Review No.58: Into the Abyss

Werner Herzog for me is one of the most interesting directors working today seamlessly flitting between violent Nic Cage films like Bad Lieutenant to thoughtful documentaries such as last year's Cave of Forgotten Dreams and the next film on this list Into the Abyss. The film deals with death row inmates but interestingly Herzog gives very little of his own opinion on whether the death penalty is right or wrong. His particular focus Michael Perry who is to be executed in just over a week's time from Herzog interviewing him because of his part in a triple homicide in which he took the life of Sandra Stotler as he wanted to steal her car to go on a joyride. Perry was suspected of the other two murders however he blames accomplice Jason Burkett, who received a life sentence, for these other two deaths. Burkett's story is also covered in some detail as Herzog interviews his father, also a prisoner, whose testimony essentially saved his son from the same fate as Perry. Herzog separates the film into chapters looking at the crime, the town of Conroe in Texas where the crimes were committed and the loneliness of serving a life sentence. He meets a death row guard as well as a priest who has given many last rites to prisoners before they are executed both of whom take us through their duties in graphic detail. Possibly the most interesting part of the story is of the woman who was writing to Burkett in prison then realised she was in love with him they eventually married and she is now pregnant with his child who according to her is a result of artificial insemination.

Unlike other Herzog films Into the Abyss doesn't feature the director on screen and it is as if he is keeping his contribution to a minimum providing only questions rather than narration with the facts here being presented via words on the screen. Right from the start Herzog states he's not there to pass judgment on Perry but at the same time isn't his friend and this comes through in the cold interviewing process of the prisoners. Though there are a lot of emotional interviews with members of the victims' families for me the most interesting subjects are the men who have worked heavily in death row. The message of the film seems to be that at the end of the day nobody benefits from the death penalty even if that man did murder three people. This is seen through an interview with Sandra's mother conducted after Perry's interview in which she says that she thought she would feel different now the man who killed her mother also died but it hasn't made things any better in the long run. Herzog's point was that the man who has been punished more severely is Berkett who won't be out of prison till he's an old man so will miss seeing his child grow up and will probably lose his wife at some stage. This was a well-made and well-produced documentary however at times I felt that it started to tread old ground and Herzog had to work hard to make the material stretch across the 100 or so minute running time.

Verdict: An interesting documentary about death row inmates that feels a little stretched at times but still has the brilliant Herzog behind it I'll give it a very strong 7.5/10

Review No.57: Man on a Ledge

Every now and then you get a film that does exactly what it says on the tin and in Man on a Ledge we see Sam Worthington's escaped con Nick Cassidy jump onto the ledge of New York's Roosevelt Hotel apparently ready to commit suicide. Nick's request is that Elizabeth Banks'  negotiator Lydia Mercer be the person to try and talk him down however she is currently on leave after the last person she tried to talk down ended up jumping. The police seemingly have little idea why Nick is doing this other than he wants to end his life as he has nothing left to live for following his last appeal being denied despite the fact that he claims that he didn't steal the diamond that he was accused of taking. The diamond in question belonged to Ed Harris' David Englander a slimy businessman who may have one or more of the city's policemen in his pocket. There is also another plot involving Nick's brother, played by Jamie Bell, however to reveal that would be to give away half of the film so for now if you want to know the whole story then watch it.

However do I think you should watch it? I would say yes if you enjoy a good predictable thriller with a few interesting moments and an intriguing narrative. I don't think this was ever going to be a brilliant thriller however it keeps you interested throughout and I have to say I was never bored. Sam Worthington is well-used here as the focus is never solely on him and he gets to shout a lot which is what he is good at. Thankfully Elizabeth Banks and Jamie Bell both deliver fine performances to create characters that you do connect with while Ed Harris is also well-cast as the villain. There are some big names that are wasted here namely Ed Burns as Lydia's colleague and Kyra Sedgwick as an on the site news reporter. This is a film I could imagine watching on the TV on a rainy Saturday afternoon as it just has that feel about it. Overall I don't think this is going to stick in my mind a couple of months from now but I can't say I wasn't entertained while watching it.

Verdict: An interesting yet not wholly original thriller that you could probably wait to watch till it comes out on DVD 6/10

Review No.56: The Woman in the Fifth

Continuing along the French theme for my next review we have The Woman in the Fifth starring Ethan Hawke as a writer who journeys to Paris in order to reconnect with his daughter. If this format sounds familiar then it's because we've previously seen Hawke in Paris as a writer in Before Sunset however this has none of the joy or romance that that film possessed. Instead Hawke things it will be easy to get access to his daughter despite his ex-wife taking out a restraining order against him, it's left up to us to decide why exactly, then he is robbed so has to beg for a room above a cafe. The proprietor of the establishment is a dodgy gangster type who gets him a job as a sort of sercurity guard at a warehouse in which we are meant to believe that unsavoury action is afoot. Despite Hawke being a bit of an idiot he still seems to attract the women from the Polish waitress who works at the cafe to Kristen Scott Thomas' author's widow who is instantly taken with the tortured writer character that the lead actor portrays. Things plod along at a snail's pace until suddenly in the last twenty minutes of this eighty minute film we have gruesome murders, Hawke's child goes missing and there's a revelation about Kristen Scott Thomas' character's identity.

