No. 258 : The Fence (2022)

 

The Fence at the IMDb

This one popped up on my trawl through Amazon Prime and I was surprised that it was so low profile. The film doesn’t have a Wikipedia page and just over 1000 ratings on IMDb. I gave it a go, and it was a decent slice of life. I doubt it will live long in the memory, but it was an engaging 90 minutes with plenty to like.

The film is set on a Bristol council estate in the 1980’s. You are never in doubt of when the film is set as the soundtrack is an 80s jukebox with Nik Kershaw and Adam Ant getting an airing alongside Kim Wilde and virtually every other act with big hair that you can think of.

We open with a young lad poaching fish and easily evading a Keystone Cops style policeman. He sells his catch for £2 so we know this isn’t exactly going to high end criminal antics. The lad, Steven, works at a butcher and gets a quick lesson in dipping the till from a colleague. Steven is happy to comply as he’s saving for a motorbike and is keen to slip a few quid to his Mum, Sally Phillips, despite a stereotypical deadbeat Dad trying to grab some cash for the pub.

Steven gets the cash for his motorbike and shows it off to friends and some impressed girls for about two minutes before it gets nicked. The remainder of the film is reminiscent of ‘Bicycle Thieves’ as Steven tries to get back his property.

In his quest he enlists the help of his older brother, who is on probation, and a friendly black man who gets some racial abuse but is the man to know for weapons and guns.

The trail soon leads to a dodgy family who supply drugs and motor parts – will Steven exact revenge for the theft of his motorbike or will he choose another path away from the endless cycle of beatings, retribution and time in jail?

I quite enjoyed this film, but it was certainly Shane Meadows-lite. The council scheme looked a bit polished, and all the players had immaculate 70’s clothes – the type that has the viewers saying, ‘I had that jacket’! The cars also were too pristine – everyone was driving a showroom quality 80’s classic. No doubt these were borrowed from some enthusiasts, but none of them looked appropriate for our mostly grubby cast.

David Perkins did OK in the lead, but I wasn’t really buying his moral quandaries, his outrage or his eventual decision when it was time to choose a path. Of the cast only Sally Phillips was a known face, with the rest probably recent stage school graduates where they honed their perfect, if unconvincing estate accents.

The setting were good and I liked how the film played over a few days in an idyllic summer, almost like the main character was recounting events from a rosier future.

The stakes were pretty low throughout and despite drugs, guns and beatings being the seeming norm, I never really felt the presence of a lot of threat or danger. It was an enjoyable film, but I wanted to like it more and it’s a pity that it fell short of its possibilities.

I would also say that the title ‘The Fence’ is poor and clearly a successful attempt to get on this blog. The fence in question is a receiver of stolen goods, but that player has a very small part in the overall dynamic of the film. The focus of the film is Steven and how the choices he makes will affect his future. The title should have been ‘Steven and the Cloneasaurus’.

THE Tag Line : Estate Mismanagement - 62%

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.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.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.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.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.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.224 : The Fury (1978)

The Fury (1978) at the IMDb

I remember seeing the trailer for this film probably 35 years ago and thought it looked great. The main showpiece was an exploding carnival and I made a mental note to look it up. Decades passed, but eventually it came up on Film 4 and I got my long awaiting viewing. What a disappointment! It’s like a low rent ‘X-Men’, with the heralded funfair scene lasting 30 seconds and consisting of some Arabs flying through a window.

The film opens in the “Mid East 1977”. Kirk Douglas is on holiday with his son Robin and friend John Cassavetes. He tells the reluctant son that they need to go to live in Chicago to investigate his abilities, but before they can pay their bar bill some Arabs attack. Lots of bullets fly but strangely one Arab is videotaping events. For reasons unknown Kirk makes off in a speedboat which immediately explodes. With Kirk thought dead Cassavetes shows his true colours and congratulates the Arabs on a job well done. Fortunately Kirk suffered only a torn t-shirt and manages to machine gun Cassavete’s arm before the  traitor makes off with the confused Robin.

A year passes and we’re in Chicago. Amy Irving is out with her friend but is tagged as a psychic by a suspicious looking man in a mac. He calls Kirk and tells him he’s found someone who maybe able to help him trace Robin. The CIA are however on the ball and trace the call to Kirk’s hotel room. If he hadn’t stayed in the same one as Jake Blues he’d have been less conspicuous. Just hope he remembered the Cheese Whizz, Boy.

Kirk gets away but Amy is enrolled into a school for talented psychics after she causes some trouble with her mind reading and nose bleed inducing powers. She forms a psychic connection with Robin and, despite them both being sedated and controlled at the CIA special school, both start to see their powers develop.

