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.200 : The Quarry (2020)

The Quarry at the IMDb

This film has a clever title; it’s not just about someone being on the hunt for their quarry, but bits of it are set in a quarry too!

A priest is driving along an empty Texas road, whilst hammering the communion wine, when he sees a body lying by side of the street. He helps the man into his car and we see that it’s Nucky’s brother off ‘Boardwalk Empire’. The two don’t say much but the priest buys his new friend dinner whilst still swigging the wine.

He stops at a quarry - huge mistake - to sober up before heading into town. The two argue and the priest gets killed after being bashed on the head with a bottle. Our drifter cuts his hand and bandages it with the dead man’s shirt before hiding the body in a frankly piss-poor grave.

He rifles through the priest’s effects and learns that he is to take over as pastor in the small town nearby. Short of anything better to do he heads into town and parks his van at the lodgings next to the church and assumes the dead man’s identity. He meets housekeeper Celia who tells his to get his stuff out the van lest it all be stolen but he lays down for an early night instead. Next morning he finds his van emptied with even the wheels missing. Well, he was warned.

He contacts police chief Van Arlen who just happens to be bedding the pretty Mexican housekeeper. He makes some enquires and soon some local youths are fingered for the robbery. They turn out to be the housekeepers cousins - small world!

Having taken on the pastor’s identity our man is obliged to give sermons and, before you know it, he’s a smash hit offering both baptisms and funerals. Trouble awaits however as the priest’s body is found and the cousins know the drifter is not all he seems. They however get fingered for the crime due to the priest's bloody clothes being found in their home after their van heist. Van Arlen isn't convinced about the town's new pastor however and some clues may save the cousin from the noose. Will the correct person pay for the murder and will the wheels get back on the van quicker than they fell from this production?

This film was a real wasted opportunity with a ‘Boardwalk Empire’ cast reunion pissed away on a lacklustre offering that meandered along, with a go nowhere script and character development that didn’t make sense. The first half hour was good, and I was looking forward to the noose tightening as the drifter’s story fell apart. The whole ‘flowers in the quarry’ angle didn’t make sense nor did the murder confession or the eventual finale.

We didn’t get much in the way of back-story to the drifter’s character so his struggles didn’t resonate and his moments of clarity seemed at odds with what we knew of him. You could tell he was conflicted, what with the dead priest showing up and telling him off, but his mumbly performance in court and the denouement in the boat didn’t ring true at all. Michael Shannon did his usual shouty starey bit but he was wasted here, mostly reacting rather than doing. There was no detective angle with things like the missing wanted poster and shirt sleeve bandage not being followed through.

I get that our man was on a path to redemption and salvation, or at least that was the intent, but in reality he was just a murdering scumbag who was not very good at covering his trail. I wanted to like this film, as it had good ingredients, but alas it fell well short of the sum of its parts.

THE Tag Line - Quarry Digs Self Into Hole 54%

No.175 : The Bookshop (2017)

The Bookshop at the IMDb

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

No.90 : The Specialist (1994)

The Specialist at The IMDb

 It’s not often we cover tent pole release films here at The Definite Article Movie Blog but sometimes they show up on ITV4 and you have to justify why you are watching when the shower scene comes on.

You probably saw this film, like I did when, it came out in 1994 but if you haven’t seen it lately beware - it’s dated worse than Hugh Hefner in flares.

Sly Stallone stars as Ray an explosives expert who may be all broody or just a bit slow. Suffice it so say he needs several puffs on his huge cigar before his words of wisdom are slurred out - I blame that Apollo Creed. We meet Ray back in the old days when he and James Woods are a couple of black-ops guys taking on the cartels. Sly has a conscience and when the drug lord shows up on the rigged to explode bridge with his daughter he tries to stop the death fest. Woods on the other hand is a bastard (who follows orders, it has to be said) and pistol whips Sly when his attempted rescue fails like his bid to defeat Clubber Lang (in the first fight).

The two part on bad terms but we know the daft looking flashback with the aging actors pretending to be young has to suggest their paths will cross again. We move to present day Miami and Sly is in contact with a mysterious woman we know to be Sharon Stone. She’s trying to get Sly to kill three men who killed her pop when she was a little girl. Sly is cautious and conducts all his business on the phone using the first laptop in history to get his messages.

Sharon can’t wait for Sly (despite hanging about 40 years to start her plan) and tries to get inside the bad guys’ gang by dating slimy Eric Roberts who ordered her dad’s killing. Sly watches on as Roberts plays grabby hands with Sharon and eventually agrees to take on the hits.  He takes out the two henchmen first alerting Roberts to his existence and causing him to hire James Woods from that earlier paragraph. As Sly prepares his hit on Roberts we learn that he and Sharon and Woods have a plan of their own to trap Ray - but has Sharon fallen for the punch drunk pyromaniac?

