No.247 : The Gentlemen

 The Gentlemen at the IMDb

I wasn’t relishing this trip to the East End in the company of Guy Ritchie’s cadre of mockney Cockneys but it was actually really enjoyable.

Matthew McConaughey stars as Mickey, a poor American kid who earned a scholarship to Oxford University. Whilst there he supplemented his income by selling weed and eventually turned his talents into a large drug empire. In his voiceover he describes his plans to sell up and get out of the business but his plan is rudely interrupted when he’s shot in the head - or so we think. The pickled egg is ruined, that’s for sure.

We flash back to Charlie Hunnam out of ‘Sons of Anarchy’ getting an unwelcome house guest in the shape of Hugh Grant. Hunnam is Mickey’s right hand man and Hugh has a proposition for him. Hugh has gotten wind of the plan to sell the empire but has information that will assist them - the trouble is he wants £20 million for his data.

The film jumps back and forth and we see the marijuana set up, that sees Mickey befriend improvised Lords and set up large plantations on their properties. They get a cut of the profits and the operation can flourish without the ‘cunts’ who ramble chancing upon the illegal weed.

The empire is up for grabs for £400 million and it looks like Mickey has a willing buyer in Matthew a non threatening businessman type gangster. Mickey explains all his business practices, including a site visit,, but things start to go awry when the site is turned over by a shell suited gang who are trained by Colin Farrell’s ’Coach’.

Other players such as the Asian ‘Dry Eye’ are also in play and the film rattles along with the narrative device of Hugh describing what’s happening and how he’s gleaned his knowledge. Eventually we return to the pickled egg outrage - why are the Russians now involved, who is upsetting the applecart and can someone else be described as a cunt before the film…oh there we go.

There wasn’t an awful lot of plot here to sustain a two hour film, but that was easily compensated by a load of colourful characters and some cracking dialogue. I wasn’t convinced by McConaughey’s quiet menace or by Hunnam’s thoughtful consigliore, but Grant was excellent as the slimy Fletcher and he essentially held the whole film together. It was kind of him to explain the labyrinth plot of double crosses to me, and the editing and on screen captions kept the info dump going and the entertainment at full pelt.

Farrell was good fun as the foul mouthed coach and it was good to see Eddie Marsan, albeit in an underwritten role. The film wasn’t a comedy as such but was certainly played for laughs with one funny scene of Grant and Humman voicing some video footage a standout.

The violence was pretty comic book and even when people were getting bits chopped off the film never made me look away - such a big softie. The language on the other hand was fucking deplorable and they should all be thoroughly ashamed of themselves.

Previous Ritchie efforts haven’t worked for me with ‘Revolver’ in particular being incomprehensible. Lessons have been learned however, and this film was excellent and easily understood without the plot being spoon-fed to the drooling audience. The style and locations were excellent and you got the sense of a fun time being had by all. Not one to take too seriously but worth a look for the snappy dialogue, fun and scary situations and Hugh Grant calling everyone a cunt.

I would also suggest that ‘the gentlemen’ is an ironic title as this lot were just a bunch of cunts. Oh I’m at it now too…

THE Tag Line : Blow Me Away 80%

No.239 : The Foreigner (2017)

The Foreigner at the IMDb

Jackie Chan sorting out the troubles in Northern Ireland sounds like a recipe for disaster but this was a really enjoyable and well made thriller.

Jackie, looking all of his 63 years, plays a restaurant worker in London. He is protective of his daughter but lets her head into a dress shop as he parks his car. Huge mistake! The dress shop explodes killing the daughter and several others. An adjacent bank has been bombed taking the frock shop out in the process.

We see the investigation going on, along side the cell of IRA bombers celebrating their success. They are the ‘Authentic IRA’ and are keen to derail the peace process in their bid for a united Ireland. Pierce Brosnan plays a Gerry Adams type government minister who used to be in the IRA but now works to try and maintain the fragile peace. His bosses in London charge him with finding those responsible but we suspect early on that Pierce knows more than he’s letting on.

