No.218 : The Gambler (1974)

The Gambler (1974)

With our revolutionary new policy of adding the year of release after the film’s title we can now do pair ups of same named films. These may be remakes & originals or just the same name, different film. The options are literally two.

First up in this double bill-athon is the original ‘The Gambler’ from 1974. Don’t fret, there’s no Kenny Rogers in sight - this is a gritty look at the world of betting and gangsters.

James Caan plays ‘Axel’ a literary professor who is an inveterate gambler. We see him at first in a back street joint losing $44k - and that was a lot of money in 1974 - over a quarter of a million in today’s bucks. It’s not clear at first why get gets so much credit but we soon learn he comes from a rich family who bail him out. He has a lovely girlfriend in Lauren Hutton and a sweet Mustang, but he still needs his gambling hit.

He manages to get his mother to give him the cash, who extracts it from James Woods' slimy banker, but he’s straight off to Vegas to gamble it up. Despite winning, he soon loses the lot and more owing to his habit of picking the losers in every basketball match.

With Lauren fed up and his family despairing, Caan has one last card to play - will he get out from under or is he in a death spiral, from which there is no escape?

That quick summary covers more or less all of the plot, in what is a pretty straightforward film. As soon as we meet Caan he’s in a hole, a hole that he manages to make progressively worse as the film goes on. It was a great lesson in observation with many classic gambling traits rote large. He explains that he needs the action, so even when he’s ahead, it’s never enough. He’s a brave man as a cavalcade of familiar mob leg breakers dog his every step including Paul Sorvino and Paulie off ‘Rocky’.

Caan was excellent as the tunnel visioned Axel, who couldn’t see beyond the next big score. The film did show the highs of being a gambler too, with a great sequence in Vegas seeing him ride his luck to the point he was hitting on 18 as he knew a ‘3’ would be the next card. It never lasts though!

The chaos he creates for his family and friends was well done with his mother a picture of resignation. There was some confusion about where he was with his debts and who he owed, but I guess that would be a deliberate ploy to show how mixed up Axel’s life was. There were loads of great character actors on show with Huggy Bear being a standout at the end as , you’ll never guess, a pimp.

I felt the film should have ended with the climatic basketball matched but it meandered another ten minutes just to show that the spiral would continue as greater thrills were sought. Some things are better implied, but at least we got Huggy shouting some jive.

Overall this was a great character piece that was well observed and acted and it may even make you think twice the next time you fancy £5 on ‘Lucky Lad‘ in the Chepstow 5.15.

THE Tag Line : Take a bet on this  78%

No.159 : The Witch (2015)

The Witch at the IMDb

Some sources say the correct title for this film is ‘The Vvitch’ (with 2 Vs) but given my VV blog is still in it’s infancy we’ll settle for our own alphabet, thanks very much.

The film is subtitled ‘A New England folk tale’ but this isn’t one you’d want to hear around a camp fire or indeed around goats.

We open with Chris Finch (great rep.) being expelled from a township in 1620’s America. The rift is either over religion or the Swindon lot not taking to him; that much isn’t explained. The town council are all in puritan garb and it’s likely that Finchy has fallen foul of their dress code.

He and his wife and their four kids are herded out of the safety of the fenced village and are left to make their own way in the world. Things seems to start off OK, as we rejoin them a year or so later with a new born son, Samuel, and a sizeable farm holding next to a dark and foreboding forest. Like ‘The Village’ the forest is a no go area, but a failed harvest means that may have to change.

Finchy’s hand is forced when Samuel disappears after a game of ‘peek-a-boo’ with his eldest daughter Thomasin. The family plan to hunt for the child but we the viewer have already seen him spirited away and killed by a witch who uses the unbaptised infant’s blood for some mad ritual.

Things don’t get much better for the family as their corn rots, the goat’s milk turns bloody and their eggs are slightly off. Added to the mix is the loss of their dog, horse and son Caleb. Caleb and Thomasin tried to find some grub for the family but it ended badly when Caleb stumbled onto the Witch’s home. She looked lovely to begin with but as is often the case she became an old hag up close. Sadly Caleb was lured in as we’d seen him ogling his sister's chest previously, and the witch was very busty.

Caleb is returned to the family a day later, but naked and spewing up apples. It’s like that Ibiza holiday all over again. The family start to turn on each other - is there a witch in their midst? The accusations fly and home truths are revealed. Are they all as virtuous as they may have signalled? Can they survive this onslaught and will it be done before Chasers opens?

I liked this spooky and nihilistic tale of seemingly good people being pulled apart by supernatural forces. Basically they didn’t have a chance from the off with the Witch’s powers and the family’s blind faith making for a deadly mix.

It was a bit off putting at first that ye olde English was spoken throughout but you soon get to grips with it. Finchy and Kate Dickie as Mum and Dad were great as was Harvey Scrimshaw playing Caleb. I was less taken with Anya Taylor-Joy in the pivotal part of Thomasin, who was a bit too clean and pretty amidst all the plight. Maybe that’s your clue!

There were some genuinely disturbing scenes especially towards the end, when the family’s goat Black Phillip starts to make his move. There were a lot of images that will stay with you and some were the stuff of nightmares.

I’m not sure what we learned with this film but ‘stay out of the woods’ would seem like sage advice!

The Tag Line - Talk to Me! 78%

No.100 : The Serpent (2006)

The Serpent at the IMDb

 Sub-titled French movies aren’t a staple of The Definite Article Movie Review but this one is well worth a look, not least because Bond Girl Olga Kurylenko shows us what she’s made of.

