No.250 : The Ripper (TV) (2020)

The Ripper (TV) 2020 at the IMDb

 I was born in 1971 and in many ways the Yorkshire Ripper was my first experience of an ongoing hunt for a serial killer. I do have a distinct memory of the murder of Jacqueline Hill being reported in November 1980 and of it being the talk of the schoolyard. Fortunately she was the last victim, with Peter Sutcliffe being arrested soon after, after being picked up for offences unrelated to his murders.

I have been interested in the case and enjoyed a three part pod cast on the Case File site  which I’d strongly recommend. It went into greater depth than the Netflix TV show we are discussing now, but they are clearly different approaches to the same horrific crimes.

This Netflix documentary series is in four parts of roughly an hour each. They are presented in chronological order with the first setting the scene, the middle two covering the murders and the investigation and the last dealing with Peter Sutcliffe’s capture and the fallout of the investigation which, by all accounts, was botched and contributed to at least some of the murders being allowed to happen.

The series uses mainly archive footage and is pretty familiar in its approach, with a voiceover explaining what is happening set against news reports and newspaper headlines of the time. What sets this series apart however, is the present day interviews with many of the key players, which  included the son of one of the early victims who relives the trauma of learning of his mother’s demise and her character assassination in the press who dubbed her as a prostitute.

Other talking heads include Bruce Jones of Coronation Street fame who discovered one of the bodies as well as police personnel and journalists who worked the case at the time. I didn’t learn too much from this series, but what was done well was the telling of the story with events laid out in chronological order with graphics showing where each of the women died, relative to each other.

They also delved into Sutcliffe’s other crimes, many of which were forgotten when his 13 murders were being discussed. Several women survived his assaults and it was haunting to hear their first hand accounts of their encounters with the maniac.

The clear message from the series was one of police incompetence. The Ripper was interviewed nine times, with one officer telling us that he told his bosses that he had found the suspect only to be rebuffed owing to Sutcliffe not fitting the profile that had been created. There was also a lot of content devoted to the misogyny of the police and the public’s attitude towards the victims who were painted as worthless due to some being prostitutes. This was a valid thread for the programme but they did spend a lot of time on it with lots of opinions being offered about contemporary attitudes. 

This was fine and laudable but it was at the expense of other aspects of the case being unexplored - Sutcliffe himself didn’t get much of a profile with his motivations being largely untouched. We know he’s a nutter but what took him to that place and what made him so adept at murder and at evading capture? The other villain of the piece, the hoaxer ‘Weirside Jack’, was also not discussed in depth which was a shame as this was a thread the show left hanging. The hoaxes, which were bought wholesale by the police, contributed greatly to at least three murders being allowed to happen and I’d liked to have seen this aspect being explored. I did read up on it and the miscreant concerned got 8 years after a cold case investigation captured him in 2000.

Overall this was a well made and compelling series that paid due respect to the victims involved and highlighted the issues that led this murderer the chance to run free for a decade. It’s hopeful that lessons have been learned as it was clear that the policemen involved in this investigation couldn’t find their arse with both hands. At the end it was blind luck that netted the Ripper with the police investigation being as much use as a cock flavoured lollypop.

This was a crime of its time that will never happen again due to advances in DNA detection, CCTV and computing. The police were clearly negligent but the crimes belonged to one man alone, and that shouldn’t be forgotten amongst all the finger pointing.

This was a good and worthwhile effort but it was too short with the ending seeming somewhat rushed. The material could easily have filled 12 one hour episodes and I hope a ‘director’s cut’ that explores all the hanging threads is in the works.

The Tag Line : Ripper Yarns   70%

No.249 : The Meg (2018)

 The Meg at the IMDb

Jason Statham stars in this ‘hunt the fish’ thriller that is ‘Jaws’ in all but name, but also takes the time to rehash every seafaring cliché that you could point a harpoon at.

We open in the past with Statham in charge of a rescue attempt on a stricken sub. He gets most of the men off but has to close the hatch on the last few when an unknown force starts to attack the sub. He’s haunted by the decision and retreats into a refreshing bottle of Chang beer, in one of the many overt examples of product placement on show.

Nothing will get Statham back in the water, and we head off to a sea exploration lab off the coast of China. Dwight Shrute, who seems to have done well out of the beet business, is coming to inspect his billion dollar investment. He’s come at a good time as the deepest trench of the ocean is about to be explored by one of their submersibles. The diverse crew see lots of nice sea life but are then attacked, and rendered disabled, by a megladon, a prehistoric shark that can grow to 70 feet. With life support for only 18 hours left they may as well start writing the obituaries…unless Jason can be tempted out of his retirement? Well it is his ex-wife that’s in peril and his name’s over the title; so he'd better get packed.

The rescue goes well, apart from the standard sacrifice of a crew member, and all that’s left is to take care of ’The Meg’ before it kills anyone else. They could just leave it alone, but that wouldn’t make for much of a film so they set off with a few schemes, the first several of which are doomed to fail, as you‘d expect.

After catching their prey an even bigger fish appears; with the crew and hardware decimated, how can it be stopped now that its heading to Amity, sorry, some Chinese beach where it‘s bright coloured inflatables day?

I avoided this film when it came out as it looked rubbish. You know what they say about making rash judgements? That’s right, they are often correct. The ingredients were all here -  Statham in an obvious cash in monster movie, a genre that makes it hard to be original and a Chinese Co-Production which led to several Chinese characters being shoe horned in for no discernable reason, including a cute wee girl who possibly was an ill-advised passenger on a boat under constant megladon attack.

It really was by the numbers, with the troubled Statham trying to gain redemption whilst struggling with a CGI fish that changed size depending on what was required of it. Shrute should be ashamed of his outing as the billionaire financer who for some reason was getting into the fish exploitation business. He had no arc to speak of and even when he went off piste to avoid the lawsuits he was hardly a malevolent genius or even a misguided do-gooder he was just ‘can you show me the way to the bank?’ throughout.

Statham gave his usual effortless performance playing the same baldy Cockney who inhabits all of his films. He had no journey or emotional range and it looked like he was just waving a harpoon against a green screen until the run time hit the contractually agreed length.

The effects were decent in places but there is only so much that you can do with a big fish chomping on people and boats. There was plenty of gore but that was pretty comic, with the buckets of chum the only realistic blood on show.