Meanwhile a grieving Jackie is looking for answers. He is initially fobbed off by the police and Brosnan but they don’t realise who they are dealing with - it’s Jackie Chan for goodness sake! Jackie spots Pierce’s likely involvement early on and gets his attention by setting off a home made bomb in his office toilet - must have had extra chillies in the Madras.

There are a lot of twists and double dealing but eventually the terrorist cell is identified; but what are their targets, who is giving the orders and can a quest for revenge ever end well?

This film rattled along at a great pace and it boasted excellent performances from its two leads. Brosnan was especially good in his most Irish outing since ‘Taffin’. His Nord Iron accent did slip at times but he was good value as the sleekit minister unable to detach himself from his past. He had some good lines calling Chan ‘a fookin’ wanker’ at one point.

Chan kept away from his usual wisecracks and elaborate fight scenes, playing a more introspective character who was like a force of nature flying through endless Irish henchmen. There were fights of course, but they were pretty brutal with Chan himself taking plenty of licks.

The action scenes were well done, as you’d expect from Bond director, Martin Campbell and the plot was twisty without ever being confusing or needlessly complex.

The rights and wrongs of the political situation weren’t really addressed with the murder of women and children being condemned and only the rogue cell being the out and out and out bad guys. Brosnan’s was a conflicted character who had our sympathies at the start but his façade was slowly pulled down by Chan’s interventions until he was revealed as the villain of the piece, albeit with decent initial intentions.

The only thing I didn’t like was the title which makes the film sound like some BNP propaganda effort. The words ‘the foreigner’ are never used and Chan says at one point he’s a British citizen. I guess the original book title ‘The Chinaman’ was rejected as it sounds a bit racist. What not call it ‘Chan v Bond : Irish Style’? I’d have definitely watched it before now if it had been!

THE Tag Line : Well Maybe You Should Be Watching This! 80%

 

No.233 : The Hustler (1961)

 

The Hustler at the IMDb

I’d seen ‘The Hustler’ a couple of times before, most notably during my quest to see all of the films in the IMDb top 250. A change in the voting criteria means that I have now only seen 227/250 of the films on the list and ‘The Hustler’ is nowhere to be found. It’s probably ‘bubbling under’ as it has an 8.0 rating the same as the last 25 or so films on the list. I gave it an 8 myself and it’s well worth these high marks. That said, it wasn’t as good as I remembered it with the period between matches is a bit long and populated by the needy girlfriend.

Anyway, as you no doubt know, Paul Newman stars as ‘Fast’ Eddie Felson a pool shark with ambitions to be the best. The film opens with them hustling some rubes, with the drunk salesman routine - a scene that was only bettered in ‘Kingpin’ - I think I am punctilious in that assessment. The scam works fine and Eddie and his partner make a decent, if transitory living. It’s not enough for Eddie though, who dreams of beating the best - Jackie Gleason’s Minnesota Fats. Bit sizeist that.

With a big enough bankroll Eddie gets the match and quickly shows that he has what it takes to beat the best. He lacks character and stamina however and after he gets drunk, Fats takes him for nearly all his cash in a 25 hour marathon. Eddie and Charlie go their separate ways, with Eddie falling into the arms of alcoholic Piper Laurie. The two have a pretty abusive time but bond when a hustle goes awry and Eddie gets his thumbs broken.

As he recovers he vows to prove he’s the best and, with the questionable help of George C. Scott as his manager, a second match with Fats is on the horizon. Will Eddie win the day or do tragedy and his own demons wait in the wings? Probably going to be the second one isn’t it?

This is a cracker of a film, even if you don’t like the manly world of pool halls and heavy drinking. The pool action is fantastic and they must have shot miles of footage to get the sequences of shots that the actors execute without an edit. There was no explanation of the rules and I wasn’t clear what variant of pool they were playing - no one ever said ‘I’m on stripes’. Being in black and white it would probably have been a waste of time anyway and you just have to accept the characters know what they are doing.

