Review No.65: This Means War

Let's talk about McG if we may. The director who can't be bothered with a full name made his mark with the first Charlie's Angles film which I quite enjoyed however the sequel was all over the place and the less said about Terminator: Salvation the better. His latest effort is This Means War which sees the director apply his usual action shtick to the romantic comedy genre as two CIA agents compete over the same woman. Those agents are Chris Pine's FDR and Tom Hardy's Tuck the latter of whom joins a dating website through which he meets Reese Witherspoon's Lauren who in turn bumps into FDR as he is playing his wingman role for his best buddy. Predictably the gentlemanly contest turns nasty as both employ valuable CIA resources into researching their new girlfriend and then tracking their rival using underhand tactics in order to make sure that the other's relationship isn't consummated. There is also a subplot involving a Russian mobster who is after revenge for his son's death at the hands of the pair however this is only given a minimal amount of time and the main focus is on the hilarious antics of Pine and Hardy which in my book is akin to stalking. Obviously Lauren's choice and the revenge of the mobster collide in the film's final scenes where there are a lot of explosions coupled with a few unfunny gags which in fact could describe the whole film.

My main problem with This Means War was that it was a romantic comedy without the romance as Lauren's life is researched by her two potential suitors they woo her by using prior knowledge rather than by the more conventional method of conversation. I understand they need to get one over on their rivals but even so finding out what sort of art she likes or her favourite car are things that normal people do via other methods while this is just cheating. FDR and Tuck spying on Lauren's conversations with her best friend, played by Chelsea Handler, are also meant to be utterly hilarious but again come off as very creepy. Though everything looks great I felt it was completely hollow with all three central performances being very lacklustre indeed and I think McG cares more about the explosions than he does getting decent turns from his cast. The usually charming Witherspoon has to tackle a character who is stringing two guys along, Chris Pine can occasionally also be fairly suave but here comes off as a bit of a prick however it is the often brilliant Tom Hardy who I feel sorry for obviously doing this for the money he mumbles his way through most of the script and has zero chemistry with his female co-star. Worst of all though is Handler whose job consists of making lewd comments about penis size and drinking cocktails while supervising her children at playgroup. It is almost as if McG has given her free reign to be as naughty as she is on her TV show however the character doesn't really work in the confines of this genre. Overall this is a loud, unfunny, unromantic, uninspiring film which is another entry into the horrific opus of Mr McG.

Verdict: Just bad on so many levels, it's just a shame I had to follow the best film of the year so far with the worse as it has no redeeming features and is just plain offensive I must award it 1/10

Review No.64: Headhunters

We journey now to Scandinavia which in the couple of years has produced some of the most talked about TV programmes as well as the world-renowned Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series. Another popular Scandinavian is Norwegian Jo Nesbo whose books have sold millions of which the first to be adapted his the brilliant Headhunters. Set in Oslo, Headhunters focuses on Aksel Hennie's Roger Brown who believes he is too small and ugly to satisfy his beautiful wife so has to keep buying her things such as a large modern house as well as expensive jewellery and money to improve her art gallery. Though Roger has a well-paid job as a head-hunter this still isn't enough to pay the bills so he makes a side-line in stealing pieces of art and replacing them with reproductions which he does with an acquaintance who works for a security firm who switches off the alarms when Roger is in the house. Roger uses his role as a headhunter to scope out information about Norway's wealthy elite who are the owners of these paintings so when his wife introduces him to Clas Greve, who has inherited a famous rare painting from his grandmother, he feels he must try to recruit him straight away. However Clas Greve is no push-over played by Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, best known to the rest of us as Jaime Lanister from Game of Thrones, he is a former military man whose security firm past means he his always alert. After the first 30 minutes you think you know where the film is leading however during the robbery Roger makes a discovery that changes everything and from there the film really picks up the pace.

