No.147 : The Key (1983)

The Key at the IMDb

Frank Finlay, best known for playing the annoying Irish priest in ‘The Wild Geese’, stars in this 1983 film directed by smut auteur Tinto Brass.

It is listed in some places as pornography but if that’s your thing don’t bother - ‘The Benny Hill Show’  is far racier.

We open at a  New Year’s party for 1940 in Venice. The fascists are on the rise, and so no slow viewers fail to follow this plot point, the party is attended by Mussolini himself. Frank is more interested in the booze however, and playing grab ass with his shapely, but slightly frigid, wife. She doesn’t like his public displays of affection and insists on being taken home. She’s not so shy however when she is caught short and raises the level of the canals with a street piss that would make a race horse blush.

Frank is quite excited by this and gets all affectionate when they get home. An efficient lover, Frank is five pumps and done. Elsewhere Frank’s daughter is joining the Fascists and her fiancé  is having designs on Franks wife, a situation that turns Frank on, and makes him jealous at the same time.

Too shy to talk of such matters Frank starts to write a diary about all his seedy thoughts and leaves the key to his desk lying about so the wife can have a look. Of course she does and soon she is losing her inhibitions as she acts out Filthy Frank’s fantasies. Frank also gets hold of the world’s first Instamatic camera and, after drugging his wife, he gets lots of candid shots of her for his diary. The beast.

The wife is horrified by this invasion but also happy that he’s using the photographic skills of her daughter’s fiancé to develop the photos - that instant camera film was seemingly too expensive for Frank. The wife starts to take control and writes her own diary which Frank laps up, amongst other things.

All the excitement is causing Frank medical issues and his doctor says he needs to knock off the sex and drinking. Poor Frank he’s a ten a day man - and he likes a drink too! Unfortunately for Frank his wife’s blossoming is almost complete and, when she starts ordering him to wear her underwear we know things aren’t going to end well for  him. Probably took the mortician half an hour to get the smile off his face though!

This was a strange film and you have to wonder what market it is designed for. Clearly the marketing is for those who like their erotica but it’s really tame stuff. I also doubt that those who want to watch a nuanced film about a woman’s sexual awaking set against the backdrop of war aren’t going to be reaching to the top shelf.

The dialogue is half in English and half in Italian so a lot of the time you have no idea what’s going on. You do get helpful narration from Frank but it’s hard to take that filthy bastard seriously - especially when he dons the suspenders.

The setting of Venice is well used and you see a lot of  the city and people pissing on it. There are no familiar faces in the cast apart from Frank and it’s hard to tell if anyone is any good given they are all horrendously dubbed.

It may be the version on Amazon Prime is heavily cut but if it saved me half an hour of my life I’m grateful to them - plenty of other places to find your smut without having to listen to earnest dialogue about feelings. So I’ve heard.

Overall it was a worthless piece of whimsy trying to be something meaningful and failing badly. That said, it rumbled along fine with a few unintentional laughs to keep you entertained.

THE Tag Line : Frank Finlay Does Rocky Horror 53%

No. 146 : The Joker (2014)

The Joker at the IMDb

No, no , not the recent Joaquin Phoenix film ‘Joker’. That lacks the definitive article and is frankly a bit too popular for this blog.

I found ‘The Joker’ on Amazon Prime and watched it in all innocence. It was only afterwards, when I did my always thorough research, that I found out the film was originally called ‘Poker Night’ and presumably rebadged to cash in on the ‘Joker’ film. Having seen ‘Poker Night’ er, ‘The Joker’ I have to say ‘Poker Night’ is the better title given that it centres around a poker night, ‘joker’ is never mentioned, even in the playing card context, and even the clown make up seen in the poster above doesn’t actually appear in the film. Still cash ins are nothing new and it may be that the film will stand up on it’s own merits. Not a promising start though!

The film has a non-linear narrative with the predictable first shot of our hero, Detective Stan Jeter, who is played by a guy whose previous biggest credit was ‘Scary Movie 3, covered in blood and being surrounded by cops as he lies on the ground. ‘Let me tell you how I got here’ he says to no one asking the question.