Newman and Gleason were excellent as the stick wielding sluggers with Fats never sweating or looking a stich out of place. Newman in comparison went through the wringer with him looking convincing when he was dead beat or getting beaten up. Laurie was a bit annoying as the doomed love interest and George C. Scott could have yelled less and shown more menace.

At 135 minutes the film was longer that I remembered it, with a large fallow section in the middle where you are just willing Eddie to get back to the pool hall. He and Laurie were both doomed and reckless characters and you just knew a happy ending was never on the cards for them.

The bar room smoke and sleaze was well executed and you got a real feel for the gritty desperation on show.

I’ll probably check back on ‘The Hustler’ again one day and will no doubt get something different from it then too. A great period piece and a sports picture to match any other. Except ‘Kingpin’.

THE Tag Line : Rack ‘Em Up! 80%

No.211 : The Gift (2000)

The Gift at the IMDb

We finish our Keanu year 2000 triumvirate with ‘The Gift’ following ‘The Replacements’ and ‘The Watcher’. To say this is the best of the three is like saying Alec is the best Baldwin brother actor - it’s not really a competition.

This has quality written all over it with a top cast, cracking director in Sam Raimi and even Billy Bob Thornton showing up as co-writer. 

Cate Blanchett stars and gets a before the title credit which seemed strange so early in her career, but having seen the film you can see why - she is in nearly every scene and gives a cracking performance. She plays Annie, a young widow with three boys who possesses a psychic gift. She doles out readings to locals, such as beaten wife Hilary Swank who is married to the brutal Keanu. Keanu is a total bastard and blames Annie for his marriage problems rather than his philandering and wife punching powers.

Annie’s kids are playing up and on a visit to the principal Greg Kinnear she meets his fiancée, Katie Holmes. Katie has learned of Annie’s gift and asks if she sees anything in her and Greg’s future. She says she doesn’t, but we get a flash of Katie’s scabby and wet feet and know that things don’t bode well for her. Into the mix we also get Giovanni Ribisi’s slightly slow mechanic and Bill Lumbergh as the sleazy town prosecutor.

The action ramps up when Katie goes missing and, after a few days, they call in Annie for some clues. Police chief J Jonah Jamieson is sceptical, but less so when Katie’s body is fished out of Keanu’s pond, following Annie’s tip. 

After a court case, where Annie is branded a witch, Keanu goes down but Annie’s visions keep on coming. She knows that Keanu didn’t kill Katie, but who did?

This was a great film that was well told and edited with lots of clues peppered throughout. You have at least four solid suspects for the murder, and although I guessed correctly, any of the others would have been just as likely.

Blanchett does well as the wise women and I liked how she inhabited her visions while the past played out. The solid cast all did well apart from maybe Ribisi who was a bit too ‘Of Mice and Men’ for my liking. Word was that Billy Bob was asked to play the part, but I can see why he refused as it may have been a bit too close to ‘Slingblade’ for comfort.

I liked how Keanu was set up as the villain, but even after his conviction which saw Annie freed from his abuse, she still fought for the truth. Keanu was good as the bad guy and looked powerful when dishing out the lady beatings. Down the cast I liked Katie Holmes as the slutty Jessica and I wish we’d seen more of Bill Lumbergh’s pants down prosecutor.

The pacing and direction was excellent and I liked the final twist that gave an even more spooky and satisfying end to an entertaining film. Overall a cracking supernatural offering that will leave an impression.

THE Tag Line : Give Yourself the Gift of The Gift   -  80%

No.167 : The Entertainer (1960)

The Entertainer at the IMDb

“He’s never been on the telly” says one urchin as he looks at the posters advertising music hall star Archie Rice’s current show. Entertainers such as Archie are on the decline, playing old tunes to half full houses with a few saucy jokes thrown in for free.

