True Romance

True Romance

Director: Tony Scott
Written by: Quentin Tarantino 
Photography: Jeffrey L. Kimball 
Starring: Christian Slater, Patricia Arquette, Dennis Hopper. 
Year: 1993
Country: USA, France.   

 We all know by now, I'm sure, that last month director Tony Scott died tragically.  It dawned me as the initial shock and sadness faded that I hadn't seen one of the late Mr. Scott's most critically acclaimed films, True Romance. Browsing in a cheap second-hand DVD and Games store, I saw a copy of True Romance and decided to pick it up. 

  For clearance, this is the original cut of the film, not the  later Tarantino Cut (Sometimes known as the Director's Cut) which I understand has a darker ending and has a non-liner narrative. 

 Tarantino gets the right to get his own cut because he wrote the screenplay (long before he made Reservoir Dogs,  and it's apparent from scene one that it's a QT screenplay. True Romance is much more a Quentin Tarantino film than it is a Tony Scott film, sorry auteur theory. Any time the male lead, Clarence, is talking about cinema or music, it's just Quentin talking vicariously through Christian Slater. 

 Clarence Worley is a Elvis Presley and Sonny Chiba obsessed, law-abiding, 20-something guy who works in comic-book store and seems to repel members of the opposite sex, until he meets Alabama (Patricia Arquette), a sweet talking call-girl who shares many of his interests. While freshening up in the bathroom, he's visited my his mentor (who only Clarence can see) played by Val Kilmer. He's never referred to by name and is credited only as Mentor, but he is clearly meant to be Elvis. He couldn't be credited as such because of legal reasons. Elvi-The Mentor persuades Clarence to kill Alabama's pimp, Drexl. After he kills him, Clarence finds a suitcase full of cocaine. Clarence and Alabama drive down to L.A to try and sell on the cocaine to a movie producer and use to money to start a new life together. 

 True Romance has a fantastic supporting cast; Dennis Hooper play's Clarence's Dad, Gary Oldman is like he often is, unrecognisable, as Drexl the pimp, Brad Pitt in an early role for him playing a stoner, Saul Rubinek playing a movie producer supposedly based on both Joel Silver and Oliver Stone. And Christopher Walken who, like in Pulp Fiction, is only in one scene but it's the most memorable scene in the film.      

 The film, being from '93, is in Scott's original recognizable style (long lenses and smoke diffusion), before he radically changed it, for the worse in my opinion, in the last decade with Man on Fire and Domino, where he drained a lot of the colour and overused used fast zooms in and out and other camera techniques.   

 Who'd have thought that one of the best romance movies ever made would be full of drugs, violence and black comedy? Ok, so maybe True Romance isn't one of the best romance films ever made, it certainly doesn't stand with movies like Casablanca, Brief Encounter or Before Sunrise, but it certainly a lot fun and packs a pretty big punch. Thank you Tony, you will be missed. 

 Score: 3.5/5   

 

The Town

The Town

Director: Ben Affleck.

Written By: Ben Affleck, Peter Craig and Aaron Stockard.

Photography: Robert Elswit. 

Starring: Ben Affleck, Jeremy Renner and Rebecca Hall. 

Year: 2010.

Country: USA.

  After directing his younger brother Casey in the superb Gone Baby Gone, Ben Affleck places himself in front of the Camera for his next directing venture, The Town. 

 The Town is a modern day bank heist movie with it's heart in bank heist movies of the past. It owes a debt to movies like Michael Mann's Heat. 

 The Town, which is Charlestown, Boston, a place infamous for it's history of Irish Mobs and high crime rates. Doug MacRay (Ben Affleck) leads a team of four which includes his amoral best friend, James Coughlin (Jeremy Renner). While robbing a bank Coughlin decided to kidnap the manager, Claire (Rebecca Hall), and leave her blindfolded on a beach. When MacRay runs into her in a laundromat,  he ultimately falls for her. Unaware that her new boyfriend is one of the men that robbed her bank, Claire is helping an FBI team, led by Mad Men's Jon Hamm hunt them down.