An old chap thinks he’s got lucky when the sexy Olga goes on a blind date with him but you get nothing for nothing and soon a sinister gang of blackmailers is on his tail. He pays up but it’s never enough. We think he’s being used to show us how the gang operates but he will reappear down the line so remember him and his hearing aid!

The bad guys look for their next mark and choose Vincent. We think he’s been targeted at random but nothing is what it seems in this labyrinth plot. Vincent is a fashion photographer in the midst of a messy divorce from his wife with whom he is still living. He arranged a shoot for the next day and is surprised to find Olga is his late replacement model and his helpers can’t come in as they have been beaten up. The shoot goes well and Vincent thinks his luck is in when Olga gives him a nice kiss - and she’s a scratcher too! Alas he has to run but next day the cops charge him with attempted rape.

The charges are dropped and Olga comes by to tell him he’s been targeted in a scam. Just as we are starting to think she’s nice she drugs his drink and soon the whole gang arrives to photograph Vincent in some kinky poses. He revives just in time to see Olga leave and as he chases after her she falls from his unnecessarily dangerous staircase, seemingly to her death. Vincent, who is already on the police’s radar, calls his lawyer who, on finding no trace of the body, thinks his client is nuts. Things get worse for Vincent however when he’s rear ended and finds Olga’s body in his boot and the cops have just arrived.

The other driver reveals himself to be an old school friend of Vincent’s and he arranges to get the car fixed and the body disposed of - you don’t get that service from Aviva! The body hider, Plender, starts to turn the screws looking for cash and a few free dinners at Vincent’s.  Our man starts to investigate his menacing friend and after his lawyer is killed he realises that the noose is tightening. Charged with murder Vincent goes on the run - can he turn the tables on the blackmailer and save his family from the freezer of doom?

I enjoyed this superior thriller and although it was a bit long there were enough twists to keep me interested. I liked how the troubles piled up on Vincent and it was hard to see how he could escape the elaborate traps that had been set by the dead-eyed Plender. The ending was a little too pat for my liking but I did enjoy the twists most notably the grave robbing!

Yvan Attal was excellent in the lead role as the troubled Vincent as was Clovis Cornillac as the malevolent Plender. Plender’s motivation was well documented but it was a bit unclear why he waited for his Mum to die before focusing on Vincent. Maybe it sent him over the edge or he’s just got plenty of patience. The blackmailing scenes were well done with the poor suckers reeled in by the slick and sexy operation and I liked the creepy shine to the dear departed mother.

All in all this was an enjoyable Gallic thriller with my only real complaint the title - not a serpent in sight apart from the tattoo on the bad guys back - should have called it ‘French Blackmail/Revenge Film’ - at least that does what it says on the tin!

78% Best Bit - Olga’s lingerie shoot

No.49 : The Horde (2009)

The Horde at the IMDb

My totally legitimate and well subtitled copy of the French zombie thriller ‘La Horde’ gave the title in translation as ‘Legion of Evil’. That hardly fits a definitive article quest but given the UK release is ‘The Horde’ and that the subtitle for a man getting his face eaten was ”Gracious me!” I think we are on safe ground.

If you’ve seen pretty much any zombie film, you’ve see ‘The Horde’ - but this time it’s in French! The usual rules apply about only head shots killing and bites being infected but I’m happy with that - what if they introduced flying zombies? The purists would be apoplectic!

Some less well viewed reviewers have likened this film to ‘Rec’ but apart from it happening in a building with a monstrous twist I don’t really see it. The film opens with a piss poor police raid on a block of derelict flats. We’re not quite sure that they are cops as they are a bit quick to stab up the guards but basically they are on a raid. They get to the flat but the intervention of a trigger happy superintendant and training that must have come from the British Secret Service causes things to go tits up.

The bad guys quickly off a couple of the cops and are about to wipe them out when one of the dead gets up to eats a bit of face. As in all these films there is a caveat that none of the characters have never seen a zombie film or played ‘Resident Evil’ because no one shouts ‘Shite it’s a horde of zombies’ instead they all flap about saying ‘what’s going on’ in French.

Soon we are down to three cops and three bad guys and they then get sub divided into a two and a four. Of the two the sexy lady cop has a bitten colleague for company and he’s starting to turn. Luckily she’s handy with a gun and indeed a fridge. Meanwhile the foursome meet a wacky axe man resident who has a penchant for zombie tits and then split up when a long simmering dynamic in the bad guy hierarchy boils over.

As they try to escape the building the horde closes in and as numbers dwindle we have to wonder if they’ll do the tired old route of having the seemingly weakest character, the lady, being the sole survivor. Of course they do!

Despite its formulaic plot and set up there is a lot to like in ‘The Horde’ and I enjoyed it throughout. The zombie action doesn’t rear up until about a third of the way in but by then you’ve had time to invest a little in the characters before they get eaten. I liked the relatively slow build up with the chaos in the city beyond only seen fleetingly in reflections and the like. If this were a student film you’d suspect that this was a cost saving device but not here because the cast of ravenous thousands is soon revealed in all its blood splattered glory.

They do well to mix up the formula with some great fight scenes between characters and zombies with all manner of implements and household appliances roped in to help the carnage. It does help that this is the best tooled up apartment block in all of France with industrial machine guns and grenades lying about all over the place.

I’m not sure but I think there were a couple of bits of commentary about France’s colonial past and the subjugation of women but happily these soon passed for the next round of carnage. I’ve no idea of the body count apart from ‘huge’ and the methods of dispatch were fun, varied and totally uncensored. It is of course a tired old formula but ‘The Horde’ is definitely the best zombie film I’ve seen since the ‘Dawn of the Dead’ remake. OK I know that wasn’t that long ago but it had a dog being dangled amid zombies in it!

THE Tag Line : Horde, Gored, Not Bored 78%