Soon the pieces start to fall into place and Sly falls into Sharon - can the pair trust each other and get away from the increasingly overacting Woods and grieving Rod Steiger?

This is a gawd awful effort of a film but you have to say some of that is down to the dated fashions, technology and Kenny G soundtrack that has a wailing sax in every scene. There is however some stuff you can't excuse such as Sly doing tai-chi in his pants to a power ballad intercut with Sharon flouncing about in her nighty. If they were trying for ‘sexy’ they got stuck on ‘laughable’.

The film does try to have an almost film noir feel with moody glances and a sense that the characters are doomed or at least a bit troubled. The truth is they largely look like they’ve been on a frenzy of steroids and shoulder pads before finding out that the acting school has been burnt down.

Sly is pretty much as you’d expect and he does have some moments including one where he takes the bus (?) and beats up a gang of rowdies for no apparent reason. Stone is dreadful as the wronged daughter seeking revenge and she’s way too old for Eric Roberts who is meant to be at least 20 years her senior but looks more like her young son. Poor old Rod Steiger shows up in a dreadful role as a maniacal Mafia boss and he may be playing it for laughs, I couldn’t tell. Worst was Woods who as an explosives expert he makes a convincing actor who needs a new agent.

The explosions and sex scenes may garner this turkey pass marks but it is about as involving and affecting and finding out that your newspaper is missing its promised ‘Investing in Kazakhstan’ supplement.

THE Tag Line - It’s about an hour or so in..       54%

No.55 : The Job (2009)

The Job at the IMDb

The economic downturn is the backdrop to this decent but ultimately unsatisfying parable about greed and what desperate people will do in desperate circumstances.

We open with our hero Bubba checking the want ads. He’s had three jobs in a month and can’t even afford the special at the diner where his potential girlfriend works. His job search is interrupted when the fast talking Ron ‘Hellboy’ Perlman shows up and gives him his leftovers. We soon learn that our man is a decent, if somewhat naïve, man who offers the stranger a bed for the night.

Ron is an enigmatic character who sets his watch for 72 hours whenever he blows into town as 3 days is as much as he can take of any one place. As a thank you Ron gives our man a job lead that he himself was given and so he sets off in his good suit.

The job interview is a strange to say the least with Joe Pantoliano, who looks like Rob Newman doing ‘History Today’, offering a lucrative contract to strangle a man. The strange thing is the man to be strangled and his wife are sitting in on the chat and quite happy to go over the details. It seems the victim has crossed his wife’s father and has accepted his fate.

Bubba is shocked at first but the prospect of $200k is tempting. He confides in Ron who on seeing his predicament offers to do the job for him for half the money. This seems like a good deal but in this work nothing is what it seems and the offer of easy money always comes with strings attached , especially in mortality tales like this one.

This film started out well and I liked its other worldly feel where everything was a little off kilter and not what it seemed. It did however lack a full 90 minutes worth of plot and I found myself nodding off before the big reveal as to who was the really bad guy and who were just the pawns.

Patrick Flueger did well with the lead role of Bubba, an everyman loser with not a lot going his way. He fancies the waitress but can’t make a move as he’s got no money. His morality shift was a bit sudden and given the waitress was a bit plain I wasn’t too convinced. Ron Perlman, whom I’ve got a lot of time for, was a bit over the top and although he was playing a huckster type it just came across as frantic over acting.

The general mood of the film was depressing and although there were a couple of smiles it was a generally downward spiral from the off. The sombre mood, muted palette and downbeat score mean that it is a hard film to enjoy and the meandering and unsubstantial pay off will make you wonder why you bothered staying the course.

THE Tag Line : Retire ‘The Job’ Early 54%

No.29 : The International (2009)

The International at the IMDb

Here’s a film with a tough sell ; Clive Owen takes on a nasty bank. Is there any other kind? the world and his reviewing pals was heard to mutter. This bank isn’t interested in money however, they want power and influence and then money. If Goldman Sachs can make a billion a month you have to wonder why they bother. More fun most likely.

The film opens with Clive on a meet with a potential witness. Clive keeps lookout while his colleague gets the dirt on the titular bankers. As you’d guess it goes tits up when the partner gets it and it’s now personal for Clive.

Our man works for Interpol and has been frustrated by the lack of progress in his quest to bring the money men down. He’s helped along in some small measure by Naomi Watts’ ineffectual sidekick and a few cannon fodder cops. Clive’s early successes are soon undone by Neil from the Swindon branch and when a helpful Italian is shot the trail dries up. Luckily so does a puddle with the assassin’s boot print in it and soon we leave Europe for New York for a big shoot out at the Guggenheim that looks totally tacked on after the test screenings bombed and all the principles where in the USA when re-shoots were ordered.

