Review No.36: Deviation

It seems that I have already got a little ahead of myself as my plan to be on 34 films by the end of the month seems to have increased by two. That's thanks in part to a couple of films going into cinemas one week and then coming straight to DVD and that is true of Deviation. The film comes from a third time director who has pulled off a bit of a coup in getting a familiar actor to play the lead role of an escaped mental patient who kidnaps a young nurse to try and evade the cops it's just a shame that that actor happens to be Danny Dyer. Yes Dyer plays Frank Norton an escapee from Broadmoor who kidnaps Amber for no apparent reason when he could've just stolen her car and left her by the roadside. Frank is a nutcase who has been arrested for killing three young girls who in his own words all deserved it because they teased him, made them spend money on them and then didn't have sex with him as you can see he is a charming individual. Frank and Amber just essentially drive around in the space of less than a day while he tries to justify his personality and she tries to get help something she constantly fails to do because at the end of the day she is just a bit of an idiot. At every escape attempt Frank seemingly kills somebody else but keeps Amber alive for reasons that only seem obvious to the characters and the film-makers.

I think anybody who has seen Danny Dyer act in anything knows that he really doesn't have that much range and he is it at his best when playing a sidekick dodgy dealer type role. Here he is essentially on screen throughout the piece in what is for the most part a two-hander alongside the competent yet bland Anna Walton as Amber. The problem with Frank is that we never know if he understands his actions is he an intelligent criminal or a childlike nutcase? At first look he seems to be the latter as his personality keeps changing in his interactions with Amber and one of his fellow former inmates. Though later on Frank meets someone who has admired his work including his poetry and his artwork which apparently was quite plentiful as it was enough to justify a whole exhibition. Now Danny Dyer is a lot of things but I fail to believe him as someone who has created a whole gallery's worth of art. For me the entire piece makes little to no sense, why does Frank value Amber's life so much? Things just don't add up and the final attempt to explain Frank's attraction to Amber comes too little too late for me. The lesson is if you want a decent lead performance in your film then the last person to rely on is Danny Dyer.

Verdict: A Danny Dyer film in which he is in every scene with an incomprehensible plot only gets a measily 2/10

Review No.35: One for the Money

After watching a couple of low rent titles I was after something with a big Hollywood star that wasn't too taxing and I found that and so much more in One for the Money. After watching this film I find it completely surprising that Katherine Heigl has become as popular as she has and I'd give the credit to Judd Apatow for casting her in Knocked Up despite the fact that she has since knocked her character in that movie by saying that she found it patronising. Though she has headlined movies before they have always had a familiar male co-star to stand alongside her on the poster be it Ashton Kutcher, James Marsden or Gerard Butler however here she is all on her own. She plays Stephanie Plum an out-of-work lingerie saleswoman who gets a job at her cousin's acting as a bail bondsman. Though her cousin only wants her to track down low maintenance cases she blackmails him into tracking down Joe Morelli a corrupt cop who she once ran down with a car after he tricked her into losing her viginity. Things turn into a knockabout comedy when Morelli finds out that Stephanie is out to get him and the two play a cat and mouse game which inevitably sees her getting naked at one point and in her bra later on. Obviously because Morelli is the romantic interest he isn't the real bad guy and Stephanie basically turns into a copper to track down the real bad guy on the way learning how to shoot in a gun in the hilarious shooting sequence as well as befriending a pair of prostitutes one of them played by The View's Sherri Shephard.

