No.175 : The Bookshop (2017)

The Bookshop at the IMDb

You know those films with alien invasions, car chases and lots of sex and violence? Well, this isn’t one of those, although there is an awkward bit of hand holding at one point.

Emily Mortimer stars as Florence, a widow who dreams of opening a book shop in the village she grew up in. She finds a run down building and orders in some stock. So far so good, and she even nets a regular customer in the reclusive Bill Nighy, who is also on his own and in the need of some action. Book action.

But there are clouds on the horizon. Light fluffy clouds, but clouds no less. Evil Patricia Clarkson wants Florence’s building for her Art Centre and her dirty tricks to get it no know bounds. Well she opens a rival book shop and poaches Florence’s schoolgirl helper.

Will the bookshop prevail? Will the friendship will Bill go anywhere and does she have adequate fire insurance?

Clearly I’m not the target audience for this film, but it really was meandering pap. I get that it was gently paced with loneliness a big theme but I was just waiting for something to happen - anything.

At one point Florence invests in 250 copies of ‘Lolita’ but that didn’t go anywhere. We never saw the rival bookshop and James Lance’s miscast London arty type villain offered little and delivered less.

The film looked good and evoked a gentler time in 1950s East Anglia. The perils were minor and everyone was quite nice although they were all bastards underneath. I could have done without Julie Christie’s pretentious voice over and it was no surprise to learn which character she was - clue the only young female in the cast.

I don’t think we learned anything here and there were certainly no laughs or thrills. You could dress it up as a ’slice of life’, but it would be a dull and unconvincing life.

The cast was mostly decent with Bill Nighy doing his usual thing in a suit and Patricia Clarkson trying to channel Cruella DeVille. Mortimer does OK in the lead and is likeable but you never got the sense she was truly invested in the shop, and the ending kind of underscored that.

Over all this was an inoffensive bit of period drama but an instantly forgettable one - read a good book instead!

THE Tag Line : Don’t Book a Viewing   - 54%

No.174 : The Room (2019)

The Room (2019) at the IMDb

In the second of our ‘The Room’ double bill we look over this creepy horror cum fairy tale that sees a European couple buy a ramshackle house in upstate New York. They learn that the house has laid empty for some years after a double murder that saw the unidentified killer slung in the nut house.

The couple have obviously never seen a horror film as they don’t immediately run away, but instead start work on the house. First order of business is to move that large pile of furniture that looks suspiciously like a barricade. Once the junk has gone a steel door is found, and don’t you know it? the elaborate two piece key is right there in the junk. You’d think if you blocked up the door you’d drop the key down a well, but we need to get inside if we’re going to have a film so on you go.

Strangely the couple don’t immediately explore the room but have a look at the electrics - their entire basement is covered in wires with a large glowing hub in the middle. How that passed the Home Inspection is anyone’s guess. Our man, Matt, drinks some whisky in the room and somewhat strangely says to himself ‘I could do with another bottle’. The lights go down and when they come on he has a new bottle. Jackpot! By the time the wife, Kate, wakes up Matt has filled the room with lots of paintings and booze. Lucky he didn’t think of drugs and hookers.

The two enjoy a fun montage of wishing for loads of stuff and have a great old time, including a frolic in some space suits - guess the props department had them lying around. As you’ll probably guess there is a catch, which Matt learns when he tries to take some money outside and it turns to dust. After a test with an original Van Gogh which disintegrates as it crosses the threshold he learns that all the wished for stuff can only exist within the house. This is obviously a drawback when, not knowing of the restriction, Kate wishes for a baby following two miscarriages of her own.

She takes the baby outside and it is quickly a five year old, who frankly is a little shit. Matt traces the original murderer at the nut house and learns that he too was a wished for baby and the only way to escape the house is to kill whomever wished for you. I don’t know how this was known - maybe The Room came with a manual when installed.

With their marriage deteriorating and the boy getting stronger and older with every step outside we have to wonder who will survive and what is really real.

I really liked this creepy horror with it’s underlying vibe of ‘what would YOU do’. Obviously the first step would be to check your mental health with the second being ‘run like hell’. Nothing good ever comes of these situations and in that sense the film reminded me of  'The Box‘. I thought here the wishes would turn out to be at the expense of someone else, but I liked the idea of you being stuck to the house if you wanted the stuff. What a needy and controlling house!

There was no attempt to explain how the room came about or what powered it and I was grateful for that. If they’d said ‘oh it used to be owned by a mad scientist/Cult/ voodoo priestess’ it would have taken away a lot of the intrigue.

The film kept a strong pace and my interest which was good going for a high concept affair like this. The ending sequences where there were rooms within rooms was well done and they kept on the right side of confusing.

