No.188 : The Rise (2012)

The Rise at the IMDb

Wikipedia tells me that this film was called ‘Wasteland’ for its North American release, which means that it is the first cross blog feature that we have watched. Both posters are attached but I’ll go with ‘The Rise’ as that was the title card on the version I watched on Film4.

It’s a British film so obviously it deals with drugs, crime, sink estates and respect. It would be nice to see some sci-fi or even a light heated period comedy, but bad slags are cheap so that’s what the British film industry will go with.

The film opens with a beaten up young man talking to Barry off ‘Auf Wiedersein Pet’. Barry has retrained as a police detective and he’s interviewing Harvey, a young man recently released from a year long stretch for dealing drugs. We go the familiar non-linear narrative route, so he tells Barry that it’s a long story and we soon dissolve to a flashback ‘six months before’…

Harvey is a chatty chap and provides a lot of narration about the drugs trade in his estate. He’s supposedly clean, but the local drug lord gets him sent down for a year so that  the police make their quota and the drug lord can be left in peace. After getting out, Harvey decides to get his own back on the drug lord with his crew of three friends, including Ramsay Bolton.

All three are struggling but soon take to Harvey’s plan to rob the drug lord of his takings and to invest the money in a hash café in Amsterdam - it’s good that they have worthy ambitions. He also has to reconnect with his nurse girlfriend, who’s a bit tiresome, and to train the gang so as to flesh out the plot so that enough time passes before we return to Barry in the interview room where all the clever twists are explained.

‘The Rise’ of the title is a working man’s club, and Harvey heard in prison that they have a safe with loads of cash in it. If this seems like a flimsy prospect for a job it also serves as the premise of the film, so keep quiet.

The gang hone their skills in a manner of elaborate an ultimately pointless ways before the heist is on. Will they get the cash and a new worthless life, or will the mild drug lord win the day?

If you liked ‘Oceans 11, 12 and 13’ you may like this, but be warned, it’s ‘Ocean’s 0.5’ at best. The heist is pretty straightforward and although it seemingly goes off the rails, there was never any doubt that a few planned wrong foots would save the day.

The characters were all wafer thin, with it being a mistake to hang the whole film on Harvey who was dull and unengaging. I didn’t care if he got the money or the girl and the whole enterprise was like a bunch of rats fighting over a rotten chicken leg.

Ramsay was a bit underused with this clunker coming out a year before he started in ‘Game of Thrones’. I’m guessing this effort was left off his CV.

There wasn’t much in the way of invention and I didn’t believe in the actions of Barry’s police detective who seemed to make a call on judgement rather than base his decision on the evidence. It looked like he only worked a day on the film, so he probably just wanted to get home.

You may find some form of entertainment hidden within this mess but to be honest I wasn’t engaged at all and the big revelations barely registered on the ‘So what’ meter. These criminals feeding off each other features do nothing for me, and if they were all sucked into a black hole after five minutes I’d have no complaints.

Overall a workmanlike British heist that failed to deliver the goods.

THE Tag Line : Get Your Bad Slags Here!  43%

No.167 : The Entertainer (1960)

The Entertainer at the IMDb

“He’s never been on the telly” says one urchin as he looks at the posters advertising music hall star Archie Rice’s current show. Entertainers such as Archie are on the decline, playing old tunes to half full houses with a few saucy jokes thrown in for free.

This 1960s British offering is a cracking snapshot of a nation in decline in the post war years. Made in 1960 this classic has Laurence Olivier in the title role as the boozed up sex maniac, Archie, who has the tax man on his tail and a career that’s fading fast.

In the kitchen sink tradition he lives and argues with his wife Phoebe and deals with his three children - Albert Finney, Alan Bates and Joan Plowright - try getting in the family play in that household! Finney’s ‘Mick’ is off to Egypt to fight in the Suez Crisis whilst Plowright’s ‘Jean’ has a pushy boyfriend trying to get her to move to Africa. Bate’s ‘Frank’ plays the piano in clubs, and is under the shadow of Archie, who in turn under the shadow of his own father, Billy, a music hall star still held in high regard.