This 1960s British offering is a cracking snapshot of a nation in decline in the post war years. Made in 1960 this classic has Laurence Olivier in the title role as the boozed up sex maniac, Archie, who has the tax man on his tail and a career that’s fading fast.

In the kitchen sink tradition he lives and argues with his wife Phoebe and deals with his three children - Albert Finney, Alan Bates and Joan Plowright - try getting in the family play in that household! Finney’s ‘Mick’ is off to Egypt to fight in the Suez Crisis whilst Plowright’s ‘Jean’ has a pushy boyfriend trying to get her to move to Africa. Bate’s ‘Frank’ plays the piano in clubs, and is under the shadow of Archie, who in turn under the shadow of his own father, Billy, a music hall star still held in high regard.

Archie has the offer to anagea hotel in Canada with Phoebe, but despite his debts he’s keen for one last big show. His pecker gets the better of him however and soon he is romancing a 20 year old who got second place in a beauty contest he was comparing. His hopes of having her family finance the show are scuppered when his old Dad grasses him up to save him looking foolish. Meanwhile Mick has been captured in Egypt.

Things look up however when news come through that Mick is being released and old Dad is coming out of retirement to give Archie a hand with his new show. This however is a black and white British film from the 60’s and happy endings are hard to come by…

This was a great film from the British Woodfall Studio. Suitably bleak and decaying the film is relentless in wearing down the cast with even glimpses of happiness soon torn from their grasp. Olivier is great as the sleazy song and dance man Archie with his questionable charms and loose morals. He never seems to love performing but it’s all he knows and he can’t leave it even when it’s clear it is destroying him. Plowright, who gets an ‘introducing’ credit is excellent as Archie’s long suffering daughter and it’s only a shame we don’t see ore of Bates and especially Finney, who only gets one scene.

There are famous faces all over the place with Charles Gray and Thora Hird also getting a look in amongst a bevy of scantily clad showgirls and bathing beauties who earned the film an ‘X’ certificate on its release. 

The message is clear throughout that the Empire is crumbling - and not just the theatre. Offers of escapes to Africa and Canada are dangled and pulled back as the cast have to fester in a dingy and soulless Britain.

It’s not a heart warmer but the performances and script are excellent and as a ‘slice of life’ you won’t beat it as a peep hole into a now forgotten world of greasepaint and caravan love ins.

THE Tag Line : Yew Tree calling! 80%

No.166 : The Spy (TV) (2019)

The Spy at the IMDb

In a change to our regular programming let’s have a look at this 6 part TV mini series that you’ll find on Netflix.

Written and directed by the chap who made the series that became ‘Homeland’ The Spy tells the true life story of Eli Cohen a top Mossad agent in the 1960s.

The series opens with Eli, played by Sacha Baron Cohen having trouble in getting into the army. His persistence pays off however when he is recruited as a spy after passing some elaborate tests. These were good fun such as 'spot the trail' with some good tips for wannabe stalkers.

He gets the job, but we know it won’t end well as we’ve already had a flash forward of him having his fingernails ripped out - or could this just be a particularly aggressive manicurist?

He starts out in Argentina in a bid to create a false identity as a Syrian businessman. Things start on a small scale with newspapers being sent home as wrappers for his pot export bisiness giving juicy titbits for his handlers.

Soon he is in Syria itself but drawing the attention of Dr Bashir off Deep Space Nine who wears the same scowl in every scene and says very little. Eli however is having fun hosting parties for influential people whilst tapping out messages for those back in Israel.

As the last episode nears we know the end is nigh, as Eli gets too confident and takes too many risks. Can it end well for him and his long suffering wife? Will his antics in the 1960’s solve the Middle Eastern troubles? Probably not.

This was a great series which is well worth the investment of 6 hours of your time. The 1960s settings are well realised and I liked the modern touches such as the Morse code being tapped out in letters on the screen and signs being translated as characters walked by them.

Baron Cohen is excellent as his namesake Eli, and it’s easy to buy how much information he gains through his charm and bravado.