The two leads were fine with Olga Kurylenko (Quantum of Solace) putting in a good show and looking rather fetching in a Basque. The male lead was a bit non-descript but he did well with some outrageous dialogue.

Over all this was a entertaining offering and, although it’s tearing me up to say it, it's the pick of the ‘The Rooms.

THE Tag Line : Make Room for The Room 73%

No.173 : The Room (2003)

The Room at the IMDb

We’ve booked a couple of rooms here at the Definitive Movies Blog, so check in and settle down for some badly informed comment and weak gags. First up is the self appointed ‘Citizen Kane’ of bad movies, ‘The Room’ from 2003. This pile of crap has enjoyed something of a renaissance recently with ‘The Disaster Artist’ starring James Franco being a bio-pic of a dreadful film.

So what makes a bad film? Is it just technical ineptitude and a poor script liberally sprinkled with terrible acting or is there something more? For me, a bad film is a boring one that’s quickly forgotten. You can’t say that for ‘The Room’ as it is as memorable as it is enjoyable. I know the film has cult status with people going to screenings dressed up and throwing spoons, that’s nice for them, but a bit tiresome really.

The film is written, directed and stars Tommy Wiseau whose performance has to be seen to be believed. He’s like a mash up between a wrestler and a Bond villain. He has long unkempt hair and a droopy eye. He is quite muscly and struggles with dialogue. That’s fair enough as he’s of Polish origin but it’s hard to take a leading man seriously when he mangles his lines and emphasises the wrong parts whilst waving his arms about as if in distress.

He has to accept all of the blame given that he wrote the script too. The plot would fit on the back of a stamp with trampy Lisa basically banging two blokes in turn whilst displaying a random character trait in each scene in which she appears. To be fair at one point someone describes her a pyscho, so if you accept that, at least some of the plot will make sense.

The film opens with Johnny (Tommy) buying Lisa a nice dress. They make love and talk of their upcoming wedding. In the next scene she tells Johnny’s friend Mark that Johnny is boring and they make love. Johnny then comes home having failed to land a promotion at the bank. They get drunk and make love. Mark then comes over to tell Lisa it’s over, they make love.

It’s essentially a soft core porn flick that seemingly cost $6m to make. They must have spent the money on footballs and pretzels because it’s certainly not on the screen. There are more bizarre moments and plot twists like a drug debt story that goes nowhere and several scenes of various characters throwing a football around for no discernible reason.

‘The Room’ is a strange title in itself and the word is never uttered in the film. To be fair they only have two rooms as sets, so it must refer to one of them. The one with the candles and the roses where the shagging takes place, is my guess. There may be some subtext that ‘the room’ is a psychological state or it refers to the walls of madness that close in on us all when we are betrayed by a skanky girlfriend. I doubt it’s that deep - in fact I’m certain, as this is just a bloated vanity project that allowed a weirdo to fulfil his dreams and get his buns on screen.

I’d say fair play to him - it’s very easy to pick holes, but it is an object lesson in how difficult it is to make a film and how many parts you need to get right. ‘The Room’ manages to get most of them wrong but it’s a fun ride and definitely worth seeing. The sex and fight scenes are the best but I also liked the flower shop ‘Hi doggie!’ and party sequences, which were laugh a minute.

I’d recommend that you read the book ‘The Disaster Artist’ first so that you can learn about the genesis of this important and memorable work - and so you can look out for all the cock ups.

Best Bit : Leave your stupid comments in your pocket! 60%

No.172 : The Martian (2015)

The Martian at the IMDb

As my regular reader will attest we’re not fans of the tent pole film here at the Definitive Article Movie Blog. We avoid the obvious and search out the niche films that you’ve never hear of, or have no interest in ever seeking out. We don’t deal in absolutes however, so I thought we’d have a look at ‘The Martian’ which has become my favourite Definite Article film.

Quiet at the back! We’ve never covered ‘The Shining’ or ‘The Warriors’ and on a Google search on the highest profile IMDb film that we’ve reviewed, the result the passable but hardly stellar ‘The Impossible’; so why ‘The Martian’? Well, it’s just so damn good and immersive. I must have watched it about four times and every time I’ve been suckered in early on, on E4+1 or similar and stayed for the duration. It’s like ‘Clear and Present Danger’ in that its structure demands you watch for just another five minutes, and another and another and before you know it, two hours have passed, and your pizza has dried up.

The film is based on Andy Weir’s book which I read and enjoyed having watched the film. The book is superior in that it delves deeper into the science and avoids the large gaps that the film inevitably has to, to ensure a two hour run time. The film is however a triumph in translating the book and in making the science accessible. I just hope that one day they release a ten hour version of the film so that all the tiny details can be explored.