In terms of The Woman in the Fifth it was all a bit too little too late and it was as if director Pawl Pawilkowski had an idea of how he wanted to end the film but didn't really know where to start. As I have been alluding to I really never took to Hawke's character and indeed don't think he should be able to lead a film on his own as I find he is better when he is part of ensemble or at least has a regular co-star to bounce off. The first half of the film is incredibly dreary while the second half speeds up so much that it feels like a different film entirely just with the same actors. There are a lot of caricatures in the supporting cast including the gangster, the overbearing rapper and the sensitive waitress. On the plus side Kristen Scott Thomas is always watchable but she is wasted here on a character that changes so much that it's hard to sympathise with her or even understand her. The Paris landscape is also beautifully captured by cinematographer Ryszard Lenczewski so everything looks great but that's where the praise ends I'm afraid.

Verdict: A film that goes from dreary to over-complicated with a very uninvolving leading man at least is good to look at and features the always reliable Kristen Scott Thomas so far that reason I will award it a generous 5/10

Review No.55: The Kid with a Bike

Already in this blog I have spoken of my love of Wolverhampton's independent cinema Light House however so far this year I've only been twice. Thankfully my third visit came this week and was certainly the most arthouse film I've seen at the cinema so far - The Kid with a Bike. The film is directed by the Dardenne brothers who have won accolades for their earlier films including The Son and The Child with this film gaining similar buzz on the awards circuit. It concerns 12 year old Cyril a boy who has been put into a home by his father who is unable to look after him and after discovering that his father has moved Cyril lashes out refusing to believe that his father sold his bike. With the help of hairdresser Samantha he regains his bike and finds his dad however he later discovers that his father wants nothing to do with him so he is taken in by Samantha. Cyril is then taken under the wing of a local gang leader, known as The Dealer, who impresses him with his video games and also helps him to repair his bike. Cyril is convinced by The Dealer to rob a newsagents and attacks both the owner of the establishment and his son with a baseball bat before fleeing with the money. At the end of the film some things work out and some don't but saying anything more would be telling.

I went into this film with an open mind having been aware but not actually seeing any of the previous work from the Dardenne Brothers. The result was a very tender portrayal of a young life that hadn't been nurtured with a father who was unable to step up to his responsibilities and other authority figures at the home seen as foes rather than friends. What I like about The Kid with a Bike is that very little is explained about Cyril's backstory we know nothing of his mother and only that his father couldn't look after him once his grandmother had passed away. Samantha's background is also given little detail and we never really find out the motives of her wanting to take Cyril under her wing my guess was that she couldn't have children herself. The relationship between the two is greatly performed by Thomas Doret and Cecile De France as Cyril lets down his defence to let her in. Doret also is able to convey why The Dealer is able to win Cyril round so easily as he is the first male figure to ever complement him and treat him kindly so he is more easy to manipulate when the time comes to pull of the robbery. Alain Marcoen's cinematography catches the quiet moments from the characters and lets the actors give very physical performances throughout. Personally I felt the action dipped after Cyril discovered that his father wanted nothing to do with him and only got going again after the robbery scenes but I was definitely emotionally invested in the characters throughout as I could feel myself willing Cyril to be alright in the final scenes.

Verdict: A well-directed film about why some young people are so hard to control that did slightly dip in the middle but as it had two great performances I will award it 8/10

Review No.54: Underworld Awakening

I apologise dear readers for staying away for a week or so but for some of the films on this list I have to do a little research before delving in. When I say that I'm mainly talking about the sequels that have come out this year to earlier films that I haven't yet watched which over the coming months will include the Ice Age, Ghost Rider and Twilight franchises but first up was the Underworld films. I decided to watch Underworld and the sequel Underworld: Evolution but not the prequel as I surmised that that would not give me any extra information in terms of the characters' journeys. The first film saw vampire Selene help her kind in a war against the Lycans, a superform of werewolves, however she found out that a bunch of the vampire elders had conspired against her so destroyed them. In the second film she and vampire/lycan hybrid Michael learnt more of the history of the two races while trying to simultaneously survive and have sex with each other at the same time. In Awakening the threat to the vampires and the lycans is from the humans who have kidnapped Selene and Michael and have frozen them both with the former waking up twelve years in the future a time in which the humans have tried to kill of as many of both species as they can. Predictably Selene escapes with a young girl who turns out to be her and Michael's daughter she is helped by a vampire named David and sheltered briefly by his father played by Charles Dance until she is cast out following an attack by a breed of super lycans. These lycans are later revealed to be Stephen Rea and his son who were supposed to have been working on a vaccine to stop the lycans but in fact were creating a more powerful strain. As you would imagine though Selene is able to finish them off with ease and she and Eve then try to find Michael or at least set up for yet another film in the franchise.