While I've got no problem as Heigl as part of an ensemble she's no lead actress in her own right and this isn't a romcom where both parties are on an equal footing. Jason O'Mara as Morelli does gruff quite well but his part is just popping up occssionally surprising Stephanie and then going on his way again. In fact I thought Stephanie was better off with her mentor Ranger, played by Rescue Me's Daniel Sunjata, a strong and comforting pair of hands who had more chemistry with Heigl than O'Mara. Star power is provided by John Leguizamo and Debbie Reynolds who have a couple of scenes each while Shephard's role is that of sassy informant something that works for her quite well. There was nothing particularly wrong with One for the Money it was slickly produced and well shot but I never laughed once or believed that these two could ever be a couple. It reminded me of a mix of two awful films from 2010 one was the Godawful The Bounty Hunter while the other was Killers which starred Miss Heigl in the leading role. It just left me thinking that Heigl isn't a strong presence and I didn't once believe that she would go through what Stephanie did plus her New Jersey accent kept slipping when she had to engage in scenes full of action. The scary thing is that One for the Money is adapted from the first in a series of books and I'm guessing if this does well at the box office then there could be two more films with Heigl in the lead which is a terrifying prospect.

Verdict: A romantic, action, comedy hybrid that left me cold yet was well produced and not completly terrible gets a generous 3.5/10

Review No.34: A Useful Life

In trying to do complete this project I fully expected along the way to come across some unusual films and A Useful Life is a prime example. The film focuses on Jorge a cinephile who has been working at the same Uruguayan arthouse cinema for the last twenty years compiling the programmes and dubbing over the foreign films that aren't subtitled. During his time working at the cinema he also falls for lawyer Paola also a cinema fan but someone who isn't interested in Jorge outside him giving her free tickets. When the cinema shuts its doors Jorge is without a job for the first time in twenty-five years so the second half of the film is all about him trying to find a purpose in life and thinking that purpose lies with Paola. He gives an improtu talk at the law school where he thinks she will be before getting his hair-trimmed to impress her and then there's the all-important moment to end the film but I will spoil it for the two people who this film probably appeals to.

It is clear that director Federico Veiroj has a love of old cinema as this black and white piece is shot in a way that emphasises Montevideo's filmic landscape and the music used in the second half of the film feels very old school and fitting for Jorge's pursuit of Paola. It is after the cinema is shut that the film becomes a little more engaging but at just over an hour long there's hardly room for character development or anything else for that matter. The film's first half, centring around the cinema itself, feels stuffy and almost as if Veiroj is trying to impress us with his knowledge of Icelandic film and other obscurities. As a fan of different types of cinema I very much enjoyed parts of A Useful Life especially the lead performance from Jorge Jellinek whose mannerisms and facial expressions were reminiscent of silent comedians such as Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin. The fact that he plays the entire film with a completely straight face is a testament to his skill especially seeing as this his debut film. I just felt that overall there was too many conversations about cinema that would alienate casual fans and at a just 63 minutes it is far too short to invest any real time in our central protagonists.

Verdict: A love-letter to old cinema that has a sweet central performance but one that is packed with obscure references and that is far too short I wish I could give it more but I can only stretch to 6/10

Review No.33: Best Laid Plans

It's interesting when film-makers try and adapt classic literature into a modern setting for example when Clueless took Jane Austen's Emma and placed in California or making Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew into 10 Things I Hate About You. However Best Laid Plans, an adaptation of Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men, doesn't involve a group of pretty American teens but instead is a sub-Guy Ritchie British crime flick. The film stars Stephen Graham as Danny a fast-talking Scouser who gets in trouble with the local mobsters after he steals a lot of drugs and fails to give them back any money. The biggest parallel between this and Of Mice and Men is the relationship between the charismatic Danny and the slow-thinking but large of build Joseph which bares resembles that between George and Lennie in Steinbeck's text. To make up for his debts the gangsters get Danny to use Joseph in a number of underground cage fights and with the money Danny buys more drugs and begins a relationship with a prostitute despite promising Joseph that the two would relocate to island in a camper van. There is also a subplot involving Joseph's awkward romance with a similarly mentally disabled woman Isabel, played by Maxine Peake, the relationship with her could see Joseph's rise above the gutter but Danny is suspicious of her parents' motives.