If you watch ‘The Meg’ you pretty much get what you deserve. There may have been a message about the environment or over fishing in there, but it was hard to pick it out amongst all the CGI, product placements and cardboard cut-out characters who were designed to keep the demographic and screen time to the backers’ requirements. A cookie cutter film that could have done with a shark bite to the script to jazz things up just a little.

THE Tag Line : MEGa Disappointment  - 35%

 

No.248 : The Duel (2016)

The Duel at the IMDb

Woody out of ‘Cheers’ and the less successful Hemsworth brother star in this derivative western that starts out in decent, if predictable fashion, but ends in farce.

The film opens in 1863 after some captions tell us about the Mexican / American War and the uneasy truce that now exists. The Texas Rangers have been set up to keep the peace but frontier justice still prevails. We meet a bald Woody in the rain who is about to take part in a ‘Helena Duel’ which sees the two men tied arm to arm, armed with a small knife each. They then get all stabby with each other until only one is left standing. Woody, not surprisingly as he’s the headline actor, wins the day but the body of his dead opponent is mourned over by the corpse’s now orphaned son. Bet that’s significant!

We fast forward 22 years and that mourning son is now a Texas Ranger in the shape of Liam Hemsworth. He’s called in by his boss, Death out of ‘Bill & Ted’, and asked to investigate a series of dead Mexicans who are showing up in the river. They suspect Woody is involved as he has a secret settlement just upstream. Rather implausibly he sends Liam undercover on the pretext that sending a garrison would be problematic and says that our hero should report back with his findings.

Liam is a modern henpecked man with a Mexican wife who nags him into taking her along. The two head into town and are soon welcomed, with Woody appointing Liam as sheriff. He is meant to come over as all culty but that turns out to be a spelling mistake, as he has designs on the wife and in brainwashing the town. As is standard, he has a sadistic and dim son who sets about the hooker with a heart with his knife. At times it’s like western cliché bingo here!

Woody’s wise words start to turn Liam’s wife’s head and when she gets ill things start to fall apart. Liam susses out Woody’s grand scheme and is captured - he’s then set loose to be hunted by Woody’s paying customers . Can he survive and win his woman back? Is this about revenge or just a long metaphor about the poor treatment of Mexican immigrants? Or maybe it’s just a directionless mess with more unintentional laughs than drama?

This was a strange film, it was almost like several scripts had been cut into pieces and randomly stuck back together. The opening brutal scene of the knife fit was well done and I expected this to be a film about revenge and redemption. It was fine that they chose not to go down this path, but the route taken instead was signposted ‘Ridiculousness’.

Woody was portrayed as the Messiah type figure who perhaps had supernatural powers, but after an hour it was revealed that he was only running a ’Westworld’ type operation, where patrons could shoot Mexicans for $200 a pop. It would have worked too if his idiot son hadn’t dumped the bodies in the river rather than bury them as instructed!

Liam uncovers the terrible conspiracy but is captured. Amazingly Woody makes him the subject of the next hunt but also gives him a rifle and ammo. Predictably Liam takes out all of the red shirts and our two headliners have the duel of the title. And what a laugh it is! The two shoot at each other for five minutes whilst ten feet apart. Then, low on bullets, Liam tips a big rock onto Woody Wile E. Coyote style. Now trapped with his leg pinned Woody goes all ‘127 Hours’ and stabs his own leg off with a penknife. It is glorious in its mentalness.

There is no big lesson here apart from don’t watch this whilst drinking red wine or you’re liable to redecorate your walls with each burst of outrageous action.

It may have been that the film set out to redefine the western a la ‘Bone Tomahawk’ and lost its nerve, but it ended up as risible nonsense that had more laughs than a tickling convention.

THE Tag Line : You Mexican’t Be Serious 41%

 

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 hapanning 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.246 : The Gift (2015)

The Gift (2015) at the IMDb

Jason Bateman and Rebecca Hall star as a yuppie couple who relocate to L.A. and get some nice presents. Well they do, but ‘the gift’ of the title is something far more sinister - or maybe not, it all depends on your point of view.

Bateman and Hall are trying for a baby and seem to have an ideal lifestyle in the suburbs with their dog. Trouble looms beneath the surface however, with Hall seeming a bit too keen on the contents of their friend’s medical cabinet and I’m not talking about the piles cream that we all have. That most people have, not me.

On a trip to the shops the couple meet up with Gordo, an old high school friend of Bateman’s. He’s a bit creepy and Bateman fobs him off with a fake phone number. There’s no film in that however and they are soon beset with gifts of wine and fishes from Gordo who also invites them over for dinner. That turns out to be a bust, especially when it’s revealed that Gordo’s palatial home isn’t even his. 

It’s clear that Gordo is a total freak and the rest of the film will deal with him stalking our yuppie heroes. But wait! They don’t want to go down that route so things start to slowly dismantle with the roots of Bateman’s and Gordo’s relationship explored. Is Bateman all he seems and who is the real victim here?

As the tension ratchets up Bateman is vying for a promotion with one other candidate and Hall falls pregnant after the couple have tried for ages. Can these events play out in a nice and convenient manner? No chance - as the birth approaches Bateman and Hall question their relationship whilst we are left to wonder if Gordo is a pyscho or the real victim here. Will the final gift tie up all the clues or will it be something to return for store credit? Should have provided a gift receipt really.

I enjoyed this film that had Bateman playing against type with his usual everyman persona giving way to a nasty bully. He had clearly made a huge mistake in engaging with Gordo and that was never going to end well. Gordo was played by Joel Edgerton who also wrote and directed and he did a good job juggling all the responsibilities. His Gordo was the right level of creepy with an air of the pathetic, although I was less convinced by him towards the end when he turned out to be the master planner and manipulator.

The first half hour of the film was very familiar and I’m glad they deviated from the path of the obsessed stalker and made things a lot more interesting. Bateman was his usual reliable self with the added mean streak a welcome distraction. There was a bit of victim wish fulfilment going on, but the film was well paced with the surprises earned and satisfying.

All in all this was a welcome gift on Amazon Prime and one that would give you an even better reason for avoiding your high school reunion.