Archie has the offer to anagea hotel in Canada with Phoebe, but despite his debts he’s keen for one last big show. His pecker gets the better of him however and soon he is romancing a 20 year old who got second place in a beauty contest he was comparing. His hopes of having her family finance the show are scuppered when his old Dad grasses him up to save him looking foolish. Meanwhile Mick has been captured in Egypt.

Things look up however when news come through that Mick is being released and old Dad is coming out of retirement to give Archie a hand with his new show. This however is a black and white British film from the 60’s and happy endings are hard to come by…

This was a great film from the British Woodfall Studio. Suitably bleak and decaying the film is relentless in wearing down the cast with even glimpses of happiness soon torn from their grasp. Olivier is great as the sleazy song and dance man Archie with his questionable charms and loose morals. He never seems to love performing but it’s all he knows and he can’t leave it even when it’s clear it is destroying him. Plowright, who gets an ‘introducing’ credit is excellent as Archie’s long suffering daughter and it’s only a shame we don’t see ore of Bates and especially Finney, who only gets one scene.

There are famous faces all over the place with Charles Gray and Thora Hird also getting a look in amongst a bevy of scantily clad showgirls and bathing beauties who earned the film an ‘X’ certificate on its release. 

The message is clear throughout that the Empire is crumbling - and not just the theatre. Offers of escapes to Africa and Canada are dangled and pulled back as the cast have to fester in a dingy and soulless Britain.

It’s not a heart warmer but the performances and script are excellent and as a ‘slice of life’ you won’t beat it as a peep hole into a now forgotten world of greasepaint and caravan love ins.

THE Tag Line : Yew Tree calling! 80%

No.161 : The Hand (1960)

The Hand at the IMDb

I’m sure you all remember our previous ‘The Hand’ review, the one starring Michael Caine and directed by Oliver Stone? Well this isn’t that but it does serve to give us a pair of (the) hands! Hahahaha!

This is a 70 minute British horror/drama from 1960. It’s black and white and has few special effects or big set pieces to keep you entertained. Does it have enough to keep you interested, even for it’s short run time? I’m afraid it isn’t going to get a big hand from me.

The film opens with a caption stating ‘Burma 1946’, and we find the British fighting the Japanese in some really stirring stock footage. It’s not clear why they are still fighting a year after the war ended but I’ll be generous and say this is an alternative reality where the war lasted a bit longer rather than the caption man missed that day of school.

With the battle still raging we meet three British Prisoners of war. They are being interrogated by a terrible Japanese commandant. I say ‘terrible’ because he’s clearly a white guy with eye make up going a terrible oriental voice. He asks where the troops are based and says ‘Velly Unfortunate’ when they refuse to answer. A war crime that can never be forgiven.

He takes the men in turn and when the first two refuse to give away any details he lops their hands off with his big sword. He then asks the same question of the officer who is clearly made of weaker stuff. Before he spills the beans we dissolve to ‘London to-day’. Looks a bit of a pea souper out.

A beat officer finds a tramp in a doorway short of one hand but with £500 in his pocket. At the station they speculate how he got the cash and a neat surgical wound where his hand once was. Before they make any headway the tramp disappears from his bed and is soon found dead in the Thames.

The cops do some investigation and a train ticket leads them to a nursing home. The orderly remembers the operation which wasn’t recorded. The good doctor in charge found the vagrant at the roadside with an injured hand and amputated it to save his life. A likely tale! After some minor questioning the doctor shoots himself and leaves his nurse wife bereft. We also learn that his rich brother refused him a loan of £500. We learn that the tramp was paid £500 by the mysterious Mr Roberts for his hand and Dr Crenshaw did the operation.

A call to the home leads the police to the lodgings of a Mr Brodie who is later revealed to have a hook in place of his hand. We also meet Mr Adams who is similarly one down in the hand department.

Who is Mr Roberts and what is his fascination with all things five fingered? Hope it’s not the same one we had pegged for it at the start!

The detection angle was pretty good with a nice logical flow of events. It was a bit unlikely in places and the bad guy’s motivation wasn’t too clear apart from him being a nutter, due to the war and that.