We pull back and learn that Jeter is a newly promoted Detective. He cracked a big case and, given his new role, has been invited along to the detective only poker game by his mentor, Hellboy himself Ron Perlman. This is some poker game as it also includes Gus Fring, the boy friend out of ‘Drop Dead Fred’ and the guy off  ‘Bosch’, which I haven’t seen. The cops all spend their time giving the rookie the wealth of their experience by way of reminiscing about their best cases and arrests. These sequences are well done as the scene dissolves to show the adventure with Jeter transported into the action as the teller of the tale narrates.

Our hero manages to get himself kidnapped after he leaves the poker game and spends much of the film trapped in the bad guy’s basement. At this point we have only heard one of the detectives’ stories but we hear the rest as our hero drifts in and out of delirium and remembers them in the hope finding a way out of his predicament. Also held captive is Jeter’s young girlfriend and we have doubts over his integrity, given his relationship with her and about what we learn of his career making bust.

After several near escapes and messy interventions by well meaning, but totally hopeless, would be helpers we have to wonder, can our man get out?, who is the bad guy? and how many more films can be ripped off, er, homaged?

Despite a lot reasons not to, I quite enjoyed this film. For a start the cast was good. Say what you like, but a few familiar ’B’ list faces always keeps your interested, especially if a grisly fate awaits them. That said, the lead lacked any kind of empathy and failed to get much of a reaction from me, even when he was peeling his superglued face off a wall. 

The plot was basically lifted wholesale from the ’Saw’ films but that’s not to say they didn’t also steal from loads of others as well, such as ’V for Vendetta’,  the Nolan Batmen and that James McAvoy one where he gets superpowers.

The narrative jumped all over the place but the editing was good enough that you could keep up. There was a lot of exposition voiceover dialogue added in however ,so maybe that’s how I kept on the page. There were some nice touches such as the bad guy recounting his younger days which, when seen in flashback, saw him still wearing his mask throughout. This was amusing and also held the mystery - because he’s bound to be one of the several characters we’ve met already . Surly?!

Other highlights were Gus Fring in a Pringle jumper and the bad guy getting all his murder tips from Discovery Channel documentaries - yeah no nutter has ever been inspired by torture porn films!

There were a few grisly deaths and  some pretty brutal tortures but none so extreme that made a big wuss like me wince. It was a throwaway bit of derivative nonsense, but it was well enough made and with just enough to keep you interested for the 105 minute run time. I just hope they don’t make good on the potential sequel. Still they could call that ‘Jurassic Park 5’ and see if they can get away with that!

THE Tag Line : No, Not That One 67%

No.145 : The Invitation (2015)

The Invitation at the IMDb

Don’t you hate it when you get invited to a yuppie dinner party and it turns out to be a new age death cult?

That common occurrence is the subject of this horror / mystery which stars a few people you’ll know to see but you won’t know their names.

Our hero is Will, who looks like Jesus and who is heading to a party with his black wife, Kiara. There is a bit of mystery afoot as we learn that Will used to live in the house which is now occupied by dinner party hosts, David and Eden. There is some back-story to be had, but no doubt we’ll get that later. The journey is interrupted when Will runs over a coyote that he has to finish off with a tyre iron. I may be slow, but I think this is a metaphor for the rest of the film.

They arrive at the party and we are introduced to several of their friends who look like a Benetton commercial. We learn that the hostess, Eden , is Will’s former partner and that they share a sad history - it’s revealed later on had they had son who died. Eden has a new partner in the shape of David who is a bit intense and to add to the mix they have invited Sadie and Pruitt who are downright weird.

The party goes OK at first, but it seems a little off, a situation that intensifies when the gang are shown a video of a cult in Mexico where David and Eden met. The cult deals with death and healing and the video includes a women dying of cancer. As you’d guess this really helps the atmosphere. The crew worry that they are going to get the hard sell to join the cult, but that will be the least of their worries.

As things intensify Will does some snooping and finds a big pile of drugs and a video from the cult leader who says that ‘Tonight is the night’! Will it be a blood fest or is the troubled Will just imagining stuff? He’s totally not.

I liked this slow burner of a film that seemed a bit disjointed but ended up strangely satisfying. The awkwardness of social gatherings was well realised with Will initially appearing a paranoid loon ball when a couple of his accusations were disproved. Guess it’s safe to drink the wine then!