When sitting down to watch Underworld Awakening I wasn't expecting much as the first two films had essentially involved CGI wolves, Kate Beckinsale in leather and a lot of shooting. However for me this was certainly the better of the two sequels if not quite up there with the original mainly as the threat to the lycans came mainly from men. I liked the fact that it concentrated on parent/child relationships and I feel that there was more dialogue here than there had been in the first two films despite the fact that this was drastically shorter than both of those. I feel then that that's definitely one of the negatives here as are the sections which just revert back to the tried and tested Underworld format albeit with slightly larger lycans. Beckinsale essentially is on autopilot throughout although there are some good hammy performances, as there always are in the Underworld films, from the likes of Charles Dance and Stephen Rea in addition I did like the fact that the woeful Scott Speedman is nowhere to be found here. In closing I would say that if you wanted more or less the exact same thing from your Underworld films then you're in luck with Awakening, which to be fair does have a little more to offer, but it's far too short and reverts back to an easy formula on too many occasions.

Verdict: Despite some promise this film is too short and diverts back to the Underworld format which I'm not a fan of so I'm going to award it 4.5/10

Review No.53: The Adopted

Sometimes the enjoyment of a film comes from an unexpected twist in the plot and that is definitely the case for Melanie Laurent's directorial debut The Adopted. Laurent is possibly best known on these shores for playing the cinema owner in Inglorious Basterds and here stars as Lisa one of two adopted sisters that the plot focuses on. In the same way as Melancholia did, The Adopted devotes half of the film to each sister starting with Marie Denarnaud's bookstore owner Marine and her budding romance with restaurant critic Alex. We learn early on that Marine's parents died when she was young and Lisa's mother fought to become her adopted mother as the two girls were already close. I felt at first that Alex and Marine's relationship would be a slow-burn affair and it would be a while till they got together however they soon end up in bed together and move in soon after. They go from loving to fighting to her moving out before the second half of the film switches to Lisa's story. In it we see a lonely single-mother glad of the relationship she has with Marine with whom she has spoken with every day for the last twenty years but is somewhat jealous of her sister's new romantic relationship as she won't be spending enough time with her and her son.

For the first half an hour or so of The Adopted I thought I knew what I was getting as it builds itself up as a quirky French love-story where all the characters have interesting jobs as musicians or critics and where everybody is happy all the time. The annoying quirks started to build as Marine and Alex decide to wear stupid masks every time they argue so they then would start laughing straight away. However then suddenly the film becomes more serious and that's when I started to enjoy The Adopted a lot more as it becomes a film about relationships and families while also exploring how much we actually think about the future. I've always enjoyed Laurent as an actor but here it was Denarnaud who was really the star of the show and her Marine was a joyous character even when the quirks got a little annoying. Laurent's direction, certainly in the latter part of the film, is also assured as several different camera angles reveal the character's thoughts and a really interesting scene involving Alex at a petrol station towards the end of The Adopted almost had me in tears. Despite the shift in tone everything stays very French with everybody reading, eating, singing and having sex a lot of the time. If you don't like French films about people being very French then The Adopted isn't for you but personally I found an unexpectedly moving film which I thought I'd figured out early on but which went on to surprise me a lot.

Verdict: Though it's quirky and very French the last two thirds of The Adopted are very enjoyable indeed so for that reason I'm going to give it 7/10

Review No.52: Intruders

It always feels that the hardest genre to get right is horror especially in the 21st century when a lot of things have already been done before. That's why it seems that a lot of films seem to be going old school with chillers based in the past such as The Woman in Black and The Raven. Though not set in the past the tone of the Intruders is reliant on small scares rather than lots of gore and blood. The film is directed by Juan Carlos Fresnadillo whose best known over here for helming the sequel 28 Weeks Later and Intruders is set both in the UK and in his native Spain. It follows both a young Spanish boy and a twelve year old English girl both of whom are similarly writing a story about a shadowy figure known as Hollowface who haunts them equally during the film. The film flits between these two parts as the boy's mother is helped by a troubled priest while the girl's father played by Clive Owen looks to a therapist for help. As it is seen on the trailer I think I can divulge that the police start to believe that Owen is feeding his girl's fantasies and that he is the only one in the room with her but is this the truth? Obviously Fresnadillo has to link the two sections however I found the link to be weak and it made little sense when compared to the majority of the story that had come before it.

I really enjoyed the first half of Intruders as the plot built up the themes of how can parents protect their children and why sometimes we make up stories are called into question. The two young actors, Ella Purnell and Izan Corcheno, are both great with the latter in particular impressing me in the scenes in which she has to portray the fact that she cannot speak. There is also a great performance from Daniel Bruhl as the priest who is conflicted in his feelings for the mother and how much these feelings contribute to him wanting to help her son. It is Clive Owen who I feel is the most miscast here seemingly only appearing because the film-makers wanted a name above the titles. Though he did a convincing job of playing a doting father when the final revelations come I felt that an unknown actor would've been better in the role. Talking of that final twenty minutes that's where everything goes to pot with the film evoking memories of a number of films including Pan's Labyrinth, Identity and even to an extent Candyman. It is a shame as this is half of a good film which after it has built itself up has no idea how to finish and ultimately ends on a disappointing note.

Verdict: A film that starts promisingly enough but ends on a sour note means that I can only award it 5.5/10