Film Review: The Informer

"The General Is One Of The Major Importers Of Fentanyl. We're Going After Him..."

If ever there was a movie which had me sold on the trailer alone, The Informer is exactly that. Presented as a prison crime thriller produced by the gritty minds behind the superb one-two of Denis Villeneuve's, Sicario, and the action series of the decade, John Wick, The Informer, at least on a production level, definitely had a lot going for it heading in. Helmed by Italian filmmaker, Andrea Di Stefano, an actor turned director responsible so far for the little seen, Escobar: Paradise Lost, starring Benicio Del Toro, and based upon the 2009 novel, Three Seconds, from the Swedish crime-writing team of Anders Roslund and Borg Hellström, The Informer is an English speaking adaptation which sees Joel Kinnaman (Suicide Squad, Altered Carbon) as Pete Koslow, a former decorated war veteran turned criminal who escapes the confines of prison after making a deal with Rosamund Pike's (Gone Girl) FBI Handler as part of a complicated plot to bring down the renowned Polish drug baron known as "The General". 

With a tonal sensibility which includes as many laughs as a night time funeral, The Informer presents itself upon the darker range of the thriller genre, harbouring a rather depressing nihilistic viewpoint pretty much throughout in a similar vein to the likes of Sicario, albeit a movie without the technical nuance or strange, ambiguous mystery which made the Villeneuve original so damn good. Instead, the central plot involving Koslow, his family and his role within the war between the cops and the drug dealers is too cliched and tacky to come across as anything other than mechanical, resulting in a rather aggravating sense of patting myself on the back when particular plot twists and discoveries brought themselves to the forefront of the plot without any real sense of shock or enjoyment as the entire audience could see such developments walking into the movie. Whilst Kinnaman is his usually reliable self as he plays the "wounded soldier" role which his recent past performances have all seemed to have based upon, the muddled and shallow plot doesn't allow for anyone else to particularly shine, with the likes of Pike and Clive Owen resorting to bit-part players within a plot that really could have done with a bit more umph, and whilst expectations may have been unjustifiably high heading in, The Informer is well made but boy is it bland. 

Overall Score: 5/10

Film Review: Hostiles

"Sometimes I Envy The Finality Of Death. The Certainty. And I Have To Drive Those Thoughts Away When I Wake..."

Reuniting with Christian Bale after their work together on 2013's Out of the Furnace, Black Mass director Scott Cooper returns this week, screenplay in hand, with Hostiles, a taut, uncompromising and viciously gritty Western set in the final years of the 19th century which follows Bale's Captain Joe Blocker as he is tasked with escorting Wes Studi's aged and dying war chief back to his sacred homeland in time for his oncoming passing. Developed from a manuscript left by the Oscar winning screenwriter, Donald E. Stewart, before his death in 1999, Cooper's latest combines the nihilistic harshness and visceral violence of his previous works with an elegant, thematic fuelled character study which utilises the treacherous backdrop of the rocky plains of Native America to discuss notions of death, forgiveness and the mirror image qualities of right and wrong, and whilst many will head into the movie ready in wait for an abundance of action, Hostiles is brilliantly akin more to the likes of Unforgiven and Bone Tomahawk in its' fascination with the complexity of the human spirit over the generic and cliched Westernised shoot em up style action, and with some standout performances from its' leading stars, Cooper's latest is his most mature and richly rewarding release to date.

With Bale giving an outstanding full body performance, moustache and all, as the grizzly war torn Army Captain, who against his fundamental beliefs is forced to work alongside Studi's equally murderous and contemplative Native chief, the narrative weaves and twists through themes which touch onto the strangeness of human nature and the idea that man's true belonging is one of a fundamental survivalist nature which cannot ever be deceived. Setting the drama within a stark and desperate period of time of American history, the environment of the piece is beautifully presented by cinematographer Masanobu Takayanagi, a regular counterpart of Cooper, who captures the soaring, rocky vistas in eye-widening fashion, whilst the handling of the film's darkest elements are too expertly managed, with Cooper's presentation of the on-screen violence unnervingly realistic, with the opening act involving Rosamund Pike's family a blueprint intended to both set a baseline for the tone of the movie and reassure its' audience that Hostiles is a movie not at all for the faint of hearted. A few missteps aside, including the unnecessary inclusion of Ben Foster's character which somewhat sidetracks the pacing of the piece, Cooper's latest is an emotionally engaging and overwhelmingly powerful drama which follows in the footsteps of Bone Tomahawk, Slow West and Hell or High Water by being a contemporary Western which manages to be both fresh on its' own terms and respectful to its' inspirations, and on that basis alone, Hostiles is a wholly rewarding cinematic experience. 