THE Tag Line - Better to Give Than Receive 71%

 

No.245 : The Landlord (2015)

 The Landlord at the IMDb

Also known as ‘Slumlord’ and ‘13 Cameras’ this film seems to have struggled to find an identity and that’s no surprise given it also struggled for a narrative, twist or anything approaching engagement with the audience. Still it did spawn a sequel ‘14 Cameras’ so at least the Go-Pro people seem to be doing well out of the franchise. Next up ‘15 Cameras and a Wi-fi dongle’ I suspect.

As a landlord myself I was hoping to pick up some tips about rent collection and stain removal but instead it was a peeping tom landlord who locks folk in his basement. Nothing new here then!

Young pregnant couple, Ryan and Claire, are looking for a new rental condo. They find a nice one which happens to have a fat and scruffy, monosyllabic landlord who stinks. That’s a stereotype right there. They take on the property but unknown to them the landlord has a Tandy gold card and has fitted out the whole house with a load of cameras - I’m guessing 13.

He watches their comings and goings on and we and he learn that Ryan is boffing his PA, the lovely Hannah. Luckily for the landlord Ryan brings his work home and he gets a front row seat for all the action, even underwater in their pool. At first I thought he was maybe a kindly overseer with perhaps his purpose being to keep some supernatural evil in check? This better plot wasn’t thought of or was as dismissed however, with our man just being a total creep, with a shot of all his used Kleenex around his computer monitors all we needed to know of his motivations.

His peeping runs parallel with the demise of the couple's relationship, with the affair suspected and Ryan exiled from the house. The Landlord tried to keep the girlfriend a secret by locking her in the basement but things come to a head when a camera is spotted and the basement hostage manages to escape. Will the landlord go without a fight and return the security deposit? No chance; armed with his hammer heads over to sort out his troublesome tenants - will he be able to re-let and retain his accreditation from the local authority?

This was easy viewing as basically the film went from a to b to c with no struggle at all. As mentioned I was hoping we’d get a wrong foot with the Landlord being a kindly soul watching over the couple like a guardian angel. Instead he was just a pervert who for some reason became homicidal towards the end. Maybe he’d done similar before, but it was kept vague, especially as he barely mumbled a dozen lines of dialogue in the whole film.

The two leads were passable but you didn’t really care for them, given their relationship was already crumbling when we first meet. The end was undercooked with the hammer filled home invasion over in moments with the minimum of fuss. The closing scenes of our man still in the rental market were probably meant to worry the viewer, but I was just happy to see an upturn in tenancy rates.

This was a passable thriller that has nothing to set it apart in a crowded genre, that could have done with a better bad guy and a bit more peril than him messing with their toothbrushes.

THE Tag Line : Not One For Rental 54%

No.244 : The Crown (TV 2016) (Season 4)

 

The Crown Season 4 at the IMDb

I haven’t seen the first three seasons of ‘The Crown’ but was aware of it as the wife is an avid viewer. It never really appealed to me, looking like a live action ‘Spitting Image’. I was however drawn to Season 4 as it entered the period where I could remember things and it’s always more fun to be reminded of stuff than it is to learn something new.

The main attraction this series, for me, was the introduction of Gillian Anderson as Margaret Thatcher. That must have been a tough call for the agent - ‘Sorry Gillian FHM has folded but we have a nice blue suit for you’. Thatcher gets a decent amount of screen time but as you’d expect the focus is on the Royals and Thatcher only shows up when their worlds collide.

The series opens with Earl Mountbatten being killed by the IRA. This brings in new levels of security to the Royals and begins to inhibit their freedoms. It doesn’t stop Charles of course, who boffs Camilla throughout the ten episodes.

Each episode is standalone with a story and theme, although history is the overriding arch that covers the whole thing. It looks like the family against country debate has been a theme across all seasons, with the Queen concerned that her family aren’t all that she would have hoped for.

The other big introduction this season is Princess Diana, played by Elizabeth Debicki, who is essentially breeding stock, as Charles gets his jollies elsewhere. Diana’s affairs are also covered but the programme’s sympathies do lie with her. I felt she was a bit too Sloane rangery and not as pretty as Di to carry it off. Still not an easy part when half your time demands your head in the toilet and the rest shouting in a thin reedy voice.

Of the Royals I liked Tobias Menzies’ Prince Phillip the most, with his wry wit and pragmatic viewpoints cutting swathes through his feckless offspring. Olivia Coleman was good as the Queen although our familiarity with the subject makes her performance look like caricature a lot of the time.

The same fate befalls Anderson’s Thatcher with Janet Brown recalled as well as every other 80’s female mimic as she patronisingly talks down to anyone in her range. Anderson was good and dominated the screen, but again it was a bit dress up box for me, with you half expecting Mike Yarwood to appear as Harold Wilson at any moment.

Large events like the Falklands war and Charles & Di’s wedding were largely bypassed, which is understandable given the scale of these events. I guess they’d say they decided to focus on character rather than spectacle which is fine until you have another ten minutes in Charles’ hand wringing company.

The episodes were varied but generally watchable, with the palace intruder Michael Fagin one probably the best for me. I was disappointed to read that in his last interview Fagin admitted the Queen just left the room when he appeared, rather than have the ten minute chat that the show depicted.

By necessity all the conversations have to be imagined and as such the whole series is nothing more than a big soap opera, based on the biggest soap opera going.

It was enjoyable but I doubt I’ll delve into the first three seasons, although I will watch what’s to come and see if it’s how things seemed at the time. It is sumptuously produced and if you like fancy locations, nice clothes and the upper classes bitching at each other then this could be the show for you.

THE Tag Line : With Royal Approval 70%

No.243 : The Sisterhood (1988)

 The Sisterhood at the IMDb

This pile of nonsense could be seen as a companion piece for the recently reviewed The Aftermath, what with both being post apocalyptic films that were largely filmed in the same quarry.

The film is set in the far off future of 2021. The world has been devastated and people have to dress like extras from Mad Max, apart from one woman who wears Levis in what IMDb describes as a product placement deal. A group of brigands attack a couple of woman on horseback - but they have foolishly engaged with ‘the sisterhood’. A poorly choreographed swordfight takes place with the sisterhood coming out on top, partly due to beams that come out of one of their eyes and dislodge a small pile of rocks. They send the bad men on their way, with their one injury quickly healed by one lady’s blue light emitting hand.