I found this film a bit confusing. There were two Brodies, two Crenshaws and two
Adamses - add in all the false names and ageing make up and you can see where it’s easy to go wrong. The actors all look alike and I’m not even sure why the tramp lost his hand in the first place. I’m guessing the cowardly hand retainer wanted it to pretend that he too had lost a hand to the Japanese, but it’s hardly likely they’d have given him it to take home if he had! It didn’t help that ‘Adams’ Senior looked like Mark Williams off ‘The Fast Show’ - ‘Today I’m mostly having my hand chopped off’.

Of the cast I’d only heard of Ray Cooney and the film is clearly a ‘B Movie’ filler from the golden days of two mutilation films and a cone of chips for two bob.

The film was hovering about the fail line for me but a fantastic final scene, laden with irony, made it worth the watch. I choo-choo choose to give you your comeuppance!

THE Tag Line - The Caine One was Better! 56%

No.137 : The Bargee (1964)

The Bargee at the IMDb

I found this film on an obscure satellite channel and it does seem something of an unknown given it has fewer than 300 ratings on IMDb. This is a bit of a surprise given the stellar British cast and the writing team of Galton & Simpson who gave us Steptoe & Son and Hancock, starring Will Smith. Having viewed the film however, I am happy to let it resubmerge itself in the canal of mediocrity. It was really dull and apart from a game of ‘it’s that guy out of…’ it doesn’t have much to offer.

Part of that is down to the era in which it was made. Released in 1964 things hadn’t quite started swinging in the sixties yet, and the glory days of the 1970’s sex comedy starring Robin Asquith were still many years away. This one does try to be a bit cheeky and risqué but it gets bogged down in a moral maze and a selection of house coats that are anything but sexy.

Anyway our hero Hemel  as played by Harry H. Corbett, is named solely for a weak joke about being born in Hemel Hemstead - this allowed for an obvious zinger  about being born somewhere else with an even worse name and this weak gag meant he was stuck with the unlikely moniker for the rest of the film.

Hemel works the canals, slowly transporting goods up and down the country, with his cleverly named cousin Ronnie, played by Ronnie Barker. Where do they get their ideas?! There is a prescient scene at the start where the man at the docks says that the industry is winding down and that a young man like Hemel (Corbett was 39 at the time and looks 50) should get out now. This advice falls on deaf ears as Hemel has a power of shagging to do. Or ‘get some dinners’ as they coyly put it.

He has a girl at every lock and sends postcards ahead to them heralding his visits. All the girls think they are the one and are desperate for the oily rag and bone, er,  canal man to marry them. Ronnie is not so lucky and bemoans that he always gets the ugly ones. Mirrors were not in common use until 1965. Hemel’s first date goes wrong when the ‘beautiful girl’ he plans on meeting is in fact an ancient looking bar maid with a massive bouffant. Hemel gets his dinner but when she finds out about his other girls she chases him up the canal as his boat put-puts along at 2 m.p.h.

The long dull stretches of sailing up the canals and navigating locks are made even more dull with their encounters with Eric Sykes who plays an annoying man in a cabin cruiser. He plays the part well; that is to say he is really annoying in every scene he is in.

The film slowly meanders to the main action which involves Hemel getting a girl and Ronnie taking care of her over protective Dad down the pub. After they leave we learn the girl is pregnant and the Dad starts a siege at the lock. Soon the entire occupancy of The garret Club has shown up and our likely lads are nearing the lock on their return journey. Will Hemel come clean and start a new life away from his boats? Or will the new wife add to her general humiliation and set sail with him?

This film started OK but it spluttered to a halt as soon as Eric Sykes hoved into view, and never got back into gear again. The values of the film were all over the shop - I guessed the men were supposed to like Hemel and envy his free and easy life style. As it was he just came across as an unlikeable creep. Barker was poor too as the illiterate cousin who needs the captions on his girlie mags read out to him. His part was wafer thin and you can see why he started to write his own stuff.

The saving grace of the film was in the bit parts with people like Derek Nimmo, Richard Briers, Arthur off ’On the Buses’ and Mr Barraclough all showing up in a variety of stereotype roles.

The pacing of the film was awful with lots of scenes running well beyond their sell by date. The siege at the lock went on for so long that one of the characters had to go for a crap half way through!