Overall Score: 8/10

Film Review: A United Kingdom

"No Man Is Free Who Is Not Master of Themselves..."

Carrying on in the footsteps of Allied, A United Kingdom, the third feature film from Amma Asante after A Way of Life and the heavily costumed drama, Belle, is another example of a film endangered by the severity of its' plot leakage within its' trailer, a trailer which not only has circulated the cinematic spectrum for months now, but is indeed another case study in how revealing too much just isn't worthwhile to the overall enjoyment of the film as a whole. Within the two-plus minutes of the trailer for A United Kingdom, the film's narrative is not only explained two-fold, albeit a formality of any teaser for an upcoming movie nowadays, but shows all of the film's highlights, highlights which when seen in the extended and fulsome picture just begs the question whether it was worth extending that 120 seconds into just under 120 minutes. Thankfully for A United Kingdom, the film ultimately does manage to pull through this fundamental issue and becomes a sweetly smart romantic drama, led primarily by the enormous acting talent of David Oyelowo who attempts to swerve the film away from near over-sentimentality and sort of succeeds amongst a string of two-dimensional portraits of characters that surround him.

Amongst the positives within Assante's latest, Oyelowo is undoubtedly the stand out performer, taking one tear-inducing scene in particular in his stride and giving the sort of performance similar to the much lauded and critically praised one in Selma. With Oyelowo in the driving seat, Pike is strangely underused in some way, resorting to the archetypal stranded mother character without having much chance to stand up and take control aside from a short scene in which we are meant to believe a quick detour to help out the locals completely wins over the puzzled masses. Although the film does begin in a rather hokey fashion, as soon as it departs into Botswana, the narrative does pick up and takes a satisfying dramatic turn, mixing in social issues, politics and romance, accumulating in a film which is strongest when it explores the overarching issues rather than the romance entwined within it, resulting in a somewhat messy outcome, but one which was enjoyable for the most part with Oyelowo's performance one of the main reasons to seek it out. 

Overall Score: 7/10

87th Academy Awards: Best Actress

Oscars 2015: Best Actress

And now on to the "Best Actress" category which this year features actresses who may have shown off their acting skills in films that might have just slipped under the radar of the average cinema goer. A prime example is Marion Cotillard in Two Days, One Night, which I admit to not having seen until I began writing this blog and thus decided to catch up with. In terms of bookies favourite, Julianne Moore is tipped to win for her performance as Dr. Alice Howland in Still Alice, even though she equally could have been nominated for her freakish performance in David Cronenberg's Maps to the Stars which also came out last year. 'Tis was a good year for Ms. Moore. On the subject of freakish, my own nod goes to Rosamund Pike for her portrayal of Amazing Amy in Gone Girl which (without spoilers) was spine-tingling. I'm not too sure Neil Patrick Harris will want to see her again at the Oscars. For the overlooked category, Essie Davis in last year's brilliant The Babadook, who sadly, hasn't had a sniff in this year's main ceremonies anywhere. But you know, whether if its in a word, or if its' in a book, you can't get rid of the Babadook. Here are the nominations:

Marion Cotillard - Two Days, One Night
Felicity Jones - The Theory of Everything
Julianne Moore - Still Alice
Rosamund Pike - Gone Girl
Reese Witherspoon - Wild


Next... Best Director

The Worlds End - Quicky Review - SPOILERS

A triumphant return to the Cornetto trilogy by the threesome? This is certainly debatable.

As far as stories go, The Worlds End is quite an outlandish tale. A typical alien invasion uncovered by the most obtuse group of people on a weekend of downing pints across 12 pubs, or as they call it - The Golden Mile. Throughout this, Simon Pegg causes endless amounts of trouble and uncovers this invasion. Thus leads to them trying to complete the Golden Mile while staving off the hordes of "Blanks". It sounds fairly straightforward, yet the character back stories are fairly complicated. These backgrounds really affect each other and cause endless amounts of trouble, one of which that is most notably is Gary King's (Simon Pegg) drinking problems.