We learn that all of the sisterhood’s members have a special power, which is usually quite cheap to demonstrate, which was no doubt a boon to the budget. Levis girl isn’t in the sisterhood but is soon alone when the bad men set free by the sisterhood attack her camp and kill everyone apart from her. She can talk to a fortune telling hawk however - is that the kind of power that gets you in the sisterhood?

We follow baddie Mikal, who really hates the sisterhood, and plans to attack their base. He joins forces with a couple of local militias, one whose leader is always screaming for parts - as long as they are car parts and not acting ones, we’ll be all right.

Meanwhile the two members of the sisterhood join up with Levis woman and take the gamble of crossing the Forbidden Zone so that they can warn their sisters of the impending attack. The Forbidden Zone is populated by savage mutants - all of whom wear the same outfit. Well, coordination is important in a radioactive wasteland.

Back at the Sisterhood’s base, ‘Calcava’ things aren’t looking great as the sisters have all been captured and the evil baddie is ripping their tops off one at a time. Can the Sisterhood be saved? Will that pristine cache of 20th century weapons and vehicles come in handy? You bet!

This film was clearly in the ‘awful but we know it’ category. The whole affair takes place in the same quarry with the actors looking dizzy at having to drive their cars in endless circles. It tries to be ‘The Road Warrior’ with a bit of ‘Logan’s Run’ thrown in, but it looks like a film school project completed as a dare.

There are endless swordfights with every individual battle choreographed the same way - clank, boot, slash and cut to bloody wound shot. The acting is as risible as the pathetic script demands, and the special effects amount to some blue ‘beams’ being drawn onto the film.

For the big finale they obviously thought another sword fight wouldn’t cut it so our heroes find a fully functioning fall out shelter complete with guns and armoured vehicles. How the armoured car and weapons all still work isn’t really covered - maybe the women are all just great mechanics? Any suggestion of this being a ‘girl power’ event is quickly lost when a couple of scenes of topless women are slotted in for no discernable reason - apart from the worried producers looking at the first cut and realising no one but perverts (and honest reviewers) will watch this rubbish. The nudity is all body doubles so clearly done after the fact; as was the poster - spoiler alert - there is not one golden bikini in this film!

A mindless distraction or dated sexist rubbish? Have no fun finding out!

THE Tag Line : Sisters Shouldn’t Do This For Themselves - 27%

No.242 : The Package (2018)

 The Package at the IMDb

This is our second ‘The Package’ following the Dolph Lundgren/Steve Austin action thriller.  That was dreadful, but amazingly this effort manages to be even worse. Worse than a film starring a wrestler and Ivan Drago? You bet.

To be honest the signs were there early on - the film has emojis in the title with the aubergine being a substitute for a penis. Well you couldn’t lower the tone on your vulgar teen gross out comedy could you?

There is hardly a plot to speak of, but basically someone slices their cock off on a camping trip and it’s up to his friends to get him reunited with his pecker before reattachment surgery becomes unviable.

There are two young couples and some tiresome dynamics in play. They are horny teens but privileged ones with nice houses and fancy cars. One boy likes a girl but she has a douchebag boyfriend. Another is a pale ginger boy who is very annoying and compensates for his virginal state by being a complete asshole to all concerned. 

For reasons too dull to go into, the group go on a camping trip and the Navajo boy with the long black hair decides to play with his flick knife whilst having a midnight piss. He slices off his cock and is airlifted away by the air ambulance, sans John Thomas. His friends pack up the camp site and manage to find the mangled manhood. They learn it has 12 hours left before surgery won’t be possible so they try to get the pecker and plonker reunited via a variety of adventures involving stealing boats and dealing with crazed ex-military types. After an hour they get the Johnston to the hospital and the surgery is a success. But wait! There’s half an hour left so it’s discovered the cock has been sown onto the wrong man whose own member was severed by his mental wife who is still on the prowl. 

All the while romantic subplots are developing with one lad texting the girl he likes’ boyfriend to call it off. Will his subterfuge be found out and does she like him anyway? We need to know! Will the cock be reattached and will the horny teens end up with a nice big kiss?

This was a tacky and tasteless film and whilst that’s normally my go to, this was just plain awful. Every single character was a smug teen you wouldn’t tire of punching. The whole joke is that they have a loose cock to take care of, so inevitably it gets lost, puked on, bitten by a snake and then sucked off. The stunt cock is quite realistic but there are only so many ways a bunch of dildos can interact with a fake dobber and for it to be amusing.

There were perhaps two smiles but both were the same gag with someone taking over a man's TV with porn by hijacking their wi-fi. Apart from that it was dick this and penis that for an hour and a half. If I wanted that I’d watch the Tory party conference - little bit of politics there.

If you like your films mindless and unfunny you’re onto a winner here; and if cock jokes are your thing, then you’ve hit the mother lode.

THE Tag Line : Don’t Unwrap The Package 35%

No.241 : The Stranger (TV, 2020)

The Stranger (TV) at the IMDb

Based on the novel by Harlan Coben ‘The Stranger’ is an 8 part series made by Netflix. The New Jersey setting of the novel has been transplanted to the UK with the series filmed in and around the Manchester area and using a lot of familiar actors.

Solicitor Adam seems to have the perfect life - he has a nice house, two sons and is married to her off ‘Ballykissangel’. His life is turned upside-down however when the titular stranger shows up and tells him to have a dig about his wife’s bank account. He does so and finds evidence that her pregnancy, which ended with a miscarriage two years previously, was in fact faked. He confronts her about this and shortly thereafter she goes missing.

Meanwhile a teenage rave goes wrong when a doped up youth is found naked in the woods and a decapitated alpaca is dumped in the town centre. Elsewhere Jennifer Saunders, who runs a coffee shop, gets a couple of shots of her own - to the head - and the police are at a loss to tie all these events together. Adam’s full plate is in danger of tipping over as he tries to protect his client Stephen Rea from eviction at the hands of Adam’s estranged father, Anthony Head.

All the while The Stranger is demanding blackmail money from a variety of victims about whom she knows their most intimate secrets. Are her actions purely financial or does she have moral convictions at the heart of her schemes? As the series progress the disparate strands of the story start to come together, with the exposed secrets causing untold damaged to those involved and their families.