At nearly two hours there was probably enough here for a decent one hour TV episode - adverts included. It was a bit of an oddity with a sex crazed deviant having to work against 60’s censorship and ankle length skirts, and failing miserably to offer any titillation whatsoever.


THE Tagline : Don’t touch this with a ten foot bargee pole. 45%

No.123 : The Shout (1978)

The Shout at the IMDb

Up next is this hard to fathom British horror from 1978. It’s a bit confusing and unclear but it does have a couple of good points, both of which belong to Susannah York.

The film opens with a cricket match in the grounds of a psychiatric hospital. Doctor Tim Curry is in the scorer’s cabin and he’s soon joined by Alan Bates. It’s not clear if Bates is a patient or on the staff but the two are soon bored by the match and he offers to tell Tim a story to pass the time.

We dissolve to the desolate landscape of Devon where husband and wife team John Hurt and Susannah meet a new friend in the shape of Crossley, played by Alan Bates. We’re not clear now and indeed never are if Bates is playing two characters or whether the events that are to follow see Bates committed.

He tells the couple about witchcraft and ‘the shout’ which is basically some yelling that can kill. He explains how a woman can be enchanted by someone who possesses something from her. The pair are sceptical but it’s not long before Crossley starts to get under their skins.

Hurt soon realises that the enigmatic stranger has his wife in his sights and even worse Susannah’s up for it! We see that Crossley possesses a buckle that she lost from her shoe and we have to wonder if his tales are true and whether the shout exists also.

With dead sheep and lightning bolts in the mix we have to try and understand the non-linear, and frankly baffling, narrative in the hope that a cohesive story becomes clear and that we’ve not wasted 90 minutes of our time. Oh well there is some nakedness to make it not a total waste of time.

I thought I was either a bit drunk or too slow on the uptake to figure this out but having read a few reviews I can see that I am not alone in my bemusement. I get the idea that, with the whole thing set around an asylum, everything we see is subject to interpretation and that we may be witnessing the ramblings of a mad man.

When I watch a film I expect there to be a story that I can follow with logical progression and a worthwhile pay off. If I want a load of random scenes with a message of ‘work it out for yourself’ I’d go and watch that crappy Russian film with time travel set on an industrial estate that made no sense either. Fair play the three principles are all watchable and the lovely Susannah gives her all for her craft which is much appreciated.

Overall however the film is a frustrating mishmash that’s all over the place with nothing to offer apart from the realisation that you’ve spent 90 minutes just for a look at Alan Bates’ fillings.

THE Tag Line ‘The Shite’  35%

No.93 : The Disappeared (2008)

The Disappeared at the IMDb

Time for a nice uplifting British film now that deals with child abduction, murder and mental health. Oh and it’s set on a decaying council estate too - can’t forget that ray of sunshine!

We open as our hero Matthew is being discharged from a mental health facility. We learn that he suffered a breakdown when his 10 year old brother Tom went missing. No trace of the lad was ever found and this has placed a strain on Matthew’s relationship with his Dad. He moves back into the squalid council flat occupied by his Pop and hooks up with his friend Simon who is having time off from being Draco in the Harry Potter films. Simon is a tough guy who smokes and swears so watch out wizard lovers!

Matthew looks over old videotapes concerning his brother’s disappearance and hears the lad’s voice on one of the tapes. No one else can however and his ‘find’ is dismissed as a by product of his medication. Simon, who has clearly seen ‘White Noise’, tells him about dead people appearing on tapes and Matthew tries his hand at capturing the spirit world. Alas it’s more ‘Shite Noise’ than ‘White Noise’ as the local toughs smash up his cassette player.

Not to be put off Matthew also confides in Amy, a wet kind of girl who offers encouragement but little else. He also speaks to a local medium and to a vicar about his thoughts regarding Tom’s disappearance. There is also a worrying trend of people at windows and symbols appearing in slightly iffy CGI. We soon learn that the medium was actually a ‘well done’ as she died in a fire years before. Is Matthew nuts or are the lost sprits trying to lead him to a place where both they and he will find closure?

Other clues such as his brother’s watch showing up in his father’s effects add to the mystery and sense of unease and although hands seem to be reaching out to grab Matthew at every turn, a change in camera angle shows us there is nothing there. As we head to an underground lair can the spirits be put to rest and can Matthew escape the netherworld between reality and fantasy?

