Film Review: Monsters and Men

"Cities Are Gonna Keep Burning. Kids Are Gonna Keep Getting Shot. And Cops Are Gonna Keep Getting Off..."

With the Academy Award nominations now released into the steely glances of the general public, the success and critical admiration of Spike Lee's excellent BlackKklansman seems to have resulted in succession of interesting, ideas based political dramas with a key central narrative regarding the impact of race relations across contemporary American society. Joined together at the hip by rising star, John David Washington, Monsters and Men, the big screen debut from American filmmaker, Reinaldo Marcus Green, follows a very familiar path to Lee's 2018 drama by focusing on a increasingly topical discussion and confronting it upon the big screen. With a core central narrative which immediately brings to mind last year's The Hate U Give, Green's movie follows three different perspectives following the shooting of an unarmed black male on the streets of downtown New York. Loosely inspired by the death of Eric Garner back in 2014, a cigarette seller who resisted arrest and subsequently died within a police officer's chokehold, all of which was filmed by an onlooker on his mobile phone, Monsters and Men is an interesting, very well made and thought-provoking drama with a trio of excellent and thoroughly convincing central performances. 

Following a very similar narrative pathway to to Barry Jenkins' outstanding 2017 drama, Moonlight, Monsters and Men follows three very different male characters who are each bound together by a crippling desire for change in a society which makes such drastic decisions either increasingly difficult or incredibly dangerous. Beginning with Anthony Ramos' (A Star is Born) street savvy, Manny, the film benefits from taking the time to develop each leading character whilst the background noise of the underlying central message boils from underneath, and with an opening thirty minutes which ends with Manny's role in the film's key set piece, the transition from Ramos to Washington (BlackKklansman) is expertly done and exhibits a craft of filmmaking not many big screen debutants would be able to pull off. With the introduction of Washington as Dennis, a observant and dedicated local Police Officer, it is undoubtedly his portion of the film which manages to emit the highest degree of drama, with his conflicted nature as an officer of the law binding him to a make a final decision regarding his position as a black man in a predominantly white geographical area which is both difficult and understandable from the point of view of the audience. With two standout scenes from Washington's own act including an emotional and iconic basketball scene and a dinner discussion regarding the politics of policing, it does comes as a slight shame that the final act involving Kelvin Harrison Jr.'s (It Comes at Night) Zee is rather quite plodding and at times, particularly dull, but with a dedication to the screenplay from each of the three leading actors and a well handled sense of preachiness which failed to annoy or disturb the drama, Monsters and Men is a ideas ridden cinematic debut from a filmmaker with obvious raw and exciting talent.  

Overall Score: 7/10

Film Review: A Star Is Born

"Almost Every Single Person Has Told Me They Like The Way I Sounded But Not The Way I Look..."

Synchronising spectacularly with the transformation of cinema across both the twentieth and twenty first century, A Star Is Born, the fourth adaptation of the well versed tale first brought to the screen by William A. Wellman in 1937, sees Bradley Cooper both star and take the director's seat for the very first time for a contemporary adaptation of the source material which follows Cooper's (Silver Linings Playbook) alcohol and drug dependant rock and roll star, Jackson Maine, and his discovery of Lady Gaga's (American Horror Story) equally talented Ally, a live-at-home dreamer whose musical career consists of drag bar shows and refusals from music executives who see her solely from the surface without understanding her true potential. Whilst one familial generation may fondly remember the 1976 version of A Star Is Born starring Barbra Streisand and Kris Kristofferson, another generation may go even further and recall the 1954 remake starring the one and only Judy Garland, and whilst it can be easy to dismiss remakes of classic Hollywood pictures before they even arrive onto the big screen, the fact remains that when done right, contemporary adaptations can explore fresh new ideas and offer the chance for younger audiences to experience a tale that they may have never witnessed before. 

In the case of Cooper's vision of A Star Is Born, the American's directorial debut is a modern musical masterpiece, a deeply emotional and thoroughly engaging piece of cinema which revels in the passion of the film's central relationship between a desperate, troubled musical star and the doe-eyed freshness of another who swiftly begins her journey into fame and fortune under the watchful eye of her mentor and lover who soon realises she may just outpace his own success with relative ease. With the first quarter of the movie primarily focusing on Cooper's Jackson, his constant alcohol abuse and apparent mental health issues caused by a fractured family upbringing results in laboured live performances and the constant need and support from his older brother and father figure, Bobby Maine, as played by the ever magnanimous Sam Elliott (The Big Lebowski). As soon as Jackson drunkenly stumbles across the enviable talents of Gaga's Ally however, the narrative becomes obsessed with portraying the most believable and stunningly acted on-screen romance since Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling in La La Land, and with Cooper managing to brilliantly balance directing with acting duties, A Star Is Born is the American's finest on-screen role to date, a performance riddled with inner turmoil and self-loathing which is perfectly balanced by the equally stellar Gaga, who although is not exactly new to the world of acting, with credits most famously on the likes of American Horror Story, gives it her absolute all to a character in which she obviously relates to on a human level, resulting in a performance which is expressed on-screen in, let's face it, award winning pedigree. 

Blending raw, hotly charged emotion with brilliant realism, Cooper's movie isn't just happy with portraying the central couple alone, with deep thematic contemplations on the effect of mental health and substance abuse threatening to suffocate both Jackson and Ally as the latter attempts to build her own career out of Jackson's spotlight, and with a superb level of pacing which lets the characterisation flow and expand freely, Cooper's understanding of when and where to guide the narrative's path is truly remarkable for a debutante director. Add into the mix a simply wondrous and immediately catchy soundtrack, with each track seemingly performed fully from the depths of our stars' heart and soul, the music is enhanced by the insistence from the cast that the tracks be performed live, and with the added brilliance of cinematography from frequent Darren Aronofsky collaborator, Matthew Libatique, the audience becomes transfixed on both the audio and visual splendour as we follow our leading duo travel across the world, from America to the immediately recognisable flag-filled horizon of the Glastonbury crowd, with each performance bearing the same riveting energy which made Straight Outta Compton so gloriously entertaining. With a sombre, heartbreaking conclusion which will result in even the toughest audience member reaching for the nearest pile of tissues, A Star Is Born is everything a remake should be, fresh, invigorating and contemporary, and whilst award buzz is inevitable for everyone involved, Oscar's are only the start to appreciating how good A Star Is Born really is. Cooper, you've done good. 

Overall Score: 10/10