I wasn’t too sold on this show at first as it looked like one of those ‘event’ ITV dramas that usually end up being a lot of predictable guff designed only to advance the career of some non-entity that they foolishly signed a contract with. I was however drawn in by the complex story and the compelling drama that unfolded. There were perhaps too many plot strands with a few going nowhere and serving only to distract you from the main thrust of the story. I guess a bit of misdirection is par for the course in a mystery drama, and the pace was such that I never lost interest in the next development.

The story developed logically and the detection angle was good. Siobhan Finnernan stood out as the lead detective although her accent made me think she was a refugee from Coronation Street. Richard Armitage was also good as the father struggling to understand what was going on and Rea and Paul Kaye did well in supporting roles that ran deep.

I was less impressed with ‘The Stranger’ herself who didn’t have the menace or gravitas the role demanded. I see in the book it was a bloke and this failing may have been down to the casting director looking to mix things up by casting a young woman, when the role demanded something a bit more sinister.

I liked how the story threads weaved together and the fact that everyone’s secrets impacted on those about them. The ending wasn’t a great surprise given the clues seeded throughout, but it was still a satisfying conclusion to an excellent and compelling drama.

THE Tag Line : Secrets, Secrets Are No Fun…  76%

 

No.240 : The Baker (2007)

The Baker at the IMDb

I bought the DVD of this film out of a charity shop years ago and fell asleep before I could complete my viewing. I then lent it to someone in the office who never gave it back (Emma, maybe?) and I gave it up as lost. It did however present itself on Amazon Prime, so I thought I’d give it a look hoping for a rediscovered classic. Frankly I shouldn’t have bothered, but at least it closes a chapter!

Damian Lewis stars as the titled character Milo ‘The Baker’ Shakespeare. He’s a hit man in the employ of Michael Gambon, but not a very good one as he’s questioning the nature of his business. Things come to a head in the first ten minutes when he offers the target the chance to run but is discovered by rival hit man Jamie Lannister, who completes the contract and tries to take down Milo.

Milo escapes to a safe house in a small Welsh village which also happens to be a disused bakery. The locals assume he’s going to start baking and Milo decides to oblige. He buries his guns but is observed by a local nut job who enjoys exploding sheep and conspiracy theories. An exploding sheep knocks Brodie out, but he’s rescued by love interest Rhiannon who is the local vet and pub waitress.

Axe starts to bake but is rubbish at it. Meanwhile his former career is discovered by the locals, all of whom have a target they’d liked rubbed out themselves. A misunderstanding leads a dead wife being credited to Major Winters who then gets lots of orders for ‘cakes’ which he thinks are for baked goods, but the locals think are for hits. Also added to the mix is Jamie who doesn’t like loose ends and is keen to close the contract.

Will Axe get the girl and settle down or have the choices he made in the past determined his future?

This was a strange film tonally. The IMDb description has it down as an ‘action /comedy’ but it does look like the comedy element was an afterthought with the dafter elements only emerging after half an hour. You could argue that it lures you in but it just seemed a bit disjointed to me, with none of the comedy scenes really working. You had the bloke out of ‘The Flying Pickets’ running around in his pants and a terrible exploding sheep special effect that they used twice, no doubt to justify the expense, but that was it really.

I like Lewis but comedy isn’t his strong suit and his ‘fish out of water’ act didn’t  resonate or amuse in the slightest. A young Jamie Lannister was very poor with some swordsmanship on display that would have embarrassed someone with a metal hand.

There were a few familiar faces in the supporting cast but I didn’t buy into their murderous intent and the conspiracy nut sidekick was just plain annoying. The film ran a predictable course with the big showdown as inevitable as it was unearned. Gambon showed up for the pay cheque and lacked the usual ambivalence that he normally deals out effortlessly.

Some of the scenes, such as the cast breaking character to sing ‘Volarie’, were misjudged and done so much better in films like ‘My Best Friend’s Wedding’. Overall it was all over the place and by the end I had no interest or investment in the wafer thin characters or in their faintly embarrassing escapades. The whole enterprise could have done with another hour in the script oven.

THE Tag Line : Half Baked  - 53%

 

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.238 : The Teacher (1974)

The Teacher (1974) at the IMDb

The wonderfully named Angel Tompkins stars as the titular teacher who does no teaching but offers plenty of the rest. The film opens slowly with it reaching nearly 11 minutes before we get our first line of dialogue : “Damn”. We watch teacher Diane get ready and head out in her sweet Tran-Am. Meanwhile creepy Ralph is stalking her in his hearse - subtle! Diane heads to her cabin cruiser ‘Diane’ and takes it out into the middle of the harbour where she whips off her top for some chilly looking sunbathing. Ralph has a vantage point staked out and enjoys a bit of peeping at Diane through his binoculars.

Sadly for Ralph, his perving is interrupted when is brother Lou and friend Sean show up for some peeping of their own - they should have set up a turnstile! Ralph isn’t happy and charges the late coming perverts and Lou falls to his death. Sean runs off but is later warned by Ralph to say nothing to the cops. 

Sean has recently left school and is on friendly terms with Diane who is all alone now that her racing driver husband has left the scene. She has designs on young Sean and invites him over to help her ‘clean out her garage’ - that’s a new euphemism on me. After a quick start Diane and Sean start to see each other, much to the outrage of the locals , although his Mom is pretty cool about it all. Ralph isn’t though, and stalks the couple with his menacing bayonet in hand.

Things inevitably come to a head with Sean kidnapped by Ralph, with Diane in hot pursuit - who will survive and is there enough time for her to get her top off again?

This was a dreadfully poor and cheap looking exploitation flick, but it wasn’t without it’s charms. I liked Anthony James, whom we know from ‘W’ Classics ‘World Gone Wild’ and ‘Wacko’ as the crazed stalker Ralph. He had a weird coffin full of stuff including a Chekov’s gun to go with his hearse and he was ‘weirdo’ personified. There was a funny scene where he went into his coffin of tricks and next minute he’s in a frogman suit eyeing our couple having sex on their boat.

Angel Tomkins was decent in the main role as the sex mad and poor judgement burdened Diane, who had a succession of bikini tops that she just had to keep shedding. ‘Dennis the Menace’ Jay North was less good and his floundering was annoying.