With the net beginning to close around the bad guys Clive gives Naomi the rest of the movie off as he heads to Turkey for a disappointing finale.

With the cast in play here and a budget worthy of their attentions I had high hopes for ‘The International’ but ended up feeling a little overdrawn. Owen basically plays his ‘Children of Men’ bit with the dishevelled look and the don’t care for the consequences demeanour. He’s called ‘Salinger’ just to emphasise the loner bit and he frankly gets very little investment from the viewer. He’s got issues and sticks his head into a sink full of ice but it’s never really explored and we’re left to think his motivation is down to the poor interest rate on his ‘Super saver’ account.

The pedestrian pace of the film doesn’t help either with the running time a bloated two hours. There are inexplicable scenes where two dull men discuss the motivations of money and power and corruption and honour and I’m boring myself just remembering it. The action scenes are tacked on to an unbelievable degree with an hour of meetings interrupted by a ten minute gun battle before more meetings. In truth the museum shoot out is well realised but really far fetched with guns firing endless bullets and the cops no where to be seen in the biggest shoot out since the OK Corral.

The second string cast are pretty decent with a few familiar but unnameable faces showing up and doing a turn. It was funny to see Neil out of ‘The Office’ as a slimy lawyer who ends up getting it in the tunnel, but not in a good way.

There was probably a good film in here somewhere but it wasn’t the effort that ended up on the screen. Having the baddies as a bunch of suits was never going to pay off and the idea that they’d leverage the company to bankruptcy on a flimsy deal was totally unbelievable. Oh wait…

THE Tag Line : Overdrawn Bank Yarn Yields Little Interest 54%

No.24 : The Offence (1973)

The Offence at the IMDb

What’s that? You want a grim 1973 talk fest with beatings and shouting aplenty? Well I think we can accommodate you there…

‘The Offence’ stars Sean Connery in a role that screams ’I’m not James Bond’. He plays Johnston a jaded British detective who has seen one nonce too many. The film opens with a blurry shot of the moustachioed Sean standing over a room full of decked coppers. What follows is a series of scenes that explain how we got there. The narrative isn’t always linear and we get lots of jumps throughout the time line and into Johnston’s past.

The police are on the trail of a kiddie fiddler who has struck twice already. After a failed stake out they are angry to learn that he’s struck a third time but at least now they have a witness. They get their man in the shape of Ian Bannen but although he was in the area and is covered in mud they still need a confession - no DNA profiling or CCTV to nail the case here, CSI followers.

After a few abortive interviews Johnston is left alone with the suspect and things predictably kick off. We don’t immediately learn what went down but we know Johnston has given the nonce a kicking and he’s sent home by his bosses. We follow Johnston home and witness an interminable half hour argument with his wife before he’s mercifully hauled back to the station after learning that the suspect has died following the ‘interrogation’.

Johnston gets a grilling from a Chief Inspector and we slowly learn that he’s snapped after attending one too many gruesome crime scenes. As he breaks down we get to see his confrontation with the suspect and things eventually swing back to the opening scene where we understand how Johnston got to be in this position.

This is another film where it’s origins on the stage are painfully obvious. Basically for your money you get Sean shouting and overacting to his wife, the Chief and the nonce. These all last for about 30 minutes and although some may see it as a powerful acting performance and a man’s soul being laid bare I saw it as all a bit dull.

Connery is always good value but his dialogue didn’t ring true and the verbal sparring often came across as clever writing rather than believable exchanges. His attempts to distance himself from Bond amounted to growing a moustache and wearing a sheepskin coat and frankly he shouldn’t have bothered - what you’d give for a witty one liner or fancy gadget in the midst of this depressing onslaught.

It was a good idea to move the narrative about and it did serve to keep your interest but I wasn’t convinced about the disintegration of Connery’s character and he seemed to go from hard nut to simpering baby in nothing flat.

I did like Ian Bannen as the smug suspect, and he’s obviously the main acting talent on show, but he didn’t quite have the menace and antagonizing qualities needed to render Connery’s character shift believable. The wife scene occupies the middle third of the film and it was hard to avoid the FF button when the moany mare went over Sean’s shortcoming from the comfort of her dressing gown once gain. She certainly didn’t have the look of a woman who could catch James Bond and looked more like a rejected Mrs Overall.

The film seems to have garnered some critical praise but some people butter up anything with edgy subject matter and a lot of shouting. For me it was a depressing experience and one I’d avoid like Ian Bannen in a playground.

THE Tag Line : No Defence For The Offence 54%