The cast were mostly good although I didn’t buy into crazy Sadie. The only recognisable face for me (apart from ‘The Wiz' off Seinfeld as the cult leader) was John Carroll Lynch as Pruitt who gave good value as the head mentalist. You probably won’t know his name but he is recognisable from ‘The Founder’ and ‘Veep’ amongst others.

The film piles on the intensity in the last twenty minutes and it was good that a few familiar tropes of the ‘killer in the locked house’ scenario were dropped. I was sure he was getting up again!

There was plenty of blood and a few wrong foots that, although not unexpected, made it good fun. Several genres merged, especially towards the end and we almost broke into another franchise altogether - The Purge anyone?

You’ll find this one on Netflix and it’s well worth 100 minutes of your time.

THE Tag Line : Don’t drink the wine! © Blackadder 73%

No.144 : The House (2017)

The House at the IMDb

I found The House lurking on Amazon Prime and was surprised that I hadn’t heard of it before, given its decent cast and production values. Having watched it, I find that its relative anonymity is well deserved.

Will Ferrell and Amy Poehler play a married middle class couple with a teenage daughter. They are a bit hard up despite living in a house that would make Barbie blush, in a neighbourhood with no beggars or dog shit on the streets. Things are relative I guess and their main concern is that they can’t afford to send their dull daughter to college.

Things should be OK though, as their daughter is the favourite to get a free college scholarship from the local town council. Guess they are the most needy after all! The rug is pulled however when the sleazy town councilman reveals that the sponsorship has been cancelled to pay for the new town pool. We later learn that he is stealing the cash to finance his affair with his well seated colleague, but more of that later.

Our happy couple try various ways to get the college money but after failing to get pay rises and loans they have no option but to try and gamble their meagre funds up, using the expertise of their gambling friend, Frank. The fact that Frank’s house lacks any furniture and his wife is leaving him doesn’t raise any red flags, so they head off to Vegas. After a great winning spell, sponsored by the Wynn Hotel, they lose the lot and are resigned to having the daughter hanging about the house for the next three years. But wait! There’s always breaking the law!

With indecent haste (well it is a 88 minute film), they set up a casino in Frank’s house. Things are small scale for about five minutes, but before long it’s a massive operation with neon lights, topless dancers and headline acts. Will the operation last long enough to raise the required funds? Will the corrupt councilman or the local mob get the cash or will truth and justice prevail and they all go to jail?

I was set up to really hate this film as it had all the hallmarks of a lazy cash in with blank spots in various stars’ diaries blocked out for a couple of weeks for an easy payday. As it was, I only slightly disliked it and there was the odd laugh - albeit cheap and shameful ones.

Ferrell and Poehler play off well together and they are wise not to bother with acting - you want them as you know them and that’s what you get. Poehler is done a disservice by the wardrobe department as they have her running about in baggy, unflattering shorts, as well as by the script which only gave her one good line about a Giant’s dick. Ferrell gets most of the funny stuff and despite doing his usual hapless idiot bit he has a few decent scenes, especially as ‘The Butcher’.

There are a lot of familiar faces thrown in for your money including a congressman off ‘Veep’ and David Wallace off ‘The Office’, who was criminally underused.

The plot, as it is, hits its marks from A to B to C with the minimum of fuss, with the predictable loss of the takings getting sorted out in about five minutes. ‘The villain’ of the corrupt politician was no threat at all and the film lacked any sense of danger. To have him as a whiny idiot with a fat fetish was a mistake as the outcome was never in doubt with him as the opposition.

The morals of the film are pretty low with drugs and gambling being celebrated along with the beating up of women, murder, illegal dice games etc. I thought there would be a moral lesson at the end but no - get your money however you can, and screw the consequences. I was fine with this but the film felt uneven with lots of things thrown at the wall with only a few of them sticking. For example in a two minute sequence there were nods to ‘The Terminator’ and ‘The Six Million Dollar man’ - apropos of nothing whatsoever.

There were a couple of chuckles and surprises though, and I especially liked Jeremy Renner showing up as a mob hit man who really should have stayed at home.

All in all this was a decent distraction but I wouldn’t be doubling down on any sequel.