 Ben Affleck does a pretty good job of directing, there are the occasional and rare out-of-place arty moments where you think 'Ben, if you wanted to make an art film...' His acting was on-par, too; A lot of people claim to hate Ben Affleck's acting, which I've always found ridiculous. Affleck's nether a particularly good or bad actor, if you "Hate" him you must be really easily offended. 

 The rest of the cast includes Chris Cooper and Pete Postlethwaite (in the last role of his released before his death in early 2011).  Most the acting in the Town is good despite the dialogue sounding unnatural. The actors didn't make the words their own; I think Ben Affleck may have been a bit too protective of his script. The only bad performance was Blake Lively's, whose unbelievable and OTT performance shouldn't come as a surprise as she's awful in everything. 

 If, like me, you thought the coolest thing about Kathryn Bigelow's Point Break was the novelty masks of former presidents they used during the robberies, then you will enjoy the array of diverse masks they use in The Town. Given that when you strip The Town naked it is at most a romance film, it has more than a fair share of on the edge of your seat set species and action sequences. 

 The Town makes for a fairly entertaining watch. A cut above most films of it's type and has potential for repeat viewings; it will make a good double bill with Spike Lee's Inside Man.

   

Fargo

Fargo

Director: Joel & Ethan Coen

Written By: Joel & Ethan Coen 

Photography: Roger Deakins 

Starring: William H. Macy, Frances McDormand and  Steve Buscemi. 

Year: 1996

Country: USA

 Based on a true story, (Or so It says. When a film says 'Based on a true story' or 'Inspired by true events' is isn't as literal as you might think.) Fargo is sixth film from sibling auteurs, Joel and Ethan Coen. 

 Fargo follows all the same themes and has all the trademarks of a Coen Brothers movie. A cowardly  car-dealer, played by William H. Macy is in financial trouble and too afraid to let it known to anybody close to him. He hires two men (Steve Buscemi and Peter Stormare) to kidnap and hold at ransom his wife for one million dollars, which the rich father-in-law will cough-up, and the three men will split the money.

But in true Coen Brother fashion, crime is never successful and things result in a triple homicide which brings the Brainerd police force into the mix.

 The investigation is led by pregnant police chief Marge Gunderson, played  by Frances McDormand, who quite rightly won a best actress Oscar for her career best performance in this role.

 The rest of the cast is also superb, especially William H. Macy, who is someone I don't think we see enough of in movies and Peter Stormare who plays the brooding, silent type, similar to Javier Bardem's character in the Coens' No Country For Old Men.

 The cinematography is excellent as it always is when it's courtesy of Roger Deakins. Roger Deakins is a fantastic D.P. who does the photography on most of Sam Mendes's and the Coen Brothers' movies. He's the first D.P whose name I went out my way to learn (Other than Caleb Deschanel, thought that was more to do with him having a really attractive daughter)


 The Coen Brothers are know to repeat themselves with themes, with time-periods and with actors. But in Frago there are actual recreations of scenes in their previous movies. For example when Steve Buscemi's character is trying to drag a corpse of the road at night and he sees car headlights coming towards them. The exact same thing in there first film, Blood Simple. Albeit with different conclusions. 

 Fargo has Coen DNA all over it, which is why I'm so cynical about the true story disclaimer at the beginging. Some scenes I know for sure, like the scene with the woodchipper, are quintessential Coen Brothers inventions.                 

 Fargo won two Oscars, Best Actress and Best Original Screenplay. It was nominated for another five, including Best Cinematography, Best Director and Best Picture. In my opinion it was overlooked for costume design, but then I'm a sucker for anything that includes a big Blade Runner style coat.     

 Fargo is one of the finest movies in the Coens' filmography and is a dark comment ofn the effects and the true futility of money. 