Can Kirk save his boy? Was it a good idea to inspect the roof together and will Cassavetes get his cleaning deposit back?

This was an overlong thriller with not enough happening to justify the two hour investment of your time. It was quite dated with the film stock looking like video tape. Director Brian De Palma also made some strange choices such as a round table dolly shot that made me dizzy and some terrible rear projection work in the car scenes. To be fair, there were some inventive touches such as Irving inhabiting the visions she was seeing, while the action played on, oblivious to her presence.

The special effects were variable with the blue eyes that signified ‘the fury’ looking painted on in post production. Some of the ‘Scanners’ like psychic violence was pretty brutal, with Cassavetes especially getting a rough time of it. (it's only a model!)

Kirk Douglas didn’t convince as the semi action hero running about in his shorts with a machine gun. He was 60 or so at the time of filming, so the only convincing scenes he had were those when he was ‘disguised’ as an old man.

The plot was quite weak with no explanation of the powers or their extent. Robin seemed to be corrupted by his power in five minutes whereas Irving needed a major character shift to mete out her revenge.

If the film lost half an hour and focused more on the powers than the quest to find the son it would have been a lot more enjoyable. As it was, it was really just Kirk looking for his son with added thought powers - and those are the cheapest of all super powers!

THE Tag Line : John Cassavetes is Definitely Dead  60%

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.214 : The Cooler (2003)

The Cooler at the IMDb

Time for middle aged man wish fulfilment now - getting off with Maria Bello and winning at Vegas.

William Hall Macy, to give him his full name, stars as Bernie, a cooler in a Vegas casino. He’s basically the physical embodiment of bad luck and is employed by the casino to cool down players on a hot streak. His effectiveness is displayed by how much cream he gets in his coffee (not a metaphor) and how baggy his suit is. As the film starts he’s super baggy and cream free but that will soon change.

His casino, The Golden Shangri-La, is the last of the old school casinos, still run by the mob and holding out against the corporate takeover that has befallen many of its contemporaries. The manager Alec Baldwin likes his old school crooners and leg breaking policy, but change is on the way in the form of Ron Livingston’s corporate go-getter who is keen to transform the ageing casino.

Things change fro Bernie too as he meets up with attractive waitress Maria Bello. It’s unclear why she takes a shine to Bernie but the pair hit it off and are soon repaying Bernie’s demonstrative neighbours with sex noises of their own, albeit faked ones. This upswing in Bernie’s happiness is a dampener on his powers and soon everyone is winning on his watch. Added to the mix is Bernie’s hustler son and his possibly pregnant girlfriend and Bernie’s ambition to leave his old life behind. Can he get away and find happiness or will Baldwin display his big brass balls once again and keep him in his cooler job?

I hadn’t seen this film in many years and although I still liked it, it was hard to justify my previous 8/10 rating. It is very good with some excellent performances, but I just fund it somewhat slight the second time around. No explanation is given for Bernie’s powers and although Bello likes astrology, there is no suggestion that anything supernatural is going on. I think it was better left unexplained but as a gimmick it was a but light to carry a whole film - I could see it as an ‘X-Files’ episode quite comfortably, but as a 100 minute feature it seemed a bit padded.

Macy and Bello were good and I liked that my early thoughts that she’d never go for him were borne out when Baldwin’s scheming was revealed. It was nice that she did end up liking him after all and it’s doubtful that his piles of cash had anything to do with that. Both were fully immersed in their role and, whilst their expressions of love were justified in the context of the film, I could have done without the shots of Macy’s sweaty bum.

Baldwin was excellent as the casino boss hanging onto the old times but he didn’t quite match the intensity of his ‘Glengarry Glen Ross’ performance. It was also good to see Ron Livingston off ‘Office Space’ and ‘Band of Brothers’ but he didn’t get much to work with as the corporate face of Vegas’ future.

There were some quite brutal scenes of women being beaten up and the film wasn’t shy is showing Vegas’ seamy underbelly, but a pat ending made for an enjoyable if slightly underwhelming experience.


THE Tag Line : Worth a Flutter 70%

No.213 : The Goob (2014)

The Goob at the IMDb

Oh a teenage coming of age film? That’ll be nice. Oh wait, British? Miserable it is then.

‘The Goob’ of the title is a 16 year old lad who has just finished school in rural Norfolk. He leaves the school bus for the last time and enters a world of, well not very much really.