Anyway, Matt Damon plays Mark Watney, a botanist astronaut who is accidentally left behind on Mars after he’s thought dead when a storm causes his crew to evacuate in a hurry. He survives though after his blood and an aerial spike block the hole that stabbed him through his health monitor and caused his crew to think him dead. His quandary is that he has no way to contact NASA and it will be four years before a rescue mission can be sent, and he only has food for one. His resolution is to science the shit out of things and he proceeds to do so in a variety of plausible if slightly fortunate ventures, that include salvaging the ancient Pathfinder equipment that is luckily close by.

That’s not to say its an easy ride, as the harvesting of a crop of potatoes takes the best part of an hour with every success well earned and enjoyed by the audience. Meanwhile back on earth a cavalcade of celebrities, including Jeff Daniels and Kristen Wiig, try to came up with a way to bring our man home against a soundtrack of disco favourites.

Towards the end the progress is on fast forward somewhat with Watney’s 3600 mile journey to the new launch site and his trip back to earth covered with indecent haste. I imagine the editor must have had a nightmare though, as the early work in setting the challenges had to be offset with the eventual payoffs.

I liked the NASA stuff with the internal politics and budget concerns as much a threat as Martian storms and potato blight. Some bits were a bit on the nose with Donald Glover’s explaining a slingshot to NASA bigwigs seeming somewhat unlikely - I’ve heard of them and I’ve only seen Star Trek. Director Ridley Scott was obviously aware of the need to keep his audience informed and for that reason I can accept the conceit.

I always enjoy the crew of the Hermes scenes the most with the camaraderie and the unquestioning sacrifice for a lost colleague the kind of stuff that always gives me the gulps. Who knows in the real world if they would risk the lives of many and spend the billions of dollars to give one man another what? 50 odd years at most? I’m glad they did in the film - the scenes of the crew being reunited and the world gasping as one were excellent, and as big a ‘oh yeah’ as when Rocky Balboa chopped the big Russian down.

Well done ‘The Martian’ your definitive crown is well earned.

THE Tag Line : A Mars for 581 days will help you work,rest and make a good film  -  90%

No.171 : The Dirt (2019)

The Dirt at the IMDb

I’d read the book ‘The Dirt’ a few years back and rally liked its sleazy, grimy feel, so I was looking forward to this Netflix produced movie version. It’s pretty good but not a patch on the book, which leaves you needing a shower after reading a few pages.

The film follows the book closely and uses it’s same narrative devices with characters breaking the fourth wall to explain situations or to give opinions on the events unfolding. In the book the band members all write separate chapters and often contradict each other on key events. This is harder to show on film, so at times it does seem a bit of an unstructured mess - that’s not always a bad thing as the chaos and mayhem intended come across vividly.

The film opens with a young Nikki Sixx leaving his family for the rock and roll lifestyle. He’s wearing a Judge Dredd t-shirt from the ‘Judge Death Lives’ story line that post dates the timeline being shown - I hope someone got fired for that howler!

After the usual round of trashy gigs and failed auditions they end up with the starting line up for their band ‘Motely Crue’ - sorry can’t find the umlauts. After five minutes of struggle the band are soon playing stadium gigs and are behaving very badly.

There are some funny scenes with them trashing hotel rooms and sniffing ants with Ozzie Osbourne and oh so many groupies. There are more tits on show here than in the RSPB annual survey.

The band soon starts to fracture with their relationships with each other and their partners failing, leading to break ups and fall outs. They all get sober and fall off the wagon before splitting up and then reforming. It’s basically every rock band bio-pic that you’ve ever seen.

The cast is pretty good with most of them unknown to me apart from Mick Marrs who was played by Ramsay Bolton and their manager who was played by Gale Boetticher off ‘Breaking Bad’ - that’s were the drugs came from!

The Netflix description says the film is “Unflinching” and that’s true - the band come across as a shower of self centred dicks with few redeeming features. That’s good in terms of it being an honest piece of work but you have very little invested in them - a tour bus explosion wouldn’t have been a bad thing!

Of course as a bio-pic you have to stick to the facts and that is done to the smallest detail with the closing credits showing real and recreated images of the same event. It’s good they went to that level of detail with the authenticity, but they could maybe have delved a bit deeper into the band’s motivations and the consequences of their actions. Still you don’t watch a Crue bio-pic for some deep naval gazing.

There was a decent budget in play with the costumes and sets all well done. There were limits however, with the stadium shows looking a bit light and Tommy’s rotating drums cage just being a couple of metal bars over his head.

