No.222 : The Iceman (2012)

The Iceman at the IMDb

No, it’s not a spin off from ‘Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends’ instead it’s a bio-pic of mob hit man Richard Kuklinski, starring blog second favourite Michael, Mr Shannon.

The film opens with an aged and beardy Shannon being asked if he has any regrets. Before he can answer the film morphs back to 1964 with a younger Shannon on his first date with soon to be wife, Winona Ryder. She admires his tattoos and slow drawl, and even believes his story of being employed as a voice actor for Walt Disney. In fact he has a slightly seedier job copying porno films. He plays pool for cash in a bar and we get a quick taste of his temper when he slashes a man’s throat for giving him some lip.

Meanwhile at the porn lab he takes a slap himself when gang boss Ray Liotta wants to know why his order of porn isn’t ready yet. Ray sees a steely coolness about Shannon and offers him a job as a hit man. Shannon is keen to please and shows his loyalty, and psychopathic tendencies, by gunning down a random beggar. Things go well for a while and Shannon, Ryder and their two daughters move to the suburbs. His cover story is that he’s a currency trader, but it’s more whacks than Marks that he’s into.

Liotta has issues of his own when big boss Robert Davi wants him to kill his idiot henchman David Schwimmer who has stolen some drugs. This causes Liotta to lie low and this puts Shannon out of business. Despite being warned off, he decides to go freelance and hooks up with Captain America’s ‘Mr Whippy’ hit man who uses an ice cream van as cover.

The two soon pile up the bodies, keeping them frozen to disguise their crimes and the dates of death. After one loose talker too many, we are back at the start with Shannon reflecting on his worthless life and lack of regret.

I had high hopes for this film but it dropped off quickly and became a bit dull. It was confusing in places as the double crosses racked up and it was hard to care for a mass murderer whose only redeeming feature was supposedly his loyalty to his family. They touched briefly on his abusive childhood for his motivation but you need some excuse to pardon over 100 confirmed kills.

They did try to sugar coat the character of Richie, but reading the real life accounts it’s clear he was nothing but a murderous and wife beating psycho.

The cast was mostly good with thin material with the likes of James Franco, Chris Evans and Winona all underused. Chris Evans was hidden in a big wig and beard and his casting seemed largely pointless. Better than Franco though, who only got one short scene.

60s/70s New York was well realised with lots of classic cars and brown clothing on show. The film did one of my pets hates in that they had captions for dates of certain events at the start but they quickly disappeared, even when years had clearly passed in terms of fashion. Do it consistently or not at all!

Shannon was OK in the lead with his usual quiet menace. I didn’t really buy the character however and if he was seeking sympathy he got none from me. You could dress this up as a morality tale but ultimately it’s a bloke killing loads of people for money and getting caught. THE END.

THE Tag Line : Will Leave You Cold  - 56%

No.217 : The Greatest (2009)

The Greatest at the IMDb

This film opens with Kick-Ass getting it on with Carey Mulligan - enjoy this happy scene as it’s the last bit of joy you’ll get for another 90 minutes, as a dysfunctional family deals with the loss of their son. Kick-Ass you see may be ‘the greatest’ in bed but isn’t so hot on his driving. He stops in the middle of the road to profess his love and is killed by Michael Shannon’s truck for his trouble.

His mother Susan Sarandon is devastated and his father Pierce Brosnan is a bit upset too. His brother is mostly stoned and the bereaved girlfriend, who survived the wreck, finds that she is pregnant.

We learn that Pierce, a maths professor, had an affair with Jennifer Ehle and his marriage is on shaky ground as a result. Sarandon wakes up crying every day and wants to know what happened in the 17 minutes following the crash, before her son expired. The other driver Shannon, is in a convenient movie coma, so she goes and reads to him hoping that he awakes and fills in the blanks.

The pregnant Mulligan moves in with the family but finds it hard to connect with Mum who wishes the girl had died and not her son. She also doesn’t want people to think they are blessed with the son’s baby, when she is grieving for her first born. Meanwhile the less favoured druggy son heads to a grief support group a la ‘Fight Club’ and meets a nice girl who sadly turns out to be a mental.