The tension ratchets up as the series continues as the noose slowly tightens - literally! As with a lot of spy series the tension is in the editing, with Eli tapping away as the detector van turns the corner - quick turn it off!

The home front parts were less engaging with the wife doing her best to raise the kids whilst fending off the horny handler.

I hadn’t known about this story before and although some dramatic licence is seemingly used, it is an amazing story of bravery and ultimately hubris.

Some bits, such as a 5 year old Osama bin Laden showing up were a bit on the nose, but for the most part it was compelling and fascinating stuff.

THE Tag Line : Very Nice!  80%

No.156 : The Terminator (1984) (Watchalong)

The Terminator at the IMDb

We don’t often cover well known films here at the Definite Article blog but I recently saw ‘Terminator : Dark Fate’ and wondered how the original held up. Rather than go over the well worn plot let’s have a watch along and see what we remember and what we pick up with the benefit of hindsight.

The film opens with a desolate Los Angeles 2027. I remember being impressed with this as a 14 year old but now the HK’s (Hunter Killers) look jerky and on wires. It’s clearly model work with the advances of HD TV showing up the cheap effects for what they are. You do get the tank going over a load of skulls which looks pretty good, so good in fact that it’s used in every subsequent film.

Arnie appears in a flash and does some flashing of his own as his tight buns are on display for all to see. He meets up with some hoods including a young Bill Paxton (or is it Pullman?) who all get suitably beaten up and stripped of their tough guy clothes.

Elsewhere Michael Biehn appears with a thud in a scene later nicked by the ‘Mr Bean’ TV show. He has a harder time finding gear and ends up with some smelly tramp trousers that he wears throughout the film. He gets the girl too, so don’t knock the smelly strides.

We meet Sarah Connor who has a terrible moped and is an even worse waitress. She has a hot date lined up but this soon gets cancelled - It’s James Cameron on the ansafone! - so she heads out to the cinema to leave her brunette friend Ginger alone with her boyfriend. Say goodbye Ginger!

Arnie has been busy clearing up the other Sarah Connors and soon zeros in on ours. I liked the ‘Tech Noir’ night club with it’s futuristic vibe that looks so dated now. The revellers look like they are on a Duran Duran video shoot and it costs a massive $4.50 to get in. There are other, now failed, future nods throughout the film like a radio ad for Laser Discs - might be worth a few quid on eBay I guess.

Arnie tracks his quarry by way of the phone book - you’d think that coming back from 2027 he’d have Google Maps built in but I guess there was no wi-fi in 1984! There is a funny scene in a gun shop with Dick Miller rubbing his hands at Arnie’s massive list of purchases - sadly he only gets a bullet, and it’s one of his own. Arnie nearly gives himself away asking for a plasma rifle - do your research cyborg!

We get the now classic ‘if you want to live come with me’ line as Reece hooks up with Sarah and they start the chase with Arnie that lasts the rest of the film. The pacing is good and the 100 minutes flies along - probably because you are anticipating the next good bit having seen it 20 times before.

Reece eventually convinces Sarah that he’s a soldier from the future and that she’s the mother of the resistance leader. Wonder how many times that line has worked for seedy men in the years since? Reece and Sarah get it on and Reece reveals himself to be a boobs man. She’s told not to ask who her son’s father is but you’d have to be a house plant not to guess it’s Reece who’s doing the old ‘impregnate them then die to get out of child maintenance’ routine.

The two make up a pile of pipe bombs using some household ingredients. I wonder if that’s where the Unabomber got his recipes? It dates the film a bit when a bloodied guy in a trench coat can buy up a shop’s full supply of ammonia and moth balls and not have Homeland Security immediately on his ass.

Arnie shows up having mimicked Sarah’s mother - a trick we’ll see again and again in the franchise. I liked that the dog remembered to bark when Arnie left. Small things like this and Kyle having the bite make up on his hand in later scenes showed a good eye for detail.