THE Tagline - A Busted Flush! 62%

No.143 : The Gate (1987)

The Gate at the IMDb

When I was scrolling through the vast THE Movies to see database I stopped at this one as it starred Stephen (it’s a good name) Dorff who is usually good value. It was only after about ten minutes, that I realised that Dorff was playing the 10 year old hero in this 1987 horror. Who knew celebrities aged at the same rate as the rest of us?! Dorff was actually 13/14 when playing the role of Glen but looks younger. He must have had a big spurt later on, as he was in ‘Backbeat’ just 7 years later.

‘The Gate’ isn’t great, but it was better than I thought it was going to be at the 15 minute mark - it had all the hallmarks of an after school special, but it soon branched out into a master class of horror effects and teenage screams.

We start with Glen having a hell of a time - his garden is a nightmare and his tree house gets hit by lightening - but wait! It was only a dream! He gets up and finds men taking away a fallen tree in his garden and dismantling his tree house - was it a dream? Yes but a prescient one!

His McCann like parents announce that they are going away for the weekend and are leaving Al, Glen’s 14 year old sister, in charge. Glenn isn’t to go out as he’s been grounded due to nearly setting the house on fire due to his hobby of firing rockets - remember that for later. Al is told not to have a party so immediately we get a cut to the tamest teenage party you’ll ever see - plenty of 80’s hair and legwarmers though.

Glen is too busy investigating the hole left by the fallen tree in his garden with his nerdy friend Terry. They have found a geode worth loads of bucks and decide to dig for more - huge mistake! They find a biggie but this unleashes Hell, or at least loads of guys in demon suits, shot in forced perspective (thanks IMDb) - but for all the world it looks like stop motion.

Things get worse with a dead dog and a zombie in the wall - can the gate be closed or will hell reign of Earth?

This film was decent fun with plenty of nods to every teen and ‘summon the devil’ film that you’ve ever seen. There an early seen when words appear on an off brand Etch-a-Sketch - ‘Don’t read them out’ I thought. Of course they do and smoke starts billowing out of the gate!

The effects were good and I especially liked the demonic minions despite them being pretty ineffectual. The big boss at the end was less good as was the conclusion which was a bit pat.

It was well done however with almost the whole film taking place on one set. It felt claustrophobic without being limited, although I kept thinking that the parents would be mad when they get home.

The mostly young cast were fine with some frankly terrible dialogue to contend with. Most of the exposition comes from a heavy metal album sleeve so you knew it wasn’t meant to be taken too seriously. Dorff does well in his first major role and he kept the right side of being too cute. His sister and nerdy pal were worse, as was the ‘frat pack’ of beer drinking assholes who wandered in and out of scenes.

There were enough good bits to keep you interested and I especially liked Terry’s dance with his late mother which was then revealed to be with the family’s aged dog Angus.

There wasn’t too much gore, and it was more laughs than horror, but if you are looking for some mindless fun you could do worse than to open ‘The Gate’. Sorry.

THE Tag Line : You’ll Rate ‘The Gate’! 69%

No.142 : The Festival (2018)

The Festival at the IMDb

Here’s a Film 4 film starting Simon out of ‘The Inbetweeners’ and directed by one of the creators of ‘The Inbetweeners’ so it’s bound to be something different - no way will it be a lazy cash in using the same characters and jokes will it? Well yes. It would be the work of a lazy reviewer to keep referencing the obvious connections, so let’s do that then.

Simon plays ‘Nick’ who is really just Simon but with a different haircut. Instead of playing a schoolboy whilst in his early 30’s, the now 35 year old Simon plays a young man just graduating from university. He has range, you have to give him that! The film opens with him having sex with his dull girlfriend, Caitlin. She’s played by Simon’s real life partner so that’s a bit creepy especially as they have no chemistry whatsoever. To be fair, they may be great actors, because the plot is that she’s about to dump him.

Before we get to the plot the film nails it’s colours firmly to the mast when Simon’s ejaculate goes over his graduation gown, meaning we get a lovely scene of his mother scratching it off and licking her fingers. Caitlin tells Simon they are finished, and after embarrassing himself at the graduation, when he begs for her to come back, he goes into a downward spiral.