This was a decent horror/thriller done on a low budget but it wasn’t inventive or shocking enough to live long in the memory. The director did well to create and maintain a sense of unease throughout the film with simple lighting effects being enough to show that all was not well. The cast were all pretty good with Harry Treadaway doing well in an unsympathetic lead role. I can’t say I was ever rooting for Matthew but his balancing act between sane and insane was well realised.

There were a few surprises along the way such as the black suburban medium lifted straight out the ‘Matrix’ films. At times it wasn’t clear what was meant to be real or not but that was a no doubt deliberate attempt to unsettle the viewer. The conclusion was well handled but I can’t help think the bad guy would have been a little badder than he turned out to be - shallow grave indeed!

The final revelation wasn’t much of a surprise but certainly maintained the vibe of otherworldliness that had gone before. All in all this was a decent attempt at an urban ghost story but it lacked anything that would take it out of the ordinary.

THE Tag Line : This Town is Totally Dead!
60%

No.83 : The Infidel (2010)

The Infidel at the IMDb

 Thousands of years of religious strife are sorted out in 90 minutes in this largely mirth free and simplistic British comedy.

Comedian and certainly not actor Omid Djalili stars as a fat middle-aged Muslim who runs a taxi firm. He has an unfeasibly young and attractive wife and a son who is hoping to marry his girlfriend if he can impress her step father. Omid is a pleasant enough chap unless he comes across his bete noir - black taxi cabs.

He has recently lost his mother and runs afoul of a Jewish taxi driver who lives across the road from mum’s house. After this brief preamble we quickly reach the crux of the matter as the Muslim Omid finds his birth certificate and, after a funny stint from Miranda Hart, discovers he’s adopted and is in fact Jewish.

Meanwhile his son reveals that his father in law to be is a radical cleric who is stirring up hatred in the community. Omid is aghast but to keep his son happy he dons his Muslim dress and bones up on his Koran. Choosing to complicate matters somewhat he tries to trace his Jewish father and after a rebuke from Matt Lucas’ rabbi he also mugs up on his Torah after enlisting the help of the once unfriendly Jewish cab driver. With all these worlds colliding you could be forgiven for thinking mirth will ensue - it totally doesn’t.

To delve into his twin culture Omid attends an anti Israel rally and becomes a flash point for the campaign when he burns his mistakenly exposed skullcap to appease the radical elements of the crowd. To keep the balance he also attend a Bar Mitzvah with his new friend but will soon have to choose sides.

That predictable modern plot point of ‘Youtube sensation’ threatens to derails his schemes of supporting his son and meeting the father who gave him up.

Can a ridiculous subplot involving an 80’s pop sensation save the day and can the radical Muslim crowd be convinced that love and togetherness is the way forward?

To be honest this film was better than I thought but it had way too few laughs to sustain what was a preachy message about all getting on together. Omid is a likable guy but I wasn’t buying into his character’s arc which was all over the place like Noah with a wonky sat-nav.

The eventual resolution was way too easy and simplistic, and the idea that a room full of Muslims who turn up to hear a radical preacher speak are so easy swayed beggared belief. The exposure of the nasty cleric was also too pat and although foreshadowed it was too reliant on coincidence and indeed a requirement to be detached from reality.

The best parts of the film belonged to the cameo turns such as Matt Lucas, Miranda Hart and Tony Hayers off ‘Alan Partridge’. There were a couple of decent recurring gags such as people asking that Omid not to do the ‘inverted commas’ gesture but overall the message was too blatant and the resolution too far fetched and drawn out to retain any goodwill as the credits rolled.

THE Tag Line : Excommunicate!  58%

No.81 : The Liability (2012)

The Liability at the IMDb

I was hoping this was going to be an exciting film set in the sexy world of insurance but alas it’s another ‘bad slags’ British gangster flick.

Wide boy 19 year old Adam should take better care of his stepdad’s stuff as a smash up in Pop’s Merc sets in motion a chain of events that will change his life forever, and take up 90 minutes of yours. His stepdad is Peter Mullen a gangster half way up the food chain. He has a nice house, is boffing Adam’s mum and has a seedy sideline in sex trafficking.