The film progresses in chapters, signalled by the months of the pregnancy. As she becomes due Pierce has a heart episode, Sarandon has a breakdown and Shannon wakes up - it’s almost like a movie script! Will the baby be born without issues and will it be accepted by the dysfunctional family who could fill a whole season of Alan Partridge’s ‘Problem People’?

I tried to like this film, and to be fair it had a lot of good qualities, but at the end it all seemed somewhat forced and unrealistic. For a start Brosnan and Sarandon weren’t a good match. You could say that’s why he strayed but her earthiness and his tidiness never really gelled, and in some scenes with them both wailing it was flat out embarrassing.

Mulligan was better, but she hadn’t much of an emotional range given she’d had the hardest time out of everyone. The big fall out seemed totally engineered and the coming together was laughable as the family chased the labouring mum to be through the woods. Everyone had a breakthrough and all was put right just in time.

Shannon, who spent the first 70 minutes in a coma only got one real scene and he didn’t convince as the criminal car crasher. He starts by telling Sarandon to bugger off but after a moment’s pleading he manages to recount every second of Kick-Ass’ last minutes in beautiful detail. Maybe that’s what she needed, but I doubt that’s what she really would have gotten in a prison hospital from a man going to the clink due to her idiot son.

The film did have some touching moments and was a decent essay on the way different people have varying reactions to loss. It seemed a bit pat and convenient on many levels however, and far from being ‘the greatest’ it will have to settle for ‘the average’ in this critic’s book.

THE Tag Line : Bring the Kleenex - no not like that -  57%

No.212 : The Harvest (2013)

The Harvest (2013) at the IMDb

Not so much foreshadowing about that poster as much as ‘this is how it ends’! Oh well, with one surprise out of the way let’s have a look at what else this decent thriller can offer.

The film opens with a boy going down after being struck by a ball at a pee-wee baseball match. He is saved by surgeon Samantha Morton, who we presume to be a good sort and worthy of a solid clapping on a Thursday night. We further sympathise with her when we learn that her son Andy is confined to a wheelchair due to an unspecified ailment.

His Dad, blog favourite Michael Shannon, manages to get him black market medicine from a pharmaceuticals rep who he is also boffing on the side. Andy‘s pitiful existence of watching the corn grow outside his window is enhanced with the arrival of Maryann, a 14 year old who has moved into the neighbourhood with her grandparents following the death of her parents.

She chances across Andy and is soon climbing into his bedroom and getting up to those usual teenage games of building scarecrows and sneaking around the house. Samantha is very protective of Andy to the extent she gets totally mental with any interference with his rehabilitation. Maryann gets grounded by her grandfather Peter Fonda, but a revelation in the basement leads to her taking even greater chances.

What is going on in the secret household and will ‘the harvest’ be a lovely big pile of potatoes - or something more sinister?

I liked this film despite some of the crazy leaps in logic that were needed to propel the plot. I liked the young Maryann, who was very Nancy Drew, but I have no idea her motivation for creeping into sick teen’s bedrooms and for digging about for clues when ostensibly there was nothing going on. Maybe she just though Mum’s overacting was hiding something.

Samantha Morton didn’t quite ring true as the mad mother with her outbursts seeming a bit of a stretch.I was hoping for more from her in the last third but she just faded away. Shannon was his usual good value but was a bit underused. He was clearly meant to be in Morton’s shadow but I could have done with a bit more of his trademark mania. His arc wasn’t that well defined with his actions at the conclusion not really being merited, given his years of devotion to the cause.

The two kids did well, with Andy played by Charlie Tahan who later becomes Wyatt in ‘Ozark’ and Natasha Calis was good value as Maryann, and certainly better than she was in her last sighting in ‘When Calls the Heart’.

The film kept me guessing for the most part and I liked the big twist at the end. The make up seemed a bit off with both Fonda and Shannon looking decidedly orange in several scenes - maybe the harvest was of fake tan.

Nit picking aside this was an enjoyably mystery thriller with just a smidgen of horror thrown in for good measure.

THE Tag Line : Pick of the Crop!  73%

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%