Things soon look up however when his chunky friend Shane reminds them that they have tickets for a music festival. Simon doesn’t want to go as Caitlin will be there. ‘Don’t worry we won’t see her’ says his friend ‘There are 100,000 people there’. Of course they meet up before 30 minutes have passed. Before that great moment we get some treats as our heroes try to get on the train using children’s tickets - it’s not like Simon has made a career out of pretending to be young is it?! On the way they meet Amy, an annoying yet lonely Australian festival regular. Hope she gets a nice character arc as she seems a bit sad.

At the festival our heroes immediately meet up with Caitlin as well as her friends - the rich one, the ditzy one who doesn’t remember names and the stoner. They also meet ‘The Pirate’ who is so called as he has one leg. The Pirate has designs on Caitlin so is immediately the boo hiss bad guy despite being far more likeable than Simon.

Various festival adventures follow such as those old standards of a bestiality druid ceremony and a drug bender with a Smurf. The climax promises to be great - what celebrity will be revealed to be the mask wearing DJ Hammerhead? Will our friends find love and will drug use, goat sex, disabled abuse and vandalism ever be acceptable in a mainstream film? You big square!

It would be churlish to be too harsh on this film. It doesn’t set out to be great art and is instead a celebration of freedom and having a good time. As a 49 year old misery it was hard to get invested! I didn’t like any of the characters and Simon’s journey from being a dick to being a slightly lesser dick gave me no warm feelings whatsoever. Annoying Amy was just that, and her fledgling romance with black man mountain Shane didn’t ring true at all.

There were a couple of minor cameos with Nick Frost showing up as a tattooist in one scene. The reveal of the famous DJ’s secret identity was seriously underwhelming and the whole subplot with the druids was just weird.

Simon’s night of love was OK but as a car owner who had someone once sleep in his Fiesta I have to call foul on that behaviour. I did quite like the scene of him imagining a life with the Smurf girl through marriage, kids and divorce but I think I liked it better when I first saw Harold & Kumar do it with a big bag of weed.

The film could easily have been retooled as an ‘Inbetweeners’ episode and it really only served to confirm that the parts of that group are less than the sum of the whole. Hee-hee I said ‘parts’ and ‘whole’ - they should have had me scripting this film!

Not many laughs are to be had at ‘The Festival’ but it was easy going, offensive fun.

Pass marks but only just.

THE Tag Line - Life With A Smurf Can Be Fun. 53%

No.141 : The Edict (2017)

The Edict at the IMDb

With my vote now added, a total of 76 people have passed judgement on ‘The Edict’. Having seen it I can see why - the word of mouth must be terrible, and despite it being offered for free on Amazon Prime, it seems that people would rather pass water over it than pass judgement on it. It did try to up its Definite Article credentials by having a caption after the credits with ‘The Gift’ on it - nice try but no bonus points here! OK, have five.

The film opens with a chap looking a bit fearful and then stepping into oncoming traffic. Maybe he’s heard his wife had bought the DVD of ‘The Edict’ - it isn’t immediately clear. We then cut to an ambulance, which is driving through the countryside for some reason, and to a young woman receiving CPR. We then dissolve into happier times and realise we are going to have to sit through the whole film before we get back to this bit again.

Our heroes are a young mixed race couple of newlyweds, Kevin and Joanna. They are moving into the house they inherited from Uncle Frank who became ‘Flat Frank’ right at the start. We learn that Joanna has had mental health issues and is generally a right pain in the arse. She looks through her new home and finds a statue of a man with his fist in his mouth - probably based on someone’s reaction when asked to comment on the script.

Joanna touches the statue and immediately experiences otherworldly, nightmarish visions of a woman in a slip standing awkwardly with her moth open and with blackened eyes. This terrible vision must have been based on an original idea the director had after playing some ‘Silent Hill’ games.

Joanna immediately starts experiencing a change in her character and becomes even more annoying and irritating. Even better, every time she has a moment a piercing wail comes on and stays on for ages. This was probably meant to make you feel uncomfortable but it was just plain annoying and it woke my cat up too. Kevin starts to investigate and immediately hypotheses that the statue is the source of his wife’s mood swings. Seems reasonable. They visit a colleague of Frank’s and then his assistant who promptly shoots himself when they leave - to be fair they do seem like terrible company.

