The Meerkats (2008)

DVD Released June 30, 2009

Everyone loves meerkats – the cute mongoose, kitten and teddy bear-esque creatures who adorably stand on their hind legs and swivel their heads curiously. Relying heavily on their inherent cuteness, James Honeyborne’s film is ostensibly a documentary about a family of meerkats living in the Kalahari desert in Africa. Instead of relying on a traditional on-screen narrator, this brisk 80 minute film is shot and edited like a Hollywood-narrative production, with point-of-view shots and exciting action – it’s more Richard Donner than David Attenborough.

Our hero is Kolo, a young meerkat who has many lessons to learn about survival in the harsh desert environment. Taking lessons in scouting and hunting from his older brother, they encounter predator and prey, big and small, from lions, zebras and deadly eagles to snakes, scorpions and giant millipedes. By observing the animals over a six-month period, director Honeyborne has managed to edit together a narrative, glued together by the voice-over narration of Paul Newman. Though some of the suspense scenes involving multiple attacks simultaneously seem to have been created in the editing room (and a disclaimer in the credits admits as much), it’s remarkable how cohesive it is given the lack of communication between the director and his cast.

It’s beautifully shot and some of the footage – especially that underground – is a wonder but it doesn’t stand out in comparison to what can be seen in many BBC documentaries. The visuals are nicely accompanied by the score by Sarah Class which is a pleasant and inoffensive mix of pseudo-African rhythms and traditional strings. The DVD offers the choice between Dolby Digital 5.1 and Dolby 2.0 but no other distinguishing features.

Ultimately The Meerkats is a little too cute for its own good, too intent on turning everything into a little storytelling drama. Sometimes it feels more like The Adventures of Milo & Otis rather than Life of Mammals, only minus the drowning of two dozen little cats.

3/5

Review: Beautiful Kate (2009)

Released August 6, 2009

In her adaptation of the novel by Newton Thornburg, director Rachel Ward’s great achievement in her feature-length debut is tackling a touchy subject with sensitivity and without prejudice. By refusing to impose morality on her characters or her audience, she creates a poignant story of a fragmented family in outback Australia.

Ned (Ben Mendelsohn) returns with his girlfriend to his family home to see his dying father, Bruce (Bryan Brown) at the behest of his younger sister, Sally (Rachel Griffiths). Ned is a writer, and hence must be a bitter and complicated soul, though his resentment of his father and family stems more from a pivotal event from his adolescence: his other sister, the beautiful Kate of the title played by Sophie Lowe, was tragically killed.

The events that lead up to the pivotal moment are told in flashback as Ned struggles to reconcile his relationship with his father – each blaming the other for the tragedy. Though Griffiths feels oddly ill at ease, Mendelsohn is the standout in an otherwise uniformly fine cast. His simultaneously blunt but well-intentioned Ned helps make this potentially difficult material engrossing and engaging. The Flinders Ranges is outstandingly photographed by cinematographer Andrew Commis, the remote setting effectively reflecting the characters’ desolation. The flashbacks are shot in a more haphazard improvisational style, making them distinct but no less effective.

What’s unsettling or perhaps surprising is that the love story that emerges is equal parts unsettling and seductive, and completely understandable given their limited exposure to the outside world and infusion of adolescent hormones. It’s this story of sexual awakening that is the most profound and provocative. In comparison, the more traditional reconciliation between father and son feels more routine, but no less organic or inevitable.

Love the Beast (2009)

DVD Released July 14, 2009

If someone had told me in the mid 90s I would be reviewing an Eric Bana directed film about his 1974 Ford XB Falcon Coupe (the Beast of the title) I would most likely have laughed at them, and that’s not just because I was still knee-deep in high-school. Bana’s rise to Hollywood superstardom after years of work as a comedian on Full Frontal and his subsequent critical and commercial success – thanks in part to his excellent choice of projects – now allows him to do whatever he pleases.

His car being close to his heart, he jumped upon the opportunity to make a slight and indulgent film (though I’m assuming he didn’t see it that way) about its restoration and his participation in the Targa rally in Tasmania. Bana, with his mates, a specialist in Melbourne and, presumably, truckloads of cash, sets out to race-fit his big Aussie muscle car and twenty year labour of love by rebuilding it from the ground up. Footage of this process and the subsequent race is interspersed with interviews with car-nuts Jeremy Clarkson and Jay Leno, who are amusing, and Dr. Phil, who is...Dr. Phil.

Like many I assume, my association with cars comes mainly through Top Gear, and so still feel familiar with this obsession and the relationship one is able to form with a car – or indeed any inanimate object. As Clarkson explains, having a somewhat temperamental ride facilitates your rapport with the machine because it’s akin to the unpredictability present in human relationships. Dr. Phil nicely articulates that it’s important to respect these relationships and do justice to them – just as we should do with other people.

Such pronouncements are however, paper thin, and much of the film trawls along slowly in an in an overwrought mixture of family interviews and race footage. It feels more like a very expensive and well produced home movie that Bana would show to his mates. A great document for those involved, but not so interesting to anyone else bar the most ravenous car enthusiast.

The single-disc Region 4 DVD also contains an interview with Bana and an image gallery of his pride and joy (the car, that is).

2/5

Public Enemies (2009)

Released July 30, 2009.

Part of Bryan Burrough’s aim in his book on which Michael Mann’s new film is based was to tell the real story behind the great crimewave in the early 1930s without the Hollywood myth that now surrounds it. Mann could be said to have done the same thing by shooting this gangster blockbuster that tells the story of famed bank-robber John Dillinger in digital HD.

It’s off-putting at first, as Johnny Depp as Dillinger breaks some of his cronies out of prison in a breathtakingly constructed opening sequence. Everything is so crisp and so real that sometimes it feels like you are amongst the action, shooting it yourself. Famed for his tightly organised raids and elegant grace vaulting over bank-floor counters, Dillinger is blunty portrayed by Depp as a man who lived for the moment but was realistic enough to know that his time as a free man was limited.

On his crime spree he crosses paths with other criminal luminaries such as Pretty Boy Floyd and Baby Face Nelson, finds love with the Billie (the beautiful Marion Cotillard of La vie en rose), all the while pursued by the Bureau of Investigation head, J. Edgar Hoover, whose organisation is rapidly mobilising into something more federal, and steely-jawed Christian Bale as agent-in-charge Melvin Purvis.

While both Mann and Burrough succeed in making the individuals more real than their mythic Hollywood predecessors (such as 1967’s Bonnie & Clyde), it almost seems counter intuitive since Dillinger and his exploits were larger than life and his notoriety and fame existed during his lifetime. This tension never fully resolves and after a while you just wish that Mann would let go of the docu-drama style and hold his camera still so that one can appreciate the beauty of the production design. But then, that would be missing the point, wouldn’t it.

4/5

Knowing (2009)

DVD Released July 29, 2009

Alex Proyas' new science fiction film was undeservedly panned on its cinematic release. Though I don't champion it like Roger Ebert (who gave it 4/4), Knowing is an ambitious and thought-provoking thriller.

Nicholas Cage, in a predictable performance, plays John Koestler, a Cosmologist who teaches at MIT. Grappling with the argument of free will vs determinism, John dejectedly tells his students that he now believes that there "is no grand meaning, no purpose" and that "shit just happens". His son Caleb (Chandler Canterbury) then uncovers a letter from a student "time-capsule" created fifty years earlier. Most of the letters contain drawings of children's imaginings of the future, but his is a seemingly random array of numbers. John discovers that the numbers may contain within them predictions about certain catastrophic events. Also pivotal is Diana, the daughter of woman who drew the original artwork, played by Aussie Rose Byrne.

I'm loathe to spoil the events and revelations of the plot, even though they themselves provide an ideal platform for discussion and disagreement. They work on their own terms even though the Spielbergian finale is too left-field and didactic in comparison with the nebulous atmosphere created up until that point.

There are not enough intelligent and thoughtful science-fiction movies being made, and Knowing deserves recognition for being as ambitious as it is. But not all of it works, and the dreadfully serious tone comes precariously close to parody. Visually there are some astounding long-takes and visceral action sequences that are effective despite some artificial computer generated effects. As always, it’s the way the effects are used rather than their quality that is most important.

The disc contains a insightful commentary from Proyas, who is clearly invested in the film but sounds bored with the whole commentary process, and inexplicably the trailer for the Dakota Fanning starring Push because...well just because.

Proyas also made Dark City, an underrated cult-classic which shares similar themes. Knowing is not on its level, and suffers more from Proyas’ tendency to make the climax too rushed and simplistic. Nonetheless it’s intriguing and conversation-inducing.

3/5

The Diary of Anne Frank (2008)

DVD Released April 16, 2009

One of the most revered books in 20th century literature, The Diary of Anne Frank is an inspirational yet devastating story. Anne manages to communicate all the joys of youth – the inquisitiveness, the impetuousness, the optimism and the inability to see outside your own frame of reference – despite the atrocities occurring in the world around her. A gifted writer, the tragedy of the story – and one of the many of the Holocaust – is that a young girl with so much hope and potential could be obliterated by the most insidious genocidal regime in history. The great success of this 5-part BBC adaptation is that it lives almost entirely within her world, making the inevitable conclusion all the more powerful.

It’s 1942 and the persecution and deportation of the Jews across mainland Europe is escalating. Anne, 13, her elder sister Margot and her parents, Jews living in Amsterdam, arrange to hide in a secret annex above her father’s old place of business. The secret entrance is hidden behind a large wooden bookcase. They are soon joined by the van Pels family, husband, wife and 16-year old son, Peter, and later by family friend Fritz Pfeffer.

Living in such confined conditions, Anne describes her shifting and frequently strained relationships with her co-inhabitants. Outspoken and confident, she gets on well with her father (Iain Glen) but less so with her more restrained but well-intentioned mother (Black Books and Green Wing’s Tamsin Grieg). She treats Peter with contempt at first, not least because he was able to bring his cat with him and she was not, but later it evolves into something more romantic.

Over the five half-hour episodes we get close to Anne, played by the extraordinary Ellie Kendrick, who narrates the story through frequent voiceovers which are, for once, necessary and justified. By keeping the production minimal, and telling the story in a straightforward and honest manner (it is not afraid to show the more unsavoury practicalities of living in hiding), the characters remain distinctly human. The cast is uniformly fine and believable and each episode remains remarkably contained and compelling despite, or perhaps because of, the characters’ ultimate fate. Adapted by Deborah Moggach and directed by Jon Jones, this mini series is a very worthy interpretation that can sit alongside the plethora of already existing stage and screen versions.

This single-disc presentation, with good audio and visual quality, also contains a documentary about the “Polish Anne Frank”, Rutka Laskier, whose diary about her captivity in the Bedzin Ghetto was only recently released to the public.

4/5

Affinity (2008)

DVD Released May 6, 2009

There seems to be a whole sub-genre of lesbian historical fiction set in repressed Victorian England. Affinity is the second of Sarah Water's novels to be adapted to screen, the first being the sensual BBC mini-series Tipping the Velvet. Unfortunately Affinity is a failure, a low-budget and shoddily produced mess that fails to do justice to the gripping underlying story.

Margaret Prior (Anna Madeley), recovering from her father's death and still living with her overbearing mother, becomes a regular visitor to Millbank Prison and befriends Selina Dawes (Zoe Tapper) a prisoner who has a special connection with the spirit world. She has been imprisoned for harming a young girl during a séance. As a "medium" she is appealing to Margaret, who sees her as an escape from her repressed self. Gradually the connection between them grows into something more obsessive, and possibly more romantic.

It’s inexplicable that despite the hefty screen time devoted to the growing connection between the two women, they remain thinly drawn and one dimensional. The romance is hence unconvincing and merely facilitates the inept plot that only becomes engaging towards the latter stages. This is accompanied throughout by a miserable visual palette and tiresome and pointless shaky camera. You can stop the camera shaking, Tim (Fywell, the director), it’s called a tripod.

The performances by the two leads, at least, are compelling, but it’s small compensation. One wonders what a more accomplished production, with a better script, could have achieved from such strong source material.

This single-disc DVD release is of unremarkable visual quality and contains a good selection of extras including a making-of documentary, deleted scenes and interviews with the principles.

2/5

The Butterfly Effect (2004)The Butterfly Effect 2 (2006)

Blu-Ray Released June 2009

This is one of those annoying cases where a middle of the road, but quite enjoyable little movie was deemed successful enough to warrant a cheap, pointless, direct-to-video sequel. Both are included on the one Blu-ray disc. The annoying part is that if you wish to purchase the first film you have to own the second, which could be a problem since it is so atrocious it should be thrown into the depths of volcano after being trodden on and snapped into tiny pieces.
But first, the original.

As Jeff Goldblum explained in Jurassic Park, “The Butterfly Effect” describes systems whose outcomes are highly dependent on their initial conditions: a butterfly flapping its wings over the Atlantic could cause a tsunami in the Pacific, for example. In The Butterfly Effect, Aston Kutcher, Evan, somehow finds a way to alter events from his past (how exactly, is never explained) and cycles through different possible outcomes of his life until he arrives at one most desirable to him. Reading his journals (which he kept every day since he was seven) triggers this shift. One day in particular is critical in determining fate for Evan, Kayleigh (Amy Smart), Lenny (Elden Henson) and Tommy (William Lee Scott), which involves letterbox explosions, possible paedophilia and cute canines. We see these four characters played by different actors at ages 7 and 13, the film cutting back and forth between Evan’s visions of his younger years and his alternate futures.

It’s a clever idea, but it never says anything interesting about it (other than some choices are clearly better than others and there are almost always unforeseen consequences), and the characters and performances are bland. It curious as to why writer/directors Eric Bress and J. Mackye Gruber, with an idea that presents a mine of interesting possibilities, picked this story to express their concept. Still, some of the permutations involving a mental hospital, Evan’s large-goth-emo college roommate and a distraught adult Lenny with a model plane obsession are interesting, and the story comes to a satisfying conclusion.

This is more than can be said for the tosh conjured up for the sequel. The Butterfly Effect 2 has no direct relation to the original other than the ability of the lead character to change past choices. The lead, Nick (Eric Lively) is on holiday when his companions – his girlfriend Julie and two friends – are killed in a car accident. He is the only survivor and, when he discovers that staring at photos gives him the ability to change the past, he attempts to prevent the crash and thus save his friends. This of course, does not go to plan, and we must hence endure various alternative storylines that revolve around his phenomenally bland office space and his romance with Julie. Hilariously inappropriate sex scenes shot like soft-core porn appear to keep you awake. The ending is utterly absurd, though in keeping with the level of quality seen prior. Luckily the film is a brisk 78 minutes thanks to an eleven minute final credits sequence that appears to have been created in half that time using pre-set options of Final Cut Pro. You know you’ve stumbled across a gem when even the credits sequence is utterly inept.

Visually though, the Blu-Ray transfer is quite good, though it does reveal the artificiality of the sets and production. The transfer of the original film is decent, though it is not a film with a strong visual style or identity. There are no extras on the disc.

The Butterfly Effect is a decent supernatural mystery drama, but the presence of the awful sequel on the disc is unfortunate. Neither this nor the Region A release (which just contains the original film) has the option for the director’s cut which has an alternate, much darker ending. At least with the single release, however, you avoid the dreck that is The Butterfly Effect 2.

Year One (2009)

Released June 18, 2009

Jack Black plays the impetuous and unfunny Zed opposite Michael Cera’s more amusing Oh in Harold Ramis’ new prehistoric comedy. From One Million Years B.C. to Caveman to 10,000 B.C., our distant past has fuelled many an awful movie and Year One is no exception; at least Caveman scored points for being utterly absurd.

Essentially a road movie, we find Zed and Oh ostracised from their tribe for having devoured the forbidden fruit. Propelled by Zed’s belief that he is the chosen one, they lurch from one skit to another as they journey through undiscovered lands. They cross paths with biblical alumni such as Cain, who murders Abel before joining them, and Abraham, who wishes to circumcise their penises. They ultimately arrive in a city, “Sodom”, which looks like a mishmash of costumes, sets and time periods pillaged from second rate Hollywood epics. There they must save two women from their tribe who are now slaves, and who they have previously attempted to seduce through such dubious methods as hitting them over the head with a large stick.

The plot of course is just an excuse for gags that cover the usual terrain of sex and bodily functions. Despite a few laugh-out-loud moments already spoiled in the trailer, most of the jokes fall flat and the audience at the screening were oddly silent. The funniest material comes from Michael Cera who plays more or less the same character here as in Superbad and Juno. He has the bemused irony of someone always nervous and out of his depth which is kind of charming. But the laughs are too patchy, and even Oliver Platt, who hams it up as the flamboyant and overly hairy High Priest, can’t keep it afloat through the protracted finale.

2/5

Fanboys (2008)

Released June 25, 2009

Eric, Linus, Hutch and Windows are Star Wars fans, the kind that dress up as Stormtroopers and argue over whether Luke would still kiss Leia knowing she’s his sister. It’s 1998 and they are in rapture over the imminent release of Episode I. Desperate for another shot of Star Wars opium, they set out to break into the Skywalker Ranch to be the first to see the completed film.

Thus begins a series of loosely connected comedic adventures as they cross the continent in a van that doubles as their Millennium Falcon, complete with a temperamental hyperdrive. There’s an ongoing gag about the rivalry between Star Wars and Star Trek fans and cameos from a half dozen famous actors such as Seth Rogen, Carrie Fisher, Billy Dee Williams, Kevin Smith and an hilarious turn by William Shatner as a mysterious source who provides the boys with blueprints of the Lucasfilm HQ. Fanboy favourite Kristen Bell (Veronica Mars) plays Zoe, their friend, fellow fan and voice of sanity.

The film was originally slated for release in 2007, but was delayed by reshoots and an ongoing battle between the filmmakers and the Weinsteins (who produced) over the terminal illness of one of the characters. A fan campaign and Vanity Fair advertisement later and director Kyle Newman won his fight to keep the story close to his original vision. It’s this cut of the film that has been released in cinemas.

Ironically it is this serious story thread that clashes with the in-jokes and slapstick that dominate much of the runtime; it’s hard to have a knob gag and then suddenly be sincere. Nonetheless, Fanboys is lovingly made by fans for fans and is an enjoyable, if indulgent, road-movie.

3/5

Valkyrie (2008)

DVD Released June 4, 2009

Tom Cruise doesn't deserve half the flak thrown at him. Regardless of whether he believes there's an alien named Xemu ruling a "Galactic Confederacy", he seems like an affable fellow and does an admirable job playing good-German Von Stauffenberg in Bryan Singer's taut WW2 thriller.

Plagued through much of its production with controversy due to Cruise's involvement and Hollywood’s hijacking of the German July plot to assassinate Hitler in 1944, Singer wrings every bit of tension out of the concept while remaining close to the facts. The title comes from "Operation Valkyrie", a contingency plan if the ruling Nazi government were to fall. This plan is hijacked by a team of conspirators played by British stars Kenneth Branagh, Bill Nighy, and Terence Stamp, who, led by Cruise, attempt to overthrow the Nazis and make peace with the allies before their beloved Germany is destroyed.

Shot in many of the real locations and historical buildings in Berlin, it feels authentic even through it’s still clearly a big-budget American production. Cruise is almost a physical doppelganger for Stauffenberg, and the actors chosen to play our favourite Nazis are well chosen – Harvey Friedman is especially great in a small role as the slimy Goebbels. By ignoring much of the cultural context to the assassination attempt it’s not the complex film it could have been, but it remains tight and consistently engaging.

This single-disc DVD release contains two commentaries, a making-of documentary and a feature about the German resistance, all of which are informative without succumbing to excessive back-slapping.

3.5/5

Terminator Salvation (2009)

Released June 4, 2009

James Cameron’s probably rolling his eyes, wondering how his original slice of 80s science-fiction horror has been hijacked by a director with the name “McG” and turned into an action-heavy, CGI-laden war film. While sporadically infused with some of the suspense and fear of the original, Salvation more often plays like a sepia version of Transformers without the Shia LaBeouf wisecracks.

It’s 2018 and the war between the humans and Skynet rages across the nuclear wasteland of Earth, or at least of California. John Connor (Christian Bale), the leader of the human resistance, broadcasts angry radio messages in an attempt to unite the survivors against the machines. Bale seems to be monotonically channelling the rage that he vented on that cameraman; this is not a film that requires an acting range. The evil machines prowl the rubble of deserted cities, on the ground and in the air, sometimes capturing humans for, presumably, extermination.

The real story, if one could call it that, concerns Marcus Wright (Sam Worthington) who is executed by lethal injection in 2003 only to be reborn as a bionic machine. Through his wavering American accent he attempts to grapple with his new identity and what it is (or was) to be human. There’s also something about protecting Kyle Reese (Anton Yelchin), Connor’s father, because without him the first three movies would never have happened.

This is perfunctorily draped around intermittently exciting but always excessive action scenes that drown out the tension. The world feels like a post-apocalyptic Blade Runner, but while it is bleak it doesn’t properly convey the magnitude of the recent holocaust and feels softened for the multiplex (cuts were made to achieve a PG-13 rating at the behest of the studio). Save for a sympathetic character played by the fantastically named Moon Bloodgood and a cameo from Helena Bonham Carter, there’s surprisingly little humanity in a film eager to argue for the resilience of the human heart. Maybe that’s because McG was more interested in designing 200ft-tall terminators and the ensuring, admittedly enjoyable, mayhem and destruction.

2.5/5

Lucky Country (2009)

Released 16th July 2009

In Lucky Country Australia is not so much mythologised as a frontier, like the American West, but more a prison – we were, after all, a colony teaming with criminals, outcasts and gold diggers. Kriv Stenders’ ironically-titled sparse psychological thriller creates an image of a country filled with desperate people fighting for survival in an inhospitable land. It’s the antithesis of Baz Luhrmann’s Hollywood fantasy version of Oz.

It’s 1902 and Nat (Aden Young) clings to the dream of maintaining a self-sufficient farm in the outback with his two children, Tom and Sarah (Toby Wallace and Hanna Mangan-Lawrence). Those aspirations, which are becoming more distant as they struggle for food and money, are given a boost by the arrival of three ex-soldiers: “strangers may be angels in disguise” says Nat. One of them is harbouring secret gold, however, and their real intentions are not so much disguised as in plain view.

As an experience, Lucky Country is not entirely pleasant. Except for the sympathetic children, from whose point of view the story is mostly told, the characters are wretched and without a moral compass. Even their father, who begins with noble intentions, is consumed by the desperate dream for his family that is always out of reach. Minimalist in its production, use of music and direction, the film somehow makes the expanse of the outback feel claustrophobic like the psyche of its characters. It successfully expressing screenwriter Andy Cox’s opinon that the land “fundamentally doesn’t want us here” but is overly sincere and not always compelling,

2.5/5

Is Anybody There? (2008)

Released June 4, 2009

Is Anybody There? is a small and affecting tale of the friendship between a young boy and an old man in a seaside rural home in 1980s England.

Bill Miner from Son of Rambow plays Edward, a ten year old whose house has been turned into a retirement home by his parents (Anne-Marie Duff and David Morissey). Detached from his family, he becomes obsessed with ghosts and the afterlife and attempts to record the sounds of their escaping souls as the senior citizens pass. He resents his mother for attending to the eccentric oldies more than him, and his father for being more interested in their perky young assistant Tanya. His focus changes upon the arrival of a retired magician, Clarence (Michael Caine), with whom he forms an unlikely friendship.

The overly conventional story is made noteworthy by a touching performance by Caine and the well-intentioned honesty of the characters. None of these people, which includes an eclectic array of older actors, notably Rosemary Harris as the ex-dancer-with-a-plastic-leg, Elsie, have malicious intent. Even the wandering father, misguided though he may be, is a bit of a simpleton and hence we feel more sympathy for him than anger.

Writer Peter Harness was raised in similar circumstances to Edward, and the script was partially based upon his experience. Written and performed with such noble intentions, it is let down by an ending which is overly simplistic and trite. Michael Caine’s meditations on growing old however, make it worthwhile.

3/5

Two Lovers (2008)

Released June 4, 2009

Two Lovers is an uncomfortably real depiction of love, lust and loneliness in contemporary Brooklyn. Joaquin Phoenix is stunning as Leonard, a drycleaner for his father’s business and part-time photographer. He’s battling bipolar disorder and becomes infatuated with his new neighbour, Michelle (Gwyneth Paltrow), whose apartment lies across a Rear Window-esque courtyard in the building where he lives with his parents. He’s smitten of course, who wouldn’t be, but she’s having an affair with a married man and his parents are trying to hook him up with the lovely, but bland, Sandra (Vinessa Shaw).

Both Phoenix and Paltrow are outstanding. His is a performance where every line of dialogue is layered with internal meaning. We know what he’s thinking, but the other characters are oblivious. And she is perfectly cast: we believe her as the object of his obsession (he takes photos of her from his window) but also as someone who’s clearly a mess and stuck in a relationship she knows is doomed. Trapped in the gloomy and rainy streets, Leonard is torn between the two sides of his personality – the steady, and to his mind depressing, Sandra, and the manic Michelle.

Director James Gray, who also co-wrote the script, is able to convey emotional depth without using a sledgehammer, and seems intent on making us squirm at the uncomfortable rawness of it all. It ought to be a downer, but it isn’t. Like human behaviour, it is what it is: equally wonderful, sad and peculiar.

4.5/5

The Escapist (2008)

Released June 18, 2009

The characters in The Escapist are damaged goods; being in prison does that to you. Brian Cox plays Frank, a man in resigned acceptance of his crime after having served a dozen years of a life sentence. He silently observes the internal workings of the prison that revolves around its head-honcho, Rizza (Damian Lewis), who speaks in hushed Irish tones, and his psychopathic brother, Tony (Steven Mackintosh), who speaks gibberish and wields sharp objects. When a new cellmate arrives, Lacey (Dominic Cooper), who reminds Frank of his younger self, and with the news of his estranged daughter falling ill, he plans an escape with a group of sympathetic inmates, including a scruffy Joseph Fiennes as Lenny.

Well shot and well acted, the film tries hard to be distinctive through a non-linear narrative and sparse dialogue. The latter is supposed to make it arty and sophisticated, when really it just makes it pretentious and overdone. There’s a strong feeling of physical and emotional claustrophobia but, despite Brian Cox's commanding presence, we are not engaged with the characters. We're left to observe the details of the escape which, aside from a clever but improbable exploitation of the strength of diamonds, are unremarkable and consist mostly of running through endless tunnels and sewers.

The Escapist’s claim for originality comes in the final act, with a revelation that almost convinces us that the prior coldness was justified. It’s an intriguing idea that finally brings some feeling to the otherwise subdued narrative.

3/5