I liked that real people such as Ozzie and Heather Locklear were shown and there were some genuinely funny moments. I especially liked the A&R man turning to camera to say ‘Don’t leave your girlfriend with Motely Crue - they’ll fuck her”.

There were a couple of bits that took you out of the story such as when the voice over tells you certain characters aren’t going to be shown in the film - I don’t know why that was needed as it wasn’t billed as a documentary. Still I guess it’s in keeping with the book’s ‘warts and all’ approach.

I did think that the bands struggle to the top was a bit quick and they missed out the best story from the book where they all bought breakfast burritos before going home so they could stick their dicks in them to prevent their girlfriends smelling the groupies on them. I guess smelling of a McMuffin was fine!

Overall this was a good effort. It wasn’t quite as sleazy as I‘d have liked with the band looking a bit clean cut in places. They did however not shirk from the sex and drugs, with the rock n roll also present although they didn’t do my favourite Crue song ‘Wild Side’.

Well worth a look on you lock down Netflix odyssey.

THE Tag Line : Needs More Dirt!   73%

No.170 : The Captor (2018)

The Captor at the IMDb

Known elsewhere in the world by the rubbish, non definitive, ‘Stockholm’ ‘The Captor’ is a fictionalised account of a 1973 Swedish bank Robbery, that ultimately gave birth to the term 'Stockholm Syndrome’. On reflection ‘Stockholm’ is probably a  better title but we’ll work with what we get.

The fictionalised part is an annoyance as you come out not knowing what was true and what was made up. I get the sense it’s mostly true and that they didn’t want to offend or indeed pay, any of the real participants as the sequence of events isn’t very cinematic with the ending drawn out in a hocky-cokey fashion.

Anyway, Ethan Hawke plays Lars, a career criminal who likes American things now. He puts on his Texas biker jacket and a flowing wig before heading to the bank. He shoots the place up and grabs some hostages including the large spectacled Noomi Rapace who triggers the silent alarm, beginning the stand off with the police that lasts the rest of the film.

Hawke immediately demands the release of his criminal pal Mark Strong who is allowed to enter the bank after the majority of hostages are freed. We then get an hour of shouting as the two sides try to broker a settlement that keeps everyone happy. As things develop the three remaining hostages get friendly with their captors and Noomi even gives out some loving after she takes a bullet when a stand off goes wrong.

After a few days and with sufficient run time gained, the police lose interest , along with the audience, and plan to end the siege by pumping tear gas into the vault where our heroes are holed up. Who will survive? And will Noomi like Hawke when she sees it’s really a wig?

This was an OK film but I think the story would have been better served with a documentary rather than by trying to add humour and drama to an already interesting subject. We don’t know what was really said or done in the vault - at least not if you rely on the film - so the action seems like speculation at best. The ending was so muddled with them in the vault, out the vault then back in the vault and then out again you assume that bit must have been true. Early on you knew it wasn’t going to be a bloodbath so there was no real sense of peril.

The film hinged on the relationship between Hawke and Rapace’s characters and I wasn’t buying. In the real life event the bonding took place over 5 days - in a 90 minute film she just looks mental for immediately falling for an obvious nutter.

The sets and costumes were great with the 70’s beige look excellently realised. I didn’t like the annoying and dithering police inspector and I felt the usually reliable, Aviva voice over man, Mark Strong was miscast as the balding bank robber, Gunnar.

It’s a decent offering but you won’t learn anything and the mishandled ending will leave you feeling dissatisfied. If the plan was for you to gain a bond with the characters and to defend their lacklustre film after spending 90 minutes with it, it failed!

THE Tag Line Swede Drama’s a Turnip 58%

No.169 : The Pyramid (2014)

The Pyramid at the IMDb

From 2014 comes this laughably bad survival horror which has Jay from ‘The In-Betweeners’ as it’s leading man. Sadly he doesn’t shag any birds or carry out any motor cycle stunts.

Jay is a cameraman for a team of archaeologists. They are excited to have found a rare 3 sided pyramid and are ready to start exploring it. Sadly those selfish Egyptians are in the middle of their uprising and the team are called home. The gang are informed that they have only 24 hours to explore their potential treasure trove.

Luckily the have a  million dollar rover ‘Shorty’, which can take the danger out of the proceedings. We know of Shorty’s capabilities after a gratuitous scene of its sleazy operator (not Jay!) spying on an undressing lady.

They manage to get the entrance chamber open but things look dangerous when a local gets a puff of poison gas in has face. This potential warning is dismissed as an effect of fungus and they forge ahead with their plan to explore the tomb in a hurry.