The success of Best Laid Plans can be seen in it's quieter moments between Joseph and Danny as the mis-matched pair try and navigate life the best way they can. Stephen Graham is a brilliant actor and the character of Danny is something that he can get his teeth into while Adewale Akinnouye-Agbaje is an intimidating presence, he is best known for playing Lost's Mr Eko, so it is interesting to see him play a character who isn't violent but rather protective. Maxine Peake is also predictably excellent as the sweet and charming Isobel but aside from that this feels a little generic. The scenes involving the cage fighting and the characters of the gangsters could be taken out of any film post Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and are predictably generic. Personally I also thought that Danny's relationship with the prostitute Jill progressed a little too quickly for my liking and the end to this plot arc didn't feel right. The ending was a little different from Of Mice and Men but this wasn't a good thing and overall the clever aspects of the plot were outweighed by the fact that this film was trying to conform to a genre that felt outdated several years ago.

Verdict: Three strong performances along cannot save a film that feels like another entry in the long list of sub-par British gangster films so I will award it 5/10

Review No.32: Goon

It's interesting the preconceptions you form before watching a film for example take Goon from the poster which sees Seann William Scott smiling with a mouth full of bloody teeth from this I imagined a film that saw Stifler playing ice hockey for 90 minutes but how wrong I was. Though I've seen William Scott play slightly different roles in Southland Tales and Stark Raving Mad for the majority of the past thirteen years he's been portraying the same character that he did in 1999's American Pie. I can safely say that in Goon we see Scott give his best performance ever as Doug a slightly slow bouncer who finds a career as an ice hockey player who can take a beating. After protecting his friend, who hosts a low-rent hockey show, he catches the eye of a local manager but soon is drafted to the big time playing for the Halifax Highlanders. In his role as an enforcer he soon becomes a team favourite however his team-mate and flatmate Xavier LaFlamme isn't happy with this popularity seeing Doug as a thug or a goon rather than a proper ice hockey player. It is this theme that plays throughout the film as Doug's role as an enforcer is more about him beating up the other team players that is about the finesse that Xavier has and Doug also fails to gain the approval of his parents. In addition there is a romantic subplot featuring Doug falling for Alison Pill's Eva a hockey fan who has a boyfriend but is strangely attracted to his aggressive nature.

I have to say Goon is a strange mix of sports film, comedy and character-led drama with Seann William Scott making the most of a slightly underwritten character. I thought Scott was certainly the standout in this film fleshing out the role of Doug into someone who has always been seen as second best but is trying to make something out of his life with the skill set that he has been given. His romance with Eva is certainly the sweetest thing about this very violent film and where he tells her that he has a major crush on her you can't help but smile. As well as the violence, which isn't that excessive given the subject manner, to me I found there was an overuse of bad language especially from Jay Baruchel's character but then along with Judd Apatow regular Evan Goldberg he did write the script so he obviously wanted to swear a lot here. Apparently this is based on a true story but obviously it wasn't that interesting as I felt the film ended too soon and it really seemed that Baruchel and Golberg wanted to trick the audience into thinking there was more left but I never felt that there was any resolution to Doug's inner turmoil which was the point of the film in the first place.

Verdict: A great performance from Scott and a sweet romantic subplot gives this violent and foul-mouthed film some heart however it ends too quickly so I'll give it 6.5/10

Review No.31: J. Edgar

Usually appearing in a biopic is a key to Oscar success and usually you're guaranteed at least a nomination however this year it seems that in the actor category the Academy Awards have bucked that trend with only Brad Pitt nominated for playing a real-life character. That's bad news then for Leo DiCaprio who was hoping to get another Oscar nod for his turn as infamous FBI head honcho J Edgar Hoover in a film directed by Academy favourite Clint Eastwood however that wasn't to be. The film is split into two parts one in which Hoover is narrating his autobiography to Chuck Bass from Gossip Girl and the other which follows his ascension to the position and his relationship with his deputy Clyde Tolson. The suggestion is made throughout that Hoover and Tolson are lovers but despite a declaration of love their relationship never blossoms mainly due to Edgar's mother, a great turn from Judi Dench, who tells him that she'd rather have a dead son than a gay one. The other recurring theme is that of Hoover's inflated ego and his belief that he had been involved in a lot more arrests than he actually had been so when Tolson confronts him towards the end of the film our belief in the story that Edgar has been narrating changes. The main case featured is of the kidnapping and later death of the Lindbergh baby and Hoover's involvement in that investigation but once again his personal life clouds his judgment.