After assessing the situation they decide the best thing to do is to wrap the statue in an old Tesco bag and chuck it in two feet of water. Problem solved. The colour palette quickly lifts and our two friends lighten up and discover they are pregnant. They even throw a dinner party - but then the lights go out and we still have that ambulance journey to come! Will the ancient curse come back? Will we understand what ‘the edict’ is? and will we get these 85 minutes back? Two nos and a yes!

This was an awful film on every level imaginable. For a start it was technically poor - the sound was terrible - at the dinner party scene near the end everyone sounded like they were underwater. The same goes for the lighting with rooms all murky and then the characters bright in close up - it’s like the lighting man was issued with those E.U. low energy bulbs. Add to the mix some totally banal direction and actors you wouldn’t employ to remake ‘Eldorado’, and you have a heady mix.

Sadly the plot won’t save it either unless you like the homage they do to the ’Ripping Yarns’ episode, ‘The Claw’ . There are no effects to speak of and large chunks of the film are spent with one or two talking heads, with one especially dire scene having the lead actress talk to herself in the mirror for five minutes.

There was a germ of an idea in there somewhere about the statue being 50,000 years old and some sort of conduit to a lost race. Sadly we don’t get to see them but they sound a lot like the Borg when they eventually make their play. I’m still not sure what ‘the edict’ was meant to be - the word means an order but none was given apart from some gubbins about preparing the way. This wasn’t explored as the budget ran out, but maybe it’s being saved for the sequel. Hope not!

THE Tag Line : The Edict is ’Don’t watch this film!’  27%

No.140 : The Double (2013)

The Double at the IMDb

More double trouble now as we follow Richard Gere’s double agent misadventures with a more literal double. Who will win the Double Duel? Probably this one as Gere was gash.

This is a bit more art house than we are used to on The Definite Article Blog, with the film being an adaptation of the book of the same name by Dostoevsky. Don’t worry, it’s directed by and stars most of ‘The I.T. Crowd’ so how high brow can it be? The answer is ‘reasonably’ as things like metaphor and symbolism crop up, meaning we have to pay attention, lest we look a bit thick.

Jesse Eisenberg stars as James a clerk in a dystopian workhouse where he inputs data for seemingly no purpose. The drones all work for James Fox’s Colonel who, although cheery in his TV ads, seems a bit sinister. James’ immediate boss, Mr Papadopolous, doesn’t know his name - ‘Inconceivable!’ (it’s the guy out of ‘The Princess Bride’!) - but asks him to tutor his punk daughter in the ways of the company.

James however is more interested in co-worker Hannah but is too shy to ask for a date, instead settling on going through her rubbish to reconstruct her ripped up art. He also has a mother in a care home where everyone is armed and Sidekick Simon is head orderly.

James’ dull but predictable life is upset when a new worker, Simon starts. He is Simon James whilst our man is James Simon. That’s not the worst of it - they are exactly alike in looks and clothes, the only difference being is that Simon is a hit with the ladies and basically everything James is not on the personality front.

Despite some initial friction the two start to work together with James doing Simon’s work and Simon giving James coaching in the ways of love. Slowly the two seem to merge with injuries to one manifesting on the other. The lines get blurred and it’s not always clear who is who. Could they be one and the same? Is this a lesson in duality and in the different personalities that inhabit us all? What will the end game be? Who’ll get the girl, and does it really matter?

I quite liked this film but it was heavy going in places and seemed long even at its trim 90 minutes running time. The bleak world was well realised with more than a few nods given and debts owed to Terry Gilliam’s ‘Brazil’. The grey and beige world had an Eastern European feel, and the pointless work in the crumbling office was well observed. The cast were uniformly good, playing deadpan at ridiculous set ups and in pointless exchanges. The whole tone was one of claustrophobia and oppression and you were keen to escape this world as soon as possible - I don’t think I’ll be buying the DVD!

The only bright spot was  an adventure show on TV with Paddy Considine as a kick-ass hero. This was lifted wholesale from ‘Storm Saxon’ in ‘V for Vendetta’ but it was good fun. It was also enjoyable to see Chris Morris, Chris O’Dowd and Tim Key pop up in small but funny roles. All played against type as faceless bureaucrats keen only to get their form completed and filed away.

The film was generally unsettling but an interesting essay on the nature of self and the duality that exists within us all. If that sounds a bit like student wankery don’t blame me - the film started it!

THE Tag Line - Twice the Jesses - Double the fun 68%