Down the cast, the players looked like they were working for beer with Sean’s Dad especially bad. The film ran a long 100 minutes with a lot of padding generously provided. Frolicking in the swimming pool is fine but five minutes of it didn’t advance the plot an inch! There were scenes where awkward silences were interrupted by non-sequitors and it looked improvised to no real effect, apart from adding to the amateur vibe.

The nihilistic ending seemed unnecessary but I guess that’s the genre - blood and boobs with no learnings to be had!

THE Tag Line : You’ll Learn Nothing!  61%

 

No.237 : The Hitcher (2007)

 

The Hitcher (2007) at the IMDb

Why bother with classic Definite Article films when there’s a crappy remake to look over? I’ve not seen the Rutger Hauer version in ages, but I remember it to be a slow burn, with subtle malevolent terror building before a satisfying climax. This remake had none of that but it did have a man being pulled apart by a truck and an non-exploding helicopter.

Our hero couple are Grace and Jim. They are headed across country for spring break, with their early character traits being he’s a bit of a douche and she likes going to the toilet a lot. The opening credits meander along for ages as they slowly leave the city and head into New Mexico where the roads are quiet and the filming incentives seemingly quite generous.

They narrowly avoid hitting a man hitching for a lift by his broken down car and drive off as he approaches them for assistance. This seems a wise move but they then stop at a local gas station as she needs the toilet - again! Inevitably the hitchhiker catches up with them and don’t you know it, it’s good old affable Sean Bean. Jim agrees to take Sean to a nearby hotel despite Grace giving him the stink eye for offering - well Bean is notorious for hogging the stereo.

Grace’s misgivings prove correct when Sean, after asking after the couple’s sex life, pulls a knife and a struggle ensures. The couple manage to kick Sean out of their fast moving car but unfortunately for them they have already divulged their travel plans and he has Grace‘s old Nokia phone.

As you’d probably guess he stalks their every move, with their car soon getting totalled after a failed attempt to warn a family about Sean’s stabbing ways. The two continue on foot and are soon picked up by the police. Safety at last! Not really, as Sean Terminators his way through the whole station causing our kids to flee into the wilderness. After some more gratuitous blood letting the police, with their leader Neil McDonough , arrest our pair as Sean has cleverly framed them.

Sean doesn’t want to leave the film however, so he explodes all the police cars and a helicopter (off screen) and again our kids are fighting for their lives. How many more must die? Can the scriptwriter be next?!

This was a total waste of time and derivative trash but it will probably raise the odd smile with you as it did with me. It is so ridiculous and over the top it was no surprise to see Michael Bay’s name in the credits. There is a great scene where Sean roars up in his black Trans-am and takes on three fully laden cop cars and a helicopter. Unfortunately for the police their cars weren’t fitted with gravity as they immediately start flying in the air as Sean pops his pistol at them.

Bean is a decent actor but he lacks the presence of Rutger and his character’s lack of backstory just made him dull rather than enigmatic. The two leads were forgettable with the girl especially poor as she tried to kick ass with a shotgun but only managed to pull off ‘slightly daft looking’ instead.

There were plenty of killings and gore if that’s your thing, but for me it was a bit too on the nose with Bean being a force of nature, killing everyone with a single shot whilst being invulnerable himself.

This one pales next to the original, but as a throwaway on Amazon Prime it does have its moments and doesn’t ask too much of you as it delivers them.

The Tag Line : Give It a Ride!  55%

No.236 : The Overnight (2015)

First world problems now, as four yuppies spend a night worrying about their genitals and whether the bottle of wine they’ve brought is an acceptable gift.

Adam Scott and her off ’Orange is the New Black’ star as Alex and Emily, a Seattle couple who have recently moved to L.A. with their young son. They are having trouble with their sex life due to their kid bursting in at the wrong moment and for reasons that are explored later on.

They have had trouble making friends in their first two week as Angelinos, but things look up when they are approached by Jason Schwartzman after his and their kids start playing together. Jason seems a bit of a douche but they agree to go over to his later for a playdate with their kids and so the adults can enjoy some pizza - and a night they’ll never forget!

Things start out OK,  but gradually get stranger as Jason shows off his ‘butthole’ paintings and his wife’s hit breast feeding video. The hipster couple notice some reticence on the part of Alex and Emily when they refuse to go skinny dipping with them, especially when exposed to Jason’s extra large, and clearly fake dong. Alex admits he has a small penis and is ashamed of it. After some illicit substances and a pep talk from Jason he bares all and the couples get closer and closer.

How will the long night end and what will we learn about those involved?

This was an enjoyable if somewhat slight film that was shot over 12 days and takes place almost exclusively in a fancy L.A. house. There are no big set pieces or special effects and it is basically the four characters hitting off each other and gradually giving more and more away. I liked the slow burn with the breast feeding DVD the first inkling that things may not be as mundane as we initially thought.

The skinny dipping scene was funny, but they shouldn’t have used such obviously fake cocks as that took us straight out of any reality the film had earned. I’d imagine the two name actors wanted it to be clear and obvious that the tackle on display was not theirs.

There were a couple of laughs though, and not too much focus on relationships, which was a relief. I liked how the weirdness of the L.A. couple was just taken as a given with each outrageous revelation being met with barely a shrug.

The ending was somewhat unexpected and quite brave given what had gone before. Our uptight heroes did unwind very quickly but I guess a mixture of space cake and built up repression will do that for you.

Overall an enjoyable ensemble piece with good performances and a funny script that zinged along, without too many life lessons being offered.

THE Tag Line : Rubber Chicken? No, It’s a Cock  67%

No.235 : The Irishman (2019)

 

The Irishman at the IMDb

I’d put off watching ‘The Irishman’ due to its infamous length of over three hours, but having watched it in two sessions it just flew by and it’s certainly one you should look up. That said it could have done with some serious editing with a lot of stuff padded out, or not really necessary to tell the story.

The Irishman of the title is Frank Sheeran, a hit man and union leader played by Robert De Niro. We meet him at first in an old folks home where he’s recounting his story to an unseen person. His story dissolves to a flashback where he, Joe Pesci and their wives are heading to a wedding. Their car breaks down and De Niro and Pesci reminisce about how they first met. So the flashback becomes a further flashback to the days when De Niro was a truck driver and Pesci a gang boss.