Goob rides his moped to meet a bloke who I think was his Dad. He has a laugh and borrows some clothes having left the school bus in his pants - must be an English thing. He heads to the grim transport café where his mother works and then out to the banger racing with his brother and Mum’s new man Gene. Gene wins the race and goes home for some special attention from Goob’s mother. Goob and his brother sneak in and steal the keys for the stock car and head out for a joyride. Gene soon catches up and, following a crash, Goob’s brother is left in comedy traction.

Reasonably enough, Gene isn’t happy and has Goob work in his fields where the pumpkin harvest is due. Gene buses in a load of Eastern European field workers and, as the days of toil in the field goes by, Goob’s attention is drawn to a pretty young girl. Meanwhile a new camp employee has joined also and Gene ‘s wandering eye moves on to waitress Hannah Spearitt and to Goob’s object of desire.

Will anything happen or is this just a long hot summer slice of life?

I had concerns about this film from the off having noticed it was funded by the BBC and the BFI - worthiness was quickly confirmed and we were treated to 84 minutes of country living in the company of a bunch of chavs. Sadly it was more ‘bubonic’ than ‘bucolic’. Fair enough it was probably true and realistic, but not all stories need to be told.

The standout was Sean Harris, who graduated from this to be the baddie in the last two ‘Mission Impossible’ films. Maybe less worthy, but far more enjoyable. He exudes a quite menace and to be honest I was a bit disappointed that his character wasn’t as mental as his malevolent presence suggested.

I felt Liam Walpole in the title role was a bit limited and engaging. Quietness was his thing, but he failed to instill any sense of character with me. I preferred his campy friend, who looked lucky to get out alive after doing a dance number in Gene’s wife’s dress. It was a shame we didn’t see more of Hannah Spearritt as the downtrodden waitress Mary, but she was decent in her limited screen time.

Overall not much happened. I was awaiting a big revelation, a murder or some crazy twist but instead all I got was some people picking stuff in a field and lots of shouting at low rent barbecues. I’m sure these films are seen as important historical documents but for me, you need to add a wee bit of entertainment or narrative into the mix to make a viewing more than just a worthy pursuit.

It looked nice and the long hot summer was well realised, I just needed more to happen and for there to be a third act. Or a second.

THE Tag Line : North Norfolk’s Best Pumpkin Mix 51%

No.207 : The Watcher (2000)

The Watcher at the IMDb

Keanu Reeves is credited with three films in 2000 and all of them are the Definite Article! We have already had a look at The Replacements and, having seen ‘The Watcher’, I’m betting the upcoming ‘The Gift’ is the pick of that year’s litter. ‘The Watcher’ is certainly looking like the runt, a view that’s echoed by Keanu who has disowned it.

The film is essentially a cat and mouse homicide drama that pits Red Reddington against Ted ‘Theodore’ Logan. Red is an FBI investigator who is burnt out. He has an untidy apartment and only one orange in his fridge. He used to work L.A. but after his lady friend died in a fire and he failed to catch a serial killer he moved to Chicago to live off disability. That’s not much of a plot so let’s have the serial killer follow him and taunt him with a new set of killings - bodacious!

We get to hear Red’s profile of the killer set against Keanu in action. The idea is that he watches his targets for ages, knowing their every move, before strangling them with piano wire. We know he’s a force to be reckoned with as we’ve already seen him dancing on his own in slow motion.

Red sees a psychiatrist in the shape of a dowdy Marisa Tomei, and neglects to open his post. This turns out to be a mistake as he misses a special offer from Reader’s Digest. No wait, photos from the killer. Bored waiting to get caught, Keanu sends Red photos of his next victim and gives him until 9pm to trace the girl or else she’s history. ‘The Watcher’ has picked out quiet, lonely woman with cats as his victims and the first two peg it before anyone realises who they are. A searing indictment on our selfish society there.

Keanu gets bolder and starts trailing Red before he inevitably kidnaps Marisa and invites his rival to a big warehouse showdown. Who will survive? Will anyone watch ‘The Watcher’ and enjoy it? Doubtful.

This was an awful film that was like a sub-par episode of ‘Criminal Minds’. The police detection was terrible and largely amounted to berating people in the streets and stuffing flyers in their faces. Keanu was no better as the most character free serial killer ever committed to film. You could tell his heart wasn’t in it but that’s no excuse for this lamentable showing.

The director tried to use every trick in the book to jazz things up with flashbacks, POV shots, slow motion and out of focus shots all thrown into a mix that produced a big pile of crap.

There was no tension at all and the big finale was like 50% off day at the CGI shop. I will give the film credit for at least killing the baddie and showing the body - something ambiguous and a ‘The End…?’ caption would probably have ended me.