As a comedy, it was fairly good. A collection of jokes which made you giggle and a few made the cinema roar with laughter, yet nothing hugely substantial. The other side of the coin is the action portion of the film. It is dramatically sped up and it easily noticeable, but it is aggressive, full on and just great fun. It's also nice to see that Nick Frost played a different style of character in this instalment. Starting off as a dead beat ass with no job and no life causing controversy among the group in Shaun of The Dead, following it up with a dead beat cop with little understanding of full on police work but a love for violence to end up as a non-alcoholic whose life appears well and is still a strong, tank of a man.

Speaking of actors, the rest of the fairly large cast acted extremely well and it was a present surprise to find out the Pierce Brosnan had a role within the story for a few scenes.

Visually, there are very little special effects apart from the occasional face lighting up, a piece of modern art and a large incident at the end, so for what it is, they are good and stage effects and lighting were executed perfectly, especially at the end with a haze of oranges, blues and blacks that filled the screen and wisp gently across. The music and sound side was also very good. I'm still trying to locate the trailer music for its massive bass drops, but the music kept an powerful roar throughout, that set scenes up perfectly.

As a part of a trilogy, it is certainly the weaker of the bunch. It wasn't as stupid and over the top as the rest of the trilogy and appeared the action side of the story took a lot of the priority and then a few inner squabbles between the group that took the movie from comedy to a drama. I do recommend you see it and many of you will enjoy, but I think it shall get a 7/10. It's funny but takes itself a little too seriously at points and could have done with a few more jokes. Sorry for another quicky review but its been a a few late nights and early mornings!
(PS - It uses the word C**T. If you don't like this, you may have a little trouble dealing with the movie.)

The World's End

 Trailer Analysis: The World's End 

"Analysis is probably a better phrase about what I'm writing about rather then review"   

So here it is, the final movie of Edgar Wright's Cornetto trilogy "The worlds end". If you haven't seen the other two, I really recommend you do, both "Shaun of the Dead" and "Hot-Fuzz" are amazingly entertaining and damn right hilarious.

"20 years after attempting an epic pub crawl, five childhood friends reunite when one of them becomes hell bent on trying the drinking marathon again. They are convinced to stage an encore by mate Gary King, a 40-year old man trapped at the cigarette end of his teens, who drags his reluctant pals to their home town and once again attempts to reach the fabled pub, The World's End. As they attempt to reconcile the past and present, they realise the real struggle is for the future, not just theirs but humankind's. Reaching The World's End is the least of their worries" (The World's end official Facebook page)

Edgar Wright (director), Simon Pegg and Nick Frost are back once again with the final addition to the Corntto trilogy. However this time they are joined by a few more additions to the cast, such as Martin Freeman who was in Hot-Fuzz for a few scenes but luckily he is playing a bigger role this time as Oliver; one of the pub crawlers, I'm greatly looking forward to seeing his performance. Also including Rosamund Pike, Paddy Considine, David Bradley and the talented Eddie Marson. All of these amazing and well known actors in one production, is sure to be an awesome show and I can't wait.

Now it wouldn’t be a Cornetto film if there wasn’t a pub involved and what a way to finish the series with a good old pub-crawl. In an IGN interview, Simon Pegg claimed that their films are very British. Pubs are British and they are a part of our culture, so it makes sense to make films around pubs. 

This film has a lot more computer animated effects then their other films. With all of the glowing eyes and robots this could be influenced by "Paul" which they released back in 2011. The effects are not bad or brilliant by avatar standards but this is a British comedy film, I'm not expecting anything big like that, but its still good to see. 

I am glad that they have kept some of the traditions from there previous films such as the pubs but also some of the comedy scenes, such as the fence hopping at the end of the trailer, which fans of the trilogy would have immediately recognised, but still tweaking it to keep it original, perfect. But they also keep that pub violence against a mass of people which I love, for example in Shaun of the dead it was zombies, hot-fuzz the village cult and now robots looks awesome.

So the film comes out on July 19th and I will defiantly go see it in the cinemas to give you all a full review. "So prepare to get annihilated and a little hungover".  

Also check out this trailer which a bit more dialogue: