The Raid Review: Die Hard Boiled

THE RAID (18): On General Release Friday 18th May

If you haven’t been living under a rock with your fingers in your ears for several months, you must have heard of The Raid.  But now that it’s finally arrived, does it live up to the hype?   Well, happily the answer is a resounding, bone-crunching “yes” as it’s an action movie with few equals; 101 minutes of almost non-stop gun-toting martial arts action and a pulse-quickening foot up the arse for modern martial arts cinema.

Deep within one of Jakarta’s most notorious slums is a high-rise apartment block, home to the city’s most notorious criminals – gangsters, junkies and murderers – all ruled over by the iron fist of a fearsome drug lord.   It’s a 30-floor fortress which is considered nearly impenetrable and all who have attempted to assault it have failed.

That’s something that the authorities hope to change and so an elite SWAT team is sent in with the mission to sweep the building and eliminate anyone/anything they encounter.  But as they break in under the cover of darkness, they swiftly realise that the biggest challenge will be staying alive long enough to get out. Read more

All In Good Time Review: Completely Impotent

ALL IN GOOD TIME (12A): On General Release Friday 11th May

East Is East writer Ayub Khan Din, turns out another rather predictable offering that centres on generational conflict in an Asian community. An adaptation of his play Rafta Rafta (itself a new version of the 1963 Bill Naughton play), All In Good Time is a contrived comedy that suffers further because of an improbable central concept.

Newlyweds Atul (Reece Ritchie) and Vina (Amara Karan) find that the limelight is stolen from their wedding day by Atul’s larger than life father Eeshwar (Harish Patel), who seems oblivious to any of his son’s wishes.

Worse, the couple are unable to consummate their marriage because at home, they find the proximity of Atul’s parents in the tiny family house off-putting.  And when their honeymoon is cancelled and the word gets out that they still haven’t “done it”, gossipy neighbours and interfering family members continually put Atul off his stroke.

All In Good Time feels extremely old fashioned and the central concept never really feels like it’s the obstacle that the film would like you to believe.  While it is conceivable that a stressful family life and constant prying of friends and acquaintances could delay the old “in-out in-out”, it feels completely implausible that a mere few days of this would cause a previously besotted couple to consider abandoning their marriage completely.  Perhaps this would have been more believable set in the 1960s but in modern day Bolton, it’s a bit much to swallow.

Every other obstacle feels constructed.  Atul and Vina are constantly disgusted by the noises that Eeshwar makes that they can hear through the thin walls but presumably Atul has lived in the house his whole life and would be aware of the problem, so why hasn’t he made preparations in advance. Furthermore, it’s problem that could easily be fixed on the first night by visiting a hotel and it’s never made clear why they don’t just do that in the first place.

The performances are decent but feel quite stagey and reminiscent of its theatrical origins.  Harish Patel is particularly good as Atul’s boisterous father – waddling around with his belly leading the way like a man who swallowed a beach ball, declamatory finger always poised to waggle at his son’s latest perceived ingratitude.

There are occasional touching moments.  Meera Syal’s tearful revelation at the unhappiness of her marriage and the core reason which has so far remained buried explains a lot about the father/son dynamics of the rest of the film.  But it’s something that comes far too late to impact on what is a dull, implausible and decidedly laugh-free comedy.

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Jeff, Who Lives At Home Review: Don’t Fear The Reefer

JEFF, WHO LIVES AT HOME (15): On General Release Friday May 11th

Sometimes there are movies that you should by all rights hate, but despite yourself you end up liking.  The latest offering from Jay and Mark Duplass (Cyrus) has a minimally scripted plot and a main character that believes in cosmic harmony and that “everything happens for a reason” (traits which would usually inspire bouts of psychotic rage) but it’s nevertheless a charming, likeable and surprisingly touching oddball comedy.

Jason Segel is 30-year-old man-child stoner Jeff, who lives in his mother’s basement.  After partaking of wee bit too many happy nettles and repeatedly watching M Night Shyamalan’s Signs, he finds himself ruminating about fate and destiny.

When he receives a threatening phone call from a wrong number asking for Kevin, he becomes convinced that the name has some kind of significance (“What if there are no wrong numbers?” he muses) and impulsively follows anything that seems related whether it’s a teenager with a basketball shirt that has “Kevin” on the back or a truck with “Kevin” written on the side.

His mother Sharon (Susan Sarandon) is determined to get him out of the house and gives him an errand to run, but he instead bumps into his older brother Pat (El Helms) and the two begin a spot of amateur sleuthing to determine if Pat’s wife Linda (Judy Greer) is having an affair.  Meanwhile Sharon has her own mystery to unravel as she’s recently received a message from a secret admirer and together with her best friend Carol (Rae Dawn Chong) is determined to puzzle it out. Read more

How I Spent My Summer Vacation Review: Not Too Old For This Shit

HOW I SPENT MY SUMMER VACATION: On General Release Friday 11th May

If Mel Gibson wants us to forget his odious public image, he’ll have much better success with films like How I Spent My Summer Vacation than depressive grovelling nonsense like The Beaver. 

HISMSV joins Gibson in the middle of a car chase dressed as a clown and with his accomplice bleeding to death in the passenger seat.  After making it across the border, he’s promptly arrested, put in a Mexican jail and has his shed-load of stolen cash confiscated.

But El Pueblito is no ordinary prison – it functions like a small town, with prostitute tents, shops and its own grimy economy.  Family members are even allowed to come and live with inmates; the only condition being that the prisoners themselves can’t leave.  Thrown together with a plucky young kid (Kevin Hernandez) whose internal organs are a vital resource, Gibson’s anonymous protagonist must deal with greedy customs officials, the unscrupulous mob boss who controls life inside, the owner of the money who doesn’t take kindly to being robbed, and yet still escape with his ill-gotten gains. Read more

Dark Shadows Review: Bloodless

DARK SHADOWS (12A): On General Release Friday 11th May

You don’t like modern Tim Burton movies, you just think you do.  You probably have warm fuzzy nostalgia for his earlier work (Edward Scissorhands, Batman, Beetlejuice) but every time he announces a new movie, you waltz into the cinema with naïve happy optimism only for it to be crushed beneath the boot heel of disappointment (Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Alice In Wonderland).

Dark Shadows is his latest effort and should be flung on the dud pile immediately.  At first glance it looks promising.  It’s got the usual rogue’s gallery of Tim Burton collaborators – Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Christopher Lee in a very small cameo, Danny Elfman on score duty – and if anyone was going to pull off a goth aesthetic set in the 1970s, it was going to be Burton.  Sadly, the script is weak, the story muddled and nothing seems to gel properly, leaving it a lumpy, unsatisfying mix of mild comedy and milder horror.

In 1775 Barnabas (Depp), the head of the affluent Collins family spurns the love of Angelique Bouchard (Green).  Unfortunately for him, she’s a witch and she sends his true love Josette (Bella Heatcote) to her death, turns him into a vampire, seals him in a coffin and buries him alive.  200 years later, Barnabas returns and vows to restore the former glories of his family name and mansion.

It’s about time that Johnny Depp played a vampire.  At 48 he looks more youthful than many actors half his age and it wouldn’t be a surprise if someone broke into his mansion to discover him in the middle of some kind of sacrificial rite.  He makes Barnabas Collins an engaging and likeable character – all pallid makeup and Nosferatu mannerisms; a man out of time bewildered by TV, lava lamps and asphalt and one struggling not to snack on too many humans. Read more

Beauty And The Beast 3D Review: Tale As Old As Time

BEAUTY AND THE BEAST (U): Re-released Friday 4th May

People will continue to argue about which Disney film is the best but personally I think a great case can be made for Beauty And The Beast.  Widely recognised by Disney as one of their finest works, it’s a seamless blend of animated musical theatre and old-fashioned fairytale storytelling.

Our heroine is Belle (Paige O’Hara), the beautiful and bookish young daughter of Maurice, the small town’s resident inventor.  While her beauty is unrivalled, the townsfolk are perplexed by Belle’s interest in reading.  She attracts the eye of Gaston (Richard White), a physically impressive but boorish and chauvinistic hunter who’s determined to marry her.

When her father leaves town to attend a science fair, he inadvertently stumbles into an enchanted castle whose inhabitants have been transformed into a variety of household objects – the walking carriage clock Major Domo Cogsworth (David Ogden Stiers), smooth-talking candlestick Lumiere (Jerry Orbach) and mumsy cockney teapot Mrs Potts (Angela Lansbury). Read more

Safe Review: Sound

SAFE (15): On General Release Friday 4th May

Ah, the enjoyably ridiculous action movie.  It was something that Arnold Schwarzenegger elevated to an art form in 1985 with Commando (“I eat green berets for breakfast, and right now, I’m very hungry”).  Jason Statham has been doing pretty good business along similar lines with the likes of Crank which has its tongue firmly planted into its bestubbled cheek and now Safe can be added to that roster.

It sees him play Luke Wright, an ex-cop turned cage fighter who has his wife murdered by Russian gangsters after he refuses to take a dive.  But rather than shoot him, they make him a promise – that they’ll kill anyone that he makes friends with.

Close to ending it on a subway platform, he notices young Chinese girl Mei being chased by a group of Russian mobsters.  After stepping in to rescue her, he learns that her photographic memory is being used to store a series of cryptic numbers and that hot on her heels are not only the Russians but the Chinese Triads (lead by ageless veteran James Hong) and corrupt members of New York’s finest. Read more

The Lucky One Review: No Leaf Clover

THE LUCKY ONE (12A): On General Release Wednesday 2nd May

Nicholas Sparks has never been one to deviate from a formula.  Take one ruggedly handsome heartthrob, throw him together with a beautiful country belle, add a generous dollop of cliché, a cartload of schmaltz and a bucket of syrupy over-sentimentality.  Serve to your audience and laugh as they try not to be sick.

Zac Efron plays Logan, a marine recently back from three tours of Afghanistan.  What got him through the tough times was a photo of a girl he found in some rubble with the words “Stay Safe” written on the back.  When he makes it out alive, he feels compelled to find her and after some Googling, thinks nothing of walking from Colorado to Louisiana with his faithful dog Zeus.

There he finds Beth (Taylor Schilling) and gets a job at the boarding kennels that she runs with her grandmother (Blythe Danner).  Beth is divorced from the town’s resident walking cliché – the bullying blowhard Deputy Sheriff Clayton – and is trying to raise their son Ben.  But what she really needs in her life is a man, and wouldn’t you believe it, warrior-poet Logan might be just the guy for that job. Read more

Silent House Review: Condemned

SILENT HOUSE (15): On General Release Friday 4th May

The Hollywood remake machine rumbles on, harvesting and plucking over-ripe fruit from the indie orchard.  Silent House is a remake of the Uruguayan thriller of the same name and sees Elizabeth Olsen as Sarah, a young woman fixing up her dilapidated childhood holiday home with her dad and uncle.

But there’s a problem, the power’s out and the windows are boarded up, so the interior is permanently shrouded in gloom which necessitates the use of halogen lanterns just to get around.  What’s more, Sarah keeps hearing things – ominous creaking and distant banging which convinces her that she’s not alone and she has no recollection of the friendly childhood friend that drops by to say hello – clearly something strange is afoot.

Silent House is built around one central conceit – that it all looks like it’s been filmed in one long continuous take.  It’s a technique that Hitchcock used for Rope where it served to heighten the claustrophobia and trepidation to an unbearable level.   Not only is that a less impressive feat here (digital film has rendered the cumbersome cameras of yore something of a relic) but it’s actually detrimental to the scare factor. Read more

Juan Of The Dead Review: Close But No Cigar

JUAN OF THE DEAD (15): On General Release Friday 4th May

Zombies are one of modern culture’s most popular tropes with dozens of movies featuring our undead chums turning up every year – our own kind of cinematic plague.   But while George A. Romero’s Dawn Of The Dead set the template for the genre, it was Pegg and Frost’s Shaun Of The Dead which established similar for modern Zombie Horror Comedy.  Juan Of The Dead, follows in the same mould but this time it’s the island of Cuba that’s under attack by hordes of shambling corpses hungry for brains.

40 year old slacker Juan (Alexis Dias de Villegas) and his best buddy Lazaro (Jorge Molina), who usually make their living fleecing American and Spanish tourists, are quick to turn the disaster into a money making enterprise, establishing a company that specialises in killing people’s recently zombified loved ones – a sort of grislier Ghostbusters.

As their business grows, they attract a motley group of eccentric companions including flamboyant transvestite La China, blood-shy man-mountain El Primo as well as Lazaro’s son Vladi and Juan’s estranged daughter Camila.  But when it becomes clear that they won’t survive for very long, they start to look for a way to get off the island.

Filmed on a modest budget of $3million, Juan Of The Dead never looks spectacular although there is the prerequisite amount of gore.  The focus here is on humour not horror and the physical gags do for the most part deliver – a recurring joke involving a harpoon gun, a mass decapitation in Revolution Square, scavengers that abandon an old man to his fate so they can use his wheelchair to ferry crates of beer – all hit the right spots. Read more

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