Unfortunately Shorty proves to be as useful as a cock flavoured lollipop when he breaks down after two minutes - or has be been stopped by unknown forces? That one.

Immediately disregarding their earlier reservations the full team heads in, closely followed by an Egyptian soldier who had been tasked with sending them home. I can't remember his name but it may have been 'Cannon Fodder'.

Predictably things soon goes tits up with our heroes falling through the floor into a catacomb of chambers, compete with killer Siamese cats and nasty traps. As our heroes are picked off one by one, who will survive? - not a lone female as usual surely?

This is a truly dreadful film but it’s awfulness did keep me engaged right to the end.

It is presented with some opening captions as a ‘found footage’ film but this is forgotten early on as we get lots of POV and ‘entering the room’ style shots. I don’t mind this conceit if it makes for a better film but it served only to take you out of the story and the characters’ predicament.

The plot as it is, is very thin and even then things like characters becoming infected with a eye changing virus aren’t followed up on. You get the usual jump scares and flashes of the bad guy but you’d wish they’d stuck to that when you see the big reveal. I won’t spoil it, but you won’t have seen worse CGI than this. Pity the poor actors trying to interact with a monster that looks ridiculous and physically impossible.

To be fair they do set it up when the pompous archaeologist tells stories of Anubis weighing hearts to value souls, but it was a brave and ultimately mental choice to make it actually happen.

The cast is uniformly awful with ‘cheeky chap’ Jay losing any charm he had under a ill advised beard and some toe curling dialogue “We’re just like food in a bowl” he yells and “This stinks” which is a perfectly succinct review of the whole enterprise. My favourite line of natural sounding dialogue was “Robot guy has just been devoured by a creature we can’t identify” - how did this miss out on ‘Best Screenplay’?!

You could argue that the film doesn’t take itself seriously, but it does. Every survival horror cliché is run through right down to the ‘Drag Me to Hell’ final moment. There were a few laughs in there but none that were intended.

Enter ‘The Pyramid’ at your own peril!

The Tag Line : ‘Finished it mate’. 35%

No.168 : The Stranger (1946)

The Stranger at the IMDb

Post war melodrama now in this 1946 effort starring and directed by Orson Welles, before be was over inflated.

The war has just ended and Edward G Robinson is on the trail of escaped Nazis - presumably the ones who didn’t have much to offer the rocket programme in the US. Bit of politics there.

They want the big fish in the shape of Franz Kindler, but no one knows what he looks like - all they have is that he likes clocks. No clocks. Remember that for later. They suspect that there is a secret network of Nazis on the go, so they let one go in the hope that he will lead them to the head goose-stepper. Of course he does, and Robinson is soon in the small town of Harper Connecticut with a list of likely candidates.

He crosses off those he has dismissed and is close to dong the same with Welles’ ‘Charles Rankin’ but has a second look when he remembers that Welles described Karl Marx as a Jew rather than a German. Welles has gotten his feet under the table and is soon to marry local lovely Loretta Young. He also has a job in fixing the town clock - what a giveaway!

He manages to stretch things out for a while after killing off the Nazi from the start, who was a terrible actor in any event. He also has to off an overly curious dog - damn efficient these Germans. Welles keeps his soppy fiancé onside, but soon even she is having a hard time believing that he’s not a friend of Hitler.

As the net closes in Robinson meets his quarry in the clock tower - will the sausage eater get his just desserts and is some overly poetic justice on the cards?

This was a decent romp but apart from a hilarious ending it was pretty much as you’d expect. Welles is poor as the Nazi on the run and makes no attempt at an accent. Fair enough the Boshe would have masked his accent but Welles is more Bostonian than Bavarian. He does well smooth talking his gullible lady and the idiotic townsfolk, but he’s no match for the no-nonsense Robinson who has his man clocked from the off.

The cat and mouse is pretty poor with it broadcast from the start that a big showdown at the end is inevitable. The clues about pipes and clocks were telegraphed throughout and although the ending was no surprise, it’s manner was. I won’t spoil it, but you’ll guess when you see that this small town has a massive automatic clock, complete with life sized mannequins armed with swords.

The film does include footage from the concentration camps and for 1946 it is quite full on. The message is clear as Robinson shows the films to the disbelieving fiancé that these things are real and that justice needs to be served.

Fair play to Welles for being the villain but he could have done more with the character. I can see why they made him likeable and more handsome than Robinson, but I don’t doubt folks would have been cheering fro the wrong guy at then end on the basis of his straighter jaw line and nicer manners.
Overall the film is an interesting record of the mood of the nation straight after the war - the Nazis should face justice and if it’s mad clockwork justice, then all the better!

THE Tag Line Stranger Danger! 67%

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%