The pipe bombs prove mostly rubbish as they just  explode in a big puff of smoke, but the climatic chase is well done and it was fun to see Arnie get flattened by a big truck after driving over a toy one himself near the start of the film.

Arnie gets exploded but comes back as a skeleton and then as a torso. His persistence is admirable but it’s not as great as the franchise’s which insists on making the same film over and over.

There were shortcomings here but it was made on the cheap and as an original offering it is the best of the bunch. ‘T2 : Judgement Day’ is better as a standalone film but it covers virtually the same plot points as this verbatim.

The Arnie model work looks really fake as do a lot of the miniature scenes - water and flames always give away the small scale. It’s hard to be harsh though as this set the template for every sci-film made since. ‘Terminator Dark Fate’ was decent but it was just another rehash of this.

The acting was OK apart from Arnie who was just himself. It did beg the question that if the Terminator can mimic any voice why has it got ‘Hard to understand Austrian’ as it’s default?

Still good stuff and well worth a re-re-visit.

THE Tag Line - You’ll Be Back (Again) 80%

No.42 : The Jerk (1979)

The Jerk at the IMDb

‘The Jerk’ is probably Steve Martin’s best film along with ‘The Man With Two Brains’ - “They aren’t assholes, it’s pronounced azaleas”. People will tell you that ‘Three Amigos!’ is good and the sentimental among you will always pipe up for ‘Trains Planes and Automobiles’ but to my mind Martin’s career has been on a more or less downward trajectory since the Navin R. Johnson bio-pic.

The film from 1979 sees Martin play what became his trademark wacky and a bit dumb character. His later attempts at straight acting in stuff like ‘Shop Girl’ serve only to remind you how he’s so much better when wandering around with a chair with his trousers at his ankles.

‘The Jerk’ ,which is a pretty poor title by the way but I imagine Dostoevsky had copyrighted ‘The Idiot’, sees a young white boy grow up with a dirt poor family in Mississippi. We aren’t told how he got there but as he nears maturity he begins to realise that he doesn’t quite fit in. After getting advice of variable worth from his family he sets out into the world to find his destiny.

He soon finds work and lodgings at Jackie Mason’s gas station but has to run away with the carnival when he attracts the attention of a gun toting loony who happens across Navin’s phone book entry. At the carnival he finds employment as a weight guesser and as the latest squeeze of the motorcycle stunt lady. She shows him his ’special purpose’ and soon his name is on her ass “right under the N’s’ . The tawdry relationship soon falls by the wayside when he meets the sexy Bernadette Peters who despite loving him leaves for a better life.

Distraught at his loss Navin soon finds his fortune in a glasses handle and with his wealth he buys a tacky house complete with a disco room full of friends and wins back his girl. Alas his fortune is soon lost and Navin is back on the street with only his thermos for company. Can it all come good for the lovable loser?

This is a relentlessly funny film that’s a bit shy on plot but big on laughs. Every scene is bursting at the edges with the number of gags shoved in, mostly revolving around Navin’s naivety and stupidity.

The cast is excellent with everyone note perfect from the serial killer turned private eye to the eccentric shit seller who turns the Opti-Grab into the quickest money spinner and loser in history. Peters is a stand out on two fronts - singing and acting. And her tits. She wears a sequence of sexy outfits and deadpans some great scenes as Martin licks her face and the like.

The film is a bit short and as I mentioned the plot - stupid guy gets rich and then poor while winning his girl - can be reduced to a line in the middle of a sentence like that one there. It’s not necessarily a bad thing to leave you wanting more - no one came out of ‘Date Movie’ wanting another half hour!

Unlike less esteemed critics I’ve not listed endless jokes from the film in the belief that it’ll make me seem witty and clever and you really have to see it to understand how funny and crazy it is. OK then just a couple of punch lines ‘Navin R Johnston - sounds like a real bastard’ ‘He’s really got it in for these cans’ and ‘I couldn’t have afforded this place anyway’.

THE Tag Line - Don’t Be Stupid - See ‘The Jerk’ 80%