No one came out of this looking good with even poor old Zedmore off Ghostbusters drafted in to play an ineffective police chief who hands out assignments to any dope head who walks in his door.

There were a few unintentionally funny moments but not enough to rescue this stinker. Overall a complete mess with no thrills or surprises to speak of and some needlessly nasty kills to boot. All in all not worth a watch.

THE Tag Line : ‘Don’t Watch The Watcher’ 44%

No.205 : The Informers (2008)

The Informers at the IMDb

Based on a book by Bret Easton Ellis and boasting a stellar cast, I had high hopes for ‘The Informers’ but alas it was a bit of a mess, although a mess with a couple of decent ideas and scenes.

The film is set in L.A. in 1983. We open with a great looking party with everyone wearing neon and looking like escapees from the set of ‘Miami Vice’. The dreamy feelgood vibe lasts for all of two minutes as one attendee wanders out into the road and bleeds to death in his friend’s arms after being hit by a car.

The incident has a greater or lesser effect on a wide range of characters, and we follow seven separate stories, some of which intertwine, and others which barely reference the event at all.

I won’t go into intimate details of the plot as that would take all of the 100 minute run time to map out. The main events were a love triangle between Billy Bob Thornton , his wife (Kim Basinger) and the TV anchor he’s having an affair with played by Winona Ryder.

We also meet an English band who are jetting in for some concerts and to shoot a video. They are managed by a barely seen Rhys Ifans and have a lead singer who is a total nonce. There is also a plot involving a hotel worker whose uncle, Mickey Rourke, comes to stay and gets him involved in a kidnap plot, and a group of teens who all sleep with each other, often at the same time.

The hedonistic and seamy lifestyles we look in on slowly start to unravel and  as they play out we have to wonder if we really care what happens to these privileged and hedonistic assholes.

As you can imagine, there is a lot going on here and it’s a difficult balancing act to keep all of the balls in the air, and it's one the director fails to manage. The main love triangle plot was dull whereas I could have done with a lot more about the kidnapping. Chris Izzak and his son looked like they had fun in Hawaii but I missed the point and the rock star plot didn’t go anywhere.

I think that this was supposed to be an essay on 80’s culture and excess but it just came across as a bunch of rich folk with too much time on their hands. I guess the ‘informers’ of the title is a suggestion that they are each informing us of a flawed element of society. That, or it was just a load of good looking people having sex and taking drugs?

Reading the details of this production, I see that it suffered in the edit with a vampire plot from the book excised from the movie. That’s a shame as the film could have done with an extra element, supernatural or otherwise, to take it away from the self-indulgent mess that we ended up with.

There is a star name in nearly every scene but Thornton and Basinger were well off their Oscar form and only dear Amber Heard appeared to put everything into her role. I wouldn’t write it off as a complete waste of time, but the film certainly represents a wasted opportunity.

THE Tag Line :The 80’s Without the Fun  53%

No.203 : The Judge (2014)

The Judge at the IMDb

Alas this isn’t another film about Judge Dredd, but an overlong court room drama starting Robert Downey Jnr and Robert Duvall, who we recently saw in the more enjoyable The Outfit.

Downey plays Hank, a slick lawyer who will defend any client no matter how sleazy. He earns the big bucks and has a cute daughter, but his marriage has failed and he is estranged from his family. As a big case is about to close and just as Hank moves in for the kill, he gets a call to advise that his mother has died. The court adjourns and Hank heads back to his sleepy Indiana birthplace for the funeral.

He drives in a new truck, that looks for all the world as product placement, before meeting up with his two brothers, including a fat Vincent D’Onofrio, and his father Duvall, who was the town’s judge for 40 odd years. Hank has a drink and a squeeze with an attractive barmaid before meeting up with his old flame Vera Farmiga who you’ll know from ‘Up in the Air’. We learn that Hank went out to a concert one night and never came back, but fortunately Vera is most forgiving.

Hank gets a lift from Vera ,after falling off his bike, and he meets her daughter who just happens to be the barmaid he had kissyface with. She’s on break from law school and there is a brief suggestion that Hank may be her father.

Meanwhile damage is found to the front of Duvall’s car and he’s charged with killing a man by knocking him off his bike. It turns out the victim was a criminal whom Duvall had treated leniently but had gone onto kill a young girl. Duvall can’t remember the hit and run and is suffering from cancer and early onset dementia. Hank agrees to defend his Dad with the aid of Dax Shepard’s idiot lawyer, and they are soon up against Billy Bob Thornton, who has a score to settle against Hank.