A lot of what's good about J. Edgar can be found in its actors namely DiCaprio who over the past few years has proved himself to be a reliable actor and his performance here is reminiscent of the one he gave in The Aviator. Equally as impressive is Arnie Hammer who is known to most as the twins in The Social Network here he only has to worry about playing one character and he seems more comfortable playing the unspoken relationship between Hoover and Tolsen. If anybody was going to get an Oscar nod I feel it was Judi Dench her Mrs Hoover is a mixture of the mother from The Manchurian Candidate and Lady MacBeth and it is the only character that I have seen her play recently that has any substance to it. Unfortunately the negatives outweigh the positives as Eastwood's direction here seems to be both long-winded and a little big short-sighted. There are only a couple of references to Hoover's penchant for dressing in women's clothes and I also found this very episodic rather than entertaining. Another point of note is the make-up as in the final scenes both DiCaprio and Hammer don a large amount of old-man prosthetics and neither looks particularly convincing. It's a shame that this film wasn't nominated for any awards but after watching it I'm not that surprised that it hasn't.

Verdict: Some brilliant performances are marred by poor direction and shoddy make-up so at the most I can give this 6/10

Review No.30: The Muppets

OK after a family film that I hadn't connected with to one that I hoped would be excellent seeing as its the big screen return for The Muppets. Although it's sort of standard for everybody to say their favourite Muppet Movie is A Christmas Carol for me it's always been Muppets Take Manhattan due to its knowing references and snappy musical numbers. Thankfully this film, simply titled The Muppets, has all that and more and focuses on brothers Walter and Gary the former of whom is a Muppet and the latter who is played by Jason Segal the man responsible for getting this latest Muppet film off the ground. When Walter, Gary and Gary's girlfriend Mary played by Amy Adams journey to L.A. and tour The Muppet Studios Walter finds out that Chris Cooper's Tex Richman plans to buy The Muppet Theatre, knock it down and drill for oil. The only way to save it is to get The Muppet gang back together and put on a show that will raise the required $10 Million to get the theatre back. Kermit rounds up The Muppets but has trouble getting Miss Piggy on board as she is now living in Paris and working for Vogue Magazine in scenes reminiscent of those in The Devil Wears Prada. Of course the highlight of the film is the show itself featuring old school songs such as Rainbow Connection, celebrity cameos from the likes of Jack Black and Selena Gomez and tie-ins to the main plot involving whether Walter considers himself to be a Man or a Muppet.

And it's this question that forms the backbone of The Muppets because even though the reconciliation of the group is what everybody is going to the film to see I certainly got quickly involved in Walter's story. Indeed by his own opening monologue I felt more sympathy for him than I ever did for the kid in Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close so maybe this should've got a Best Picture nod instead. Both Jason Segal's script and his performance as Gary shows that he has a great love of The Muppets and a respect for the tradition however I never really took to Amy Adams' Mary who was an odd breed of smiles and resentment. Chris Cooper was excellent as the villain especially when he started rapping while Brett McKenzie's songs were amazing and more than deserve the Oscar nod that they have been given. The only problem for me was the overuse of knowing looks to camera and a cavalcade of in-jokes which sort of took away from the old school charm of The Muppets. But overall this was a charming slice of nostalgia but one that doesn't alienate younger viewers who just want to see chickens singing Cee-Lo Green songs.

Verdict: I was always going to love this film but I didn't expect it to be as near-perfect as this so I'm going to give it an impressive 8.5/10