De Niro soon rises through the ranks of the local mob by ‘painting houses’ a euphemism for whacking people, normally with a couple of shots in the back of the head meaning their walls get a nice bit of decoration. Pesci's mob boss works closely with the Teamsters trucking union which is run by Jimmy Hoffa (Al Pacino) and De Niro is loaned to him to help out with some business. He later becomes a union organiser himself and as the years pass we witness their involvement in the Bay of Pigs and Kennedy assassination amongst other dubious events.

Meanwhile De Niro is estranged from his four daughters, mainly because he’s such a big psycho that beats up the local grocer and for all the murders. The pivotal event of the film is the famous disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa and it is covered in some detail. Seemingly the facts are disputed but the film certainly hitches its wagon to real life confession of Frank.

We meet loads of other gangsters and the film helpfully adds captions giving their names and how they met their demise - not many died of natural causes! Eventually we are back in the care home with De Niro nearing the end of his days with all his contemporaries having gone before him. Can he find redemption from the church and can he reconcile with his family?

This was a great film that was very much in the same style as ‘Goodfellas’ and ‘Casino’. I don’t think it was as good as those films, but they do set a high mark. Essentially you get a trip through 40 years of gangland violence and racketeering set against the soundtrack of the time. It is well documented that the three leads were de-aged by computer and the effect was generally good. I didn’t buy that the 70 year old plus actors were in their 40s but they certainly didn’t look their years.

The sets and costumes were great and the evocation of the eras depicted was well done. The film was too long however, and I think it could have been boiled down to two hours or at least turned into a 4 part mini series. The depiction of Hoffa’s last hours went on for an age and I don’t see what all the talk of a fish did to help the flow of the scenes. You could say it built tension, but I was losing interest as they rambled on about whether it was a cod or halibut.

There were some great supporting performances too with people like Stephen Graham, Jessie Plemons, Bobbie Cannavale and an under used Harvey Keitel all getting a look in.

Overall the film is worth the investment of your time. I think director Martin Scorsese was probably given too much of a free hand as the film was allowed to ramble and go off into irrelevant tangents, so maybe a non-director’s cut is the one to look out for!

Best Bit : Grocer gets checked out    75%

No.234 : The Freebie (2011)

 

The Freebie at the IMDb

Here we are with a strong contender for the worst Definite Article film of all! This was a ghastly effort that was predictable, dull and irritating in equal measures.

Starring Dax Shepard, whom we liked in ‘Employee of the Month’, this is an achingly trendy independent film that follows the emotional angst of a young couple, Annie and Darren. The two haven’t had sex in living memory and are worried that their relationship has lost its spark. At a dinner party, with their equally douche bag friends, they discuss being free and what it would be like to have sex with someone else and see a person, other than your partner, naked.

At this point I thought they were going to let each other have a freebie (the clue is in the title) and then their relationship would flounder over jealousy and recriminations. That is exactly what happened; but it was even worse - we were also treated to a good half hour of our unlikeable pair yelling at each other and name calling, before reconciling. 

After the agreement was reached the two head out on their respective quest for their hole and here were found the only bits of the film that were half decent. Both had been out of the dating game for some time and their clumsy manoeuvring was quite fun. Dax hooks up with a barista he’d flirted with and Annie takes a bar tender into the bogs.

Both get hot and heavy but it is left unclear whether either or both actually sealed the deal. Back at home jealousy takes over with  Dax being a total dick and calling Annie a slut. Hypocrite warning! The relationship starts to shatter and sobbing and name calling continue for far too long. Annie then says she didn’t go through with the dirty deed, but we don’t know if this is true or whether she is just trying to salvage the marriage which is frankly moribund already. As the film ends the pair are back together but can what has been done and said ever be forgotten?

This film played out like some pretentious actors’ workshop. It looked like it wasn’t scripted with them just yelling random stuff at each other. There was basically no plot either with the whole thing a tiresome examination of relationships and moral values. I could see some tosspots at a workshop musing over the characters’ motivations and problem people having a good old inward search as a result of being exposed to this effort.

The film used a non-linear narrative to throw clips of the nights out into the contemporaneous discussions of them. The idea here was to drip feed us ‘evidence’ but it just made the film a jumbled mess.

For me it was dull and predictable with the added ingredient of spending 77 minutes with unlikeable people with their first world, self-manufactured problems. I guess the motivation here was to ask the viewer ’what would you do?’ - easy response - Don’t watch this guff. 

The Tag Line : Don’t Watch This Guff!  12%

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.232 : The Klansman (1974)

 

The Klansman at the IMDb

Well, this should be good - a 70’s thriller starring Lee Marvin and Richard Burton. Actually no, this is probably one to avoid given that possession of a copy would probably be classed as a hate crime. The film has seemingly fallen into the public domain as the copyright wasn’t renewed, probably due to the potential embarrassment ownership of the film would confer.

Still we’re no snowflakes here at the Definitive Blog and censorship is never a good thing so let’s have a look. The film starts well with sheriff Lee Marvin driving along to a funky Stax Records soundtrack. Sadly he soon arrives  at the scene of a boorish mob cheering on a retarded fat black man who is pulling the clothes off a terrified woman. Rather than arrest everyone Marvin sends them home after making sure the simpleton gets his $1 pay day.

The Alabama county does however sit up and take notice when Linda Evans gets raped in her car by an unseen assailant. The Ku Klux Klan decide it was probably a black man who did the crime and they set off for a good old fashioned Southern lynching. They chance upon OJ Simpson and his pal and, although OJ gets away (again!), his friend gets shot up after a frankly pointless castration.

Meanwhile aged landowner with indeterminate accent Richard Burton is in bed with his sexy naked girlfriend. Richard looks the worse for wear but is wearing his natty pjs. His girlfriend wants to get married and isn’t happy that Burton is hosting an civil rights activist fearing that he’ll will be after her ‘chocolate milk’. Think he’s after something stronger, Love.

OJ is hell bent on revenge and dresses up as a Klansman to lure out and kill one of the good old boys. To further make his point the shoots the bloke carrying the flaming cross at his first victim’s funeral. Marvin knows OJ is the killer but is either a bit lazy or happy to let things sort themselves out.

