Thursday 24 April 2008

Southland Tales

I browse the shelves of the local rental store looking for a film to waste a few hours on and come away with Southland Tales, a film I've never heard of before. Why?

Sarah Michelle Gellar - I've been wondering what she'd done since Cruel Intentions.
Dwayne Johnson - The Rock, he's amusing to watch even when its terrible. Maybe he'll punch a guy?
Sean William Scott - A third actor I've heard of, adding to the films credibility.
Directed by the Guy who did Donnie Darko - FUCKING SOLD

A few hours later I feel like I bought several magic beans that were not magic beans at all. Rather, they were regular beans bereft of any fantastical properties whatsoever. But thats not the whole story.

Speaking of story, this film has one... I think. Honestly its difficult to say given that between the impromptu musical performance by Justin Timberlake, religious overtones of suggesting The Rock is Jesus Christ 2.0 and the bizarre casting of John Lovitz as the most overtly evil character in the film its hard to focus on what the plot was. Actually thats a lie, I understood the plot perfectly once the last 15 minutes or so actually explained the preceding 2 hours of barely related gibberish, I just prefer to say I have no idea what was going on because I really don't like trying to comprehend pretentious over the top so-stupid-its clever satire bollocks because that would justify its use in other potentially annoying films.

To sum up everything I've said thus far, Southland Tales is a sorry mess of incoherence. It is an AWFUL film.

So why do I like it?

I'm not a huge fanboy for any of the actors, the plot is ludicrous at best, the CGI is shaky in places, the premise is dumb and so on and so forth. Honestly I could rant for hours about this film and its countless flaws.

Its simple, the film despite all the problems assosciated with it was still directed by the man who made Donnie Darko. The final scenes include a long stretching one-shot camera movement that contains no dialogue but great camerawork, perfectly chosen backing music and shows near every character in the film, telling you (without actually telling you) that shit is about to go down. Shortly after that there is a dance scene which reminded me of Darkos semi famous Sparkle Motion segment.

I confess to flicking through the DVD chapters again and again searching for my favourite parts from the film, despite the fact that as a whole its just a sorry mess. It has occasional flashes of brilliance that are ultimately wasted on a film that tries to say so much and instead blathers on to great extent about absolutely nothing at all.

If Southland Tales were simply terrible I could stop thinking about it, as it is... I worry that one day its going to be a cult classic.

Rating: D

Saturday 5 April 2008

American Gangster

I want to praise this movie, I really, really do want to give it a good rating. But realistically I wasn't blown away, perhaps it was built up too much for me or more likely I'm being harsh because I thought that the movie glossed over the actual gangster stuff a bit too often. Yes the limited scenes of violence on Denzel's part did help to intensify those scenes in which he was ultimately badass, but considering this is based on a real story I think that they could have portrayed his character a bit more realistically.

Please do not get me wrong, this is still a very enjoyable film and both Denzel and Crowe deliver powerful, believable performances and you will not be unsatisfied, I just thought that it wasn't enough.

(I also noticed that the World Trade Centre towers did not appear in a skyline shot which could potentially draw criticism but the movie is set over the period of the construction of the Twin Towers [author's own research] so this should be let slide).

Rating: C

Wednesday 2 April 2008

Hitman

Actually not bad. Not great, but then great would be asking a lot from a video game translation. The main fault that I have with this film is that on several occasions some of the plot relevant factors of the characters undergo sudden and inexplicable changes, this doesn't really interfere with the flow of the film but does leave a certain 'where the hell did that come from' feeling. There are a few nice leans towards the game origins (such as 47 crashing through a window behind two kids actually playing Hitman), and as an action movie it does satisfy. It's certainly better than that POS 'The Transporter'.

Thankfully at no point does it mention 'genetic engineering' even though the dvd sleeve does, that term is a movie cliche that I would rather see die a quick and still agonizing death.

Rating: C