To say any more about Headhunters would be detrimental to your enjoyment of it and part of the reason I enjoyed this film so much was because of the element of surprise. From the off-set Morten Tyldum's film was slick and stylish while Aksel Hennie's voice-over introduced us to a man who compensated for his lack of physical stature by pleasing his beautiful wife and stealing valuable works of art. This is a man who is obsessed with appearance from his house down to his locks of blonde hair which do play a key part throughout the film and give the title a double meaning. Hennie is brilliant in the lead role making you route for a man who is both a thief and an adulterer mainly because he is painted as a victim of circumstance. Coster-Waldau is also a brilliant antagonist whereas Brown is small and nervous this man is tall and confident with a certain swagger you can only pull off with being that good-looking. As well as being packed full of wild-action the film is both funny and at times touching when dealing with the true feelings that Roger's wife Diana has for him. For me this is right up there with the recent Scandinavian classics such as The Killing on TV and the original Girl with the Dragon Tattoo films as Headhunters gave me the same feeling I had as I did when I first saw Noomi Rapace on the big screen. A clever ending to a film ties together some of the earlier points made by the script and I believe most of the audience left happy as will you when you track down this film on DVD trust me you won't be disappointed.

Verdict: A cracking action film that is also funny, clever and sweet with two breath-taking performances and some great set pieces. For me the film of the year so far so it gets 9/10

Review No.63: Safe

After appearances in films such as Crank, The Transporter and The Expendables it seems that Jason Statham is now Hollywood's go-to action figure picking up the mantle from guys such as Stallone and Willis. I have to say I was disappointed in his last venture The Mechanic which I found dull and uninspiring however with his new film Safe he has redeemed himself. Statham plays cop turned cage fighter Luke Wright who wins a fight he is asked to lose so is then chased by people who bet big money on the outcome of this encounter so in return Russian mobsters kill his wife and make him go on the run to be one of life's loners. After a year of living like this Luke is about to end it all when he sees Russian mobsters chasing a little Chinese girl named Mei onto a subway so he pursues them, kills them all and saves her. It turns out that not only the Russians but also the crooked cops and the Chinese triads are all after Mei as she can remember long numbers such as one to a safe containing many millions of dollars. Luke is now set on protecting the girl who essentially saved him from ending his life but this means rampaging his way through New York killing everyone who gets in his way while laying on the witty quips as he goes.

When I actually went to see Safe, at a free preview screening, myself and my friend thought that we had got the time wrong as the film had already started when we entered the cinema. Twenty or so minutes in the lights went up and a staff member told us that the film was actually meant to start at the time we thought so many other customers were ushered in and the film was screened from the beginning. I'm telling you this story as the part I watched twice was the build-up before the real action began we learnt of how Mei was transported from her native Shanghai and how Luke ended up the shell of a man he had become however I had to see two showings of the first twenty minutes before we got into full Statham territory. Once Luke had vowed to protect Mei we saw guns a blazing, Statham using a Chinese man to break his fall as he fell out of a hotel window and also a brilliant sequence in a casino safe. Writer/director Boaz Yankin plays to Statham's strengths not giving him a lot to say other than some quips my favourite being a response to one of the mobsters telling Luke that he has massive balls to which he replies 'yes, it's amazing I can still walk.' Much of the acting is left to young Catherine Chan and she does a good job bringing this frightened girl to life as she learns what business is really all about. My criticism of the film is that not all of the part I watched twice was really necessary as I don't see the point in a lot of character progression if most of those characters are going to be finished off by Statham before the end of the film. For the most part though this was a fun ride while maybe not as entertaining as the first Crank film I would say that it was better than The Transporter franchise in terms of Statham's overall opus. This is brainless action at its finest and if you're looking for a good action caper that won't tax the brain too much then this is it.

Verdict: A film which plays to its target audience, contains Statham in his element and most of all is fun I'll give this an entertainment-packed 7/10

Review No.62: Contraband

Trying to play catch-up now as we enter May and the first of three reviews is of the Mark Wahlberg film Contraband to which I'm not sure which genre it falls. I think it has aspirations of being sort of an action thriller in the vein of Gone in 60 Seconds though that had the appeal of a lot of shiny fast cars and Angelina Jolie not watching much instead Contraband has Kate Beckinsale not doing much while husband Wahlberg goes out looking for drugs. The similarities with Gone are like Cage, Wahlberg has also been out of the game in his case as a smuggler but has to do one last job after his brother-in-law gets into trouble with Giovanni Ribisi's psychotic drug baron. Going back on the ship his father used to use with his trusty sidekick, played by Lukas Haas, along with said brother-in-law he raises the suspicions of JK Simmons' captain so is forced to be the ship's errand boy. Once in Panama he meets up with Diego Luna who plays the guy who has the gear however once again he is a bit loopy so he and Haas wind up in trouble and almost miss the ship. Meanwhile on dry land Ribisi is threatening Wahlberg's wife played by Beckinsale so she and their sons go to stay with a family friend played by Ben Foster but is he all he seems?

