ever  Help Anybody...?

One of the most crystal clear components of War Dogs, the latest comedic drama from Hangover Trilogy director Todd Phillips, is the obvious and sometimes uncanny influence of Martin Scorsese, particularly that of Goodfellas and Casino, with the fast-paced formula and quick-fire editing of War Dogs being the staple within a blueprint which verges on the edge of daylight robbery. Saying that, although the principle layout of War Dogs is not exactly the most original, the film is saved two-fold by the inclusion of Miles Teller and Jonah Hill in the films' lead roles, lead roles which are characterised clearly by each side of a coin, with Teller's David Packouz being the twisted moral compass in partnership with Jonah Hill's greed-infested monster, Efraim Diveroli. Adding to the Scorsese influence is the notion that War Dogs is essentially Lord of War meets Wolf of Wall Street, a film in which Hill also starred in and a film which too has a black heart at its' core, showcasing the evilness of greed and the consequences certain actions inevitably lead towards. That doesn't mean it isn't fun though.

In a year in which The Big Short gave us a comedic insight into the downfall of the economy and America's presidential race being wholeheartedly in the spotlight, War Dogs does seem rather timely. A satire into the gun-ho nature of the US war efforts, War Dogs does feature some rather top-end black humour and although the movie does suffer when heading into the direction of vulgar, laddish type humour between our two leads, reminiscent of the director's previous work, its' the dramatic seriousness within the movie which makes the film work as a whole, particularly the third and final act in which we witness the inevitable downfall of our two leads who realise to what extent their "illegal" doings have had on not only themselves, but the country as a whole. War Dogs is by no means perfect, but it is very entertaining and a double-bill with a film like The Big Short would be a quickfire lesson into the politics and principles of the world as we know it today. Nihilism is a bitch. 

Overall Score: 8/10