 Score: 4.5/5

Mesrine: Killer Instinct

Mesrine: Killer Instinct 

Director: Jean-François Richet
Written By: Jean-François Richet and Abdel Raouf Dafri.
Photography: Robert Gantz
Starring: Vincent Cassel, Cécile De France and Gérard Depardieu.
Year: 2008
Country: France, Canada and Italy.


 Mesrine: Killer Instinct is the first of two films that recalls the life of France's most infamous criminal, Jaques Mesrine. Who I'll admit before seeing this film I wasn't aware of.


 Jaques Mersrine is played flawlessly by Vincent Cassel, possibly my favourite actor. Only challenged by Phillip Seymour Hoffman. Vincent Cassel you may know from Black Swan, Shrek, Irreversible or a fantastic French film called La Haine, which is a must watch.


 The direction in Mesrine is phenomenal throughout. But there's one act that steals the film (mild spoiler coming up) Where Mesrine is sent to prison and put in an isolation cell. Imagine, if you can, Steve McQueen's Hunger meets Terry Gilliam's 12 Monkeys and that's what you get in this.


 Mesrine: Killer Instinct appears to borrow from nearly every action movie and thriller ever made: Natural Born Killers, Mean Streets, Leon. It even has a little Matrix/Equilibrium style camerawork and its use of Tammy Wynette's Stand By Your Man is completely Tarantinoesque. Its art direction also has element of The Conformist.


 I honestly can't think of anything bad to say about Mesrine: Killer Instinct and even if I could, I wouldn't point it out in fear that it may persuade you to not watch it.


 Mesrine: Killer Instinct is a phenomenal film. It works as action, it works as a thriller, it works as a biography and it works as cinema. I just hope Mesrine: Public Enemy #1 is as brilliant


Score: 5/5

Before The Devil Knows You're Dead

Before The Devil Knows You're Dead

Director: Sidney Lumet.
Written By: Kelly Masterson.
Photography: Kelly Masterson.
Stars: Philip Seymour Hoffman, Ethan Hawke, Marisa Tomei and Albert Finney.
Year: 2007.
Country: USA.


Before The Devil Knows You're Dead sounds like a title for a Woody Allen film, but it's actually the last film from legendary director, Sidney Lumet.

 I have to say that from the man that gave us Serpico, Dog Day Afternoon and the masterpiece that is 12 Angry Men, one of the greatest movies ever made; Before The Devil Knows You're Dead is not a fitting end to a great career.

 It could have been worse, His penultimate film, Find Me Guilty, which wasn't even released here in the UK but, unfortunately, I have seen, stars the atrocious Vin Diesel and is a complete car crash.

 Before The Devil Knows You're Dead does however hold many saving graces. For one it has an interesting plot: Two Brothers (Philip Seymour Hoffman and Ethan Hawke )are both running into financial troubles and come up with a plan to rob a jewellery store. The twist in the tale is that the jewellery store they hold up, belongs to their parents, a jewellery store they both worked in when they were younger so know all the combinations to the safes. This ends tragically when their mother ends up being shot and killed. The film then takes a narrative similar to the 1950 Kurosawa film, Rashômon; telling the same story from different perspectives.

 The other saving grace is the infallible Philip Seymour Hoffman, who I completely admire as an actor and think he put his greatest performance into every character he plays, one of the best actors of this generation.

 Ethan Hawke is also great, it's a testament to both of their acting abillitys that you can belive them as brothers.

 There are also great supporting roles from Albert Finney and Marisa Tomei.

 My problems lies with it not working as a crime thriller, the drama is all there as is the plot but it lacks any thrills. At points I got bored and my eyes drifted off and became more interested in my magnolia coloured celling.

 I wasn't a fan of the cinematography either, I found it dark and colourless.

 Maybe it's just, it did revive some five star reviews and has 88% on Rotten Tomatoes, but for me Before The Devil Knows needed a a few minutes more in the oven and a little bit of food colouring added.

Score: 2.5/5