He tells Adam he’ll need to work to pay off the car debt and he sets him up with a driving job the next day. Adam isn’t keen at first but when he sees his stepdad in action on his laptop he decides he better play ball, lest he too end up in grainy x-rated footage. I just hope he shut the computer down correctly!

The next day Adam meets up with the guarded Tim Roth in a nicked Ford Granada. Tim plays Roy who prefers no chit-chat but does enjoy cassette tape Mexican music which seems a pointless affectation to add a touch of colour to his rather dull character. We learn his daughter is soon to be married and that he likes strong cheese in his sandwiches - you can’t say they are skimping on the details.

The two head to a forest and complete a messy hit on a Lithuanian gent living in a caravan. They start chopping up the body for souvenirs but are stumbled across by a young woman who manages to escape in the hapless hitmens’ car. We soon learn she’s not the innocent backpacker she makes out when she negotiates the return of the body parts for a few grand. The payoff goes OK but things start to spiral off in all directions when Tim’s true target is revealed and our savvy lady starts to turn the screws.

This was an OK sort of thriller but it wasn’t  memorable and the attempts to make it out of the ordinary seemed staged and unconvincing. For example our protagonists are all running around the country in vintage vehicles while shooting with gay abandon with never a copper in sight. I could see them trying to do a bit of the unsettling other worldliness of ‘Kill List’ but it didn’t get close to the atmosphere of that much better film.

The problem for me was in the second act where things started to get confused and muddled. It did salvage something towards the end but by then all the characters had been rewritten and any investment we had in them was long gone.

Peter Mullen was his usual angry and sweary self and Tim Roth showed his range doesn’t extend too far once again. The tension never got above lukewarm and despite some implied violence with axes there wasn’t much to react to apart from the destruction of a Churchill nodding dog, oh yes.

Overall the film wasn’t a disaster but there was nothing really to recommend it either, so damned with faint praise it is!

THE Tag Line - Yer going down - to the bargain bin!  61%

No.73 : The Veteran (2011)

The Veteran at the IMDB

What a rip off ; there was nobody healing animals at all throughout this film!

What we get is a kind of ‘Harry Brown’ meets ‘The Bourne Identity’ as a soldier returns from Afghanistan to his sink estate home to find it under the control of drug lords. Our man isn’t intimidated and smacks a few around. The local kingpin is impressed and offers him work which he refuses, despite the veiled threats of 'choosing sides'.

Meanwhile, a meeting with other ex-soldiers gives him the chance to get back to some kind of work, running black ops for a shady intelligence outfit, as you do. All the while we realise he is on the edge, with subtle clues like him constantly punching walls giving away his inner torment.

His first operation goes well as he uncovers a back street bomb factory but he soon gets in deep as he befriends a possible double agent woman and engages with his always shouting boss, Brian Cox. He slowly realises that his two worlds are not so far apart and that and it’s going to take a lot of shooting to clean up the estate and stop a possible terrorist outrage.

I didn’t really take to this film from the off. The grim sink estate setting and washed out colour palette did nothing to draw me in and the lead lacks any sympathy or charisma whatsoever. The feral yoof were well realised but it never really touched upon why they are being furnished with Uzi 9mms by the shady intel community. They is some blather about ‘GOD’ - Guns, Oil and drugs but why the poweres that be would align themselves with some foul mouthed youth isn’t addressed.

 I think the director was trying to set a sense of disconnectedness with our hero’s action scenes being so random that we weren’t sure if it was real or fantasy. This is maybe burrowing too deep, as at the end of the day it was a mish mash of a plot tail-ended by some crowd pleasing vermin control.

It is hard to be too tough on a film that clearly has a shoe-string budget but if the script had been more rounded and clear there would be a decent film to be had here. Brian Cox looks like he did his couple of scenes in a day, despite his high billing and although you might recognise a couple of faces the names will escape you.

The blood soaked finale was out of step with the rest of the film and you have to wonder if they thought- ‘Sod it let’s have a big shoot out’. The action was well choreographed and the hardware impressive. The finale with its hints towards a damned future was seen a mile off and it’s just a shame things ended with so many plot threads left hanging.

THE Tag Line : Call a Vet - this needs shooting  56%