Burton moves in Linda Evans after the townsfolk cast her out for getting raped and also helps the activist Loretta after she gets raped too. Bit of a theme developing here?

Eventually things come to a head and sides have to be picked. As a mass of walking bed sheets approach Burton’s mansion we have to guess who will survive and will racism be solved for good?

If you hadn’t seen this film you wouldn’t believe it existed. First off, the two leads are pissed throughout, with staggering and slurred dialogue the norm. There is one fantastic scene near the end where Burton, and his poorly matched stuntman beat up a tough with a variety of karate chops. It is laugh out loud funny but does distract from the drama somewhat.

Marvin’s motivation is confused throughout, with him looking on impotently as rapes and murders are happening all over town. He has a son going to West Point so he may be trying to break the cycle of local idiocy, but he’s too steaming to convey any emotion or impassioned pleas.

The politics are probably well meaning, with the Klan members depicted as a bunch of red necks. It is quite a broad brush approach however, especially when rape victim Evans gets the ire of the townsfolk when she dares to show her face in church after being raped.

There are plenty of murders and the pace is reasonable, but you really can’t condone a film where rape and murder are abundant but dwarfed by endless racial abuse. The baddies may get their comeuppance, at a price, but you’ll feel like a good scrub having sat through this whole cavalcade of horrors.

The TAG Line : How Not to Manage Race Relations 40%

No.231 : The Woodsman (2004)

 

The Woodsman at the IMDb

It’s a brave choice to have a convicted paedophile as your protagonist especially when it’s a self confessed one like Walter, who still has the urge.

Walter has zero degrees of Kevin Bacon and we meet him as he’s discharged from prison from a 12 year stretch for child molestation. He picks up his old job at a woodworking factory with his former boss’s son letting him know he needs to keep it zipped up.

Walter also checks in with his therapist, blog favourite Michael Shannon, and gets visited by slow talking cop Mos Def, who doesn’t believe that Walter, or indeed any kiddie fiddler, is capable of being reformed.

The woodworking shop seems a great place to work, as the creepy Walter quickly gets two ladies coming onto him. He rebuffs the first’s offer of a chicken sandwich but ends up in bed with the second, Bacon’s real life wife Kyra Sedgwick. He has made the right choice, but the spurned chicken sandwich lady makes trouble for Walter by letting his past be known to all.

Strangely Walter’s new flat looks onto a children’s play park, but it is just the correct number of feet from him to be deemed safe. It also lets him watch the children and a suspect bloke he christens ’Candy’ who is taking an unnatural interest in the little boys - takes one to know one is clearly the message.

Walter’s relationship takes a stumble when he confesses to Kyra about his past but they get back together when he reveals details of his sordid activities - having little girls sit on you lap apparently isn’t so bad. Can Walter escape his urges and will he turn from villain to hero as Candy graduates from sweetie distribution to full on molesting?

This was a difficult film to watch, with some uncomfortable scenes, but overall it was excellent and thought provoking. I liked how Walter wasn’t drawn in black and white and Bacon did well showing his character struggling with his urges. At first we thought he’d reformed but there was a scene near the end where he skirts close to the edge which will have you watching it through your fingers.

Shannon was underused and wore a bad wig and I wasn’t buying Mos Def as the copper, but the rest of the cast were great as was the writing which kept me guessing. The film could have gone a couple of ways, but I liked the outcome and the hope for redemption. ‘The Woodcutter’ of the title is the man who frees the children from the wolf’s stomach - is Walter the axe man or the wolf?

The lines drawn weren’t clear and, although a self confessed nonce, you still retained some sympathy for Walter and his unhealthy struggles which is testament to the quality of the writing and the sizzling performance from Bacon.

Not an easy watch, but a worthwhile and thought provoking one.

The Tag Line - Got Wood? Run Away! 74%

No.230 : The Blob (1958)

 

The Blob at the IMDb

Every one loves Steve McQueen, but what about this early offering for ‘Steven McQueen’? Well I can tell you it’s dreadful and Steve rightly dropped the ‘N’ to avoid association with this turkey. To be fair it would probably never have seen light after its initial release if it wasn’t for the appearance of the star man who was 'a getting on a bit' 28 when the film was made.

Steven plays ‘Steve’ a high school kid out on a no nonsense date with his stuffy girlfriend. They see a meteor land and go to have a look. Meanwhile the object has already been found by a hill billy farmer who pokes it with a broom handle. Huge mistake as a blob of jelly affixes itself to his arm. He goes running about in the road and is picked up by Steve who administers the time honoured cure of putting a jacket over him.

They head into town and dump the old coot with a doctor who summons his nurse to help. Soon the two are absorbed by the blob which is gaining size and a reddish colour. Steve meanwhile wastes ten minutes facing off some dudes who want a drag race but eventually he realises the blob is a threat to the town and starts to annoy the police. He narrowly escapes its blobby clutches when hiding out in a meat freezer (remember that for later!) before the blob heads to a movie theatre for some people popcorn.

After some off screen horror the police and the fire department show up, but Steve, his date, a cute kid and some Italian stereotypes are trapped in a diner which is now enveloped in the massive blob. Can they be saved and can this red menace be defeated?

This was a laughable piece of nonsense, but it was also boring and badly acted. The special effects were very poor with the blob being either shown in forced perspective or in a form of animation that Walt Disney’s dog could have bettered.

McQueen shows none of the charisma he’s later known for and looks too skinny and old for the high school hero role. He isn’t helped much by a uniformly dreadful cast who look like they have been pulled off the street to deliver their stilted dialogue.

I’m not sure if there was a metaphor in place here - the red menace was a bit on the nose and it was hardly a clever ‘body snatchers’ type analogy. Basically what you get is people screaming and being absorbed off screen. At one point the police chief says ‘it must have killed at least 50 or 60 people’  thanks very much for the zero we saw - even the dog escaping wasn’t shown, and only mentioned.

I was surprised the film was in colour, but apart from that it was just as dreadful as I’d imagined and I just wish I’d kept avoiding it. You may get some jollies laughing at the rubbish special effects and some early McQueen embarrassment, but I’d advise that you avoid ‘The Blob’ - not to avoid absorption but to avoid boredom.

THE Tag Line : Bad Job Blob  32%