As I said Contraband has the idea that it is a slick crime thriller in the vein of Ocean's 11 or the aforementioned Nic Cage film however its main problem is that it's very boring. There's no denying that Wahlberg is a charismatic film presence however here he is wasted as a slightly boring lead character who you fail to believe once did this smuggling lark for a living. In fact on the side of the good guys it is Ben Foster who is actually given a more interesting role so he runs with it and indeed it is the scenes featuring him that are some of the film's more intriguing. Ribisi and Luna both ham it up as two crazed villains on each side of the border however at times both of them lapse into caricature almost making this seem like a spoof of those heist films rather than one of them. It's fair to say that everything is quite stylish however there is no substance and not even JK Simmons doing another of his blustered authority figure roles can save the day. The biggest failure is the casting of Kate Beckinsale who has very little to do throughout although does seem to survive getting beaten about a lot throughout the film. I have to say I didn't have high hopes for Contraband but I thought at least I would be entertained however that didn't happen that's not to say it didn't have its moments but overall I was just disappointed.

Verdict: A film that promises a lot but never delivers with some really dull scripting and acting at least has a couple of interesting performances that bolster it up to 4/10

Review No.61: Gone

Every time I watch a film which is really dull I do wonder who threw so much money at a project that had a poor script and no real reason to care about its character. Sure the makers of Gone have got a name above the credits in Amanda Seyfried however I'm not sure if she's that much of a proven commodity to draw money on her own. I couldn't even really tell you into which genre Gone falls however according to the notes on the net it's classed as a thriller even though I can tell you I wasn't thrilled once. The film sees Seyfried play Jill a woman who a year ago had supposedly been kidnapped, thrown into a hole and almost died however with no evidence for this she was briefly institutionalised and now lives with her sister. When her sister goes missing she believes the same man has abducted her in order to get to Jill however when they refuse to help she goes off on her own to try and hunt her sister down. When she pulls a gun to get some information the police get involved so know not only does she need to find her sister before she is killed but she also has to get the police off her back. This essentially involves her running around and telling a different lie to everyone she meets which includes an elderly relative of some description. As Gone built to a climax I was waiting for a big reveal and had several twists built up in my head ready to go, I knew it! However this film possesses possibly one of the flattest endings I've ever seen in a 'thriller'.

The problem with Gone is that I felt no real connection to Jill and so really didn't care whether the events were real or if they were in her head. This is no fault of Seyfried who does a good job with the very little she is given however I feel a film like this really doesn't suit her as she is better as a quirky character in comedies or romantic dramas. Seyfried is given little support in a cast which includes brief popping up parts from Jennifer Carpenter and Wes Bentley with the latter playing a mysterious copper who seemingly was taken with Jill however this storyline just dies towards the final reveal. The camera-work is just alright but not nearly as erratic as it should be for a film of this nature however it's a masterpiece when compared with the atrocious script that follows the same pattern constantly as well as making every character seem like a bit of an idiot. The supposed twist at the end just came out of nowhere and by that point I really wasn't that bothered who had done what to who I was just glad that this film had come to an end. I really don't see how this got a cinema release as it feels like a TV movie or at the very least a straight-to-DVD release. Even though I've just finished watching this I'm struggling to remember what happened which tells you the impact that this dull and uninteresting film had on me.

Verdict: Dull with a bad repetitive script it's only because I feel sorry for Amanda Seyfried that I'm going to award Gone 2/10

Review No.60: Haywire

Basing a film around somebody who has never acted before is a tricky business even when that person, in this Gina Carano, has been surrounded by lights and camera before. Carano is best known as a fighter in the mixed martial arts field but was also a former American Gladiator and in Steven Soderbergh's Haywire she makes her debut as government contractor Mallory Kane. Haywire's story is a simple one as Mallory is sent to Barcelona to rescue an Asian journalist before being convinced by her boss/former lover Kenneth, played by Ewan McGregor, to take up another assignment posing as Michael Fassbender's wife. It is only when on this assignment that she realises she has been set-up and Fassbender is out to kill her thankfully she realises this in the nick of time and is able to over-power him. Returning to the States she is confronted by another old colleague, played by Chaning Tatum, before commandeering the car of a customer at the diner she was in. After telling him her story she ends up at her father's house where she demands the truth from Kenneth which is a conspiracy that also involves Michael Douglas' government agent and his contact played by Antonio Banderas.

It's fair to say the best parts of Haywire are when Carano is kicking ass or plotting her next move however Soderbergh seems set to make her act as much as possible. The two best scenes in Haywire, in my opinion, are when Mallory is tussling with Fassbender in an Irish hotel or when he is wrestling with McGregor on a Mexican beach. For me the problem here is that Soderbergh has over-complicated the plot meaning that we must learn of half of a dozen characters in the first fifteen minutes of the film and I really struggled to work out who was on who's side. It seemed that a variety of reliable actors such as McGregor, Fassbender, Banderas and Douglas had been drafted in to act alongside the amateur however I feel the majority of them are wasted in underwritten role. Carano herself isn't an awful actress just a little cold so while I understood her need for revenge she never really made me care if she lived or died. What should've happened with Haywire is a lot more set piece, such a when Mallory is trying to evade the Irish police, and a lot less of her hanging around waiting for stuff to happen. This being a Soderbergh film at least everything is styled to perfection there's some great cinematography, the score suits the mood perfectly and each new location is welcomed in so at least we know where we are even if we're not quite sure what's going on. I think Carano was often utilised in the right way but I have to say I'd expected more from the film seeing as who was involved and at the end of the day Haywire seemed to me to be a film that should've been simple but a lot more complicated by an over-abundance of character and too many cooks spoiling the broth.

Verdict: Slick and stylish in places with some great set-pieces it's a shame that Soderbergh peppered his film with far too many different characters so for that reason I can only award this 6/10

Review No.59: The Cabin in the Woods

 Sometimes it's very hard to write a review about a film without spoiling any aspect of it so apologies in advance if I give away anything too much but I've had a glance at some other write-ups of the film so know what and what not to include. The film itself, co-written and produced by Joss Whedon, has been in developmental hell for years finally being released ahead of its producer's helming of The Avengers Movie. While Whedon is busy with his superheroes it is left up to the other co-writer Ben Goddard to direct a story about five college students who are all going off to the titular cabin to drink, get stoned and have sex with one another. We think we've see this all before with the stereotypes all covered from the slutty one to the jock via the intelligent one and the drug addict however Goddard and Whedon play with our perceptions almost instantly after the youngsters get to the cabin. Obviously as you can ascertain from the trailer not all is as it should be and there is another plot away from the woods which involves two middle-management types played by Bradley Whitford and Richard Jenkins. It is the scenes featuring Jenkins and Whitford in their office that were the most entertaining as at times their snappy delivery of the one-liners made me think I was watching a horror as if scripted by Aaron Sorkin.

The Cabin In The Woods - Trailer #1 [VO|HD] by addictomovie
My main problem with Cabin in the Woods is that we were given little reason to care about the group of five going to the cabin and we knew only very little about them. I know to an extent that that's the point as often in the young teen slasher movie genre the characters are flimsy and the acting is atrocious so maybe this is Whedon and Goddard's way of mocking those genre conventions. At the end of the day though shoddy acting is shoddy acting and I particularly thought Jesse Williams as the bookish yet handsome Holden was so wooden that he blended it with the walls of the cabin from time to time. What Whedon and Goddard do right is in asking the question what if there was something more behind those crappy horror films that we often watch and why do the teens always split up when terror strikes? The last twenty minutes or so is when the film reaches its most entertaining however those are the moments that I can't talk about. It's clear that the writers know their horror as they spoof the Japanese shock horror genre as well as the main mockery of the teens alone in the wood together. I can't say that I was ever scared but I was never bored either laughing at the witty interplay between Whitford and Jenkins or intrigued by what direction the plot would take. True if you think about anything too much you can unravel parts of the plot but overall a clever plot coupled with some decent performances from its veteran cast members means that this is a step above your normal mainstream horror film.

Verdict: While it may favour concept over quality in periods ultimately The Cabin in the Woods is an entertaining ride to which I will give 8/10