Will the old man go down? Well what happens is…Objection! Watch it yourself or you can guess. You’ll probably get it right!

This was a decent effort but at 140 minutes it was too long. A lot of time was spend charting Duvall’s demise and to be honest I don’t need to see him shitting himself and getting showered down. It may have been a touching moment of weakness for a proud man, but I’d have been happy with a tell don’t show scenario here.

Hank’s journey was predictable as he started to see both sides of an argument to the extent that he was pondering taking over the judge’s chair at the end. The courtroom scenes were decent as the unbreakable case was slowly picked apart. There was too much of ’Objection your honour’ and too much latitude given when they started yelling out random stuff with the judge happy to see where it went.

The conclusion was balanced to some degree, with everyone winning but also losing, and with justice seeming to be served. Downey did his usual good show but if he donned the Iron Man armour half way though you wouldn’t be surprised. I could have done with more of Dax in his David Pleat suit, and it was a shame he didn’t get enough to do to earn ‘Employee of the Month’ this time around.
The will they won’t they love story didn’t go anywhere and the lovely Vera seemed a bit desperate.

There was some growth, some reconciliation and some redemption but alas too little editing. Trim an hour and you’d have a neat 90 minute drama rather than this meandering and bloated soap opera.

THE Tag Line : You are Judged to be Too Long!  67%

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.198 : The Whistleblower (2010)

The Whistleblower at the IMDb

Rachel Weisz stars in this bio-pic of Kathryn Bolcovac, the titular whistleblower who stood up for the trafficked women she found when working for the UN in post war Bosnia in 1999.

The films opens with two Ukrainian girls chatting in, I presume, Ukrainian. There are no subtitles and for a minute I thought I had a dud DVD, but you do manage to get an idea what’s going on. Basically one has gone to an agency and is getting her photo taken - huge red flag!

Weisz is a policewoman in Nebraska who is trying to get a transfer. She has lost a custody battle with her husband and needs to move if she is to keep in contact with her kids. The answer to her problems looks like it has arrived in the shape of a 6 month, $100k contract to work in Bosnia, following the end of the war. Her role is one of peacekeeper so she can’t always get involved in the seedy activities she sees going on.

After managing to prosecute the first case of domestic abuse in years she is spotted by boss woman Vanessa Redgrave, who gets her a promotion to head of female affairs. Meanwhile we see the Ukrainian girl from the start who is now a sex worker in a grotty bar. She and Weisz’ paths cross and, after finding a lot of Polaroids showing that UN workers are involved in all aspects of the trade, Rachel resolves to clean things up.

It’s not an easy task however, as all UN workers have diplomatic immunity and the powers that be have a desire to keep things quiet, lest the lucrative government contracts be pulled. She has brief help from Dr Strange and from David Strathearn at internal affairs, but her plans for justice are thwarted at every turn.

How far will Weisz go to save the girls and can the broken system be fixed?

This was a worthy and informative film, but one you would be hard pressed to enjoy. The treatment of women throughout is terrible with some of the extras from ‘Taken’ regularly delivering savage beatings to some dead-eyed girls. This means a lot of the film is women screaming and, although it’s doubtlessly realistic, I was worried the neighbours might call the cops on me.

Weisz is great in the lead and you can tell she is passionate about the subject of human trafficking. She doesn’t have any make up on and is usually in fatigues so you can’t say she’s in it for the glamour.

It was a clever device to follow the Ukrainian girl throughout so that we have a familiar face to empathise with. I was less keen on the several scenes where all the dialogue was in a foreign language and we had to guess what was going on.

The top level cast was mostly good, although Dr Strange and Davos Seaworth only had a couple of brief scenes each. To be fair, this film dates from 2010 so both were still early in their, soon to be stellar, careers.

The film used a largely blue and grey palette and the general mood was one of oppression and decay. It certainly suited the subject matter but, along with the brutal content, it only underlined what a depressing experience this film could be for some.

I did enjoy it, and although the captions at the end said that the problem wasn’t fixed, it was good to celebrate one woman’s efforts to right the horrible wrongs being perpetuated by those who were sent as saviours.

THE Tag Line : As Harrowing As It Should Be!   72%

No.197 : The Replacements (2000)

The Replacements at the IMDb

Time for a bit of sporting fun now as we try to cram every cliché possible into this unsatisfying American football romp.

We meet our hero Shane Falco (Keanu Reeves) as he clears barnacles off the hull of a boat whilst scuba diving. He finds an old American Football trophy discarded on the sea bed and relives a moment of glory before going back to his work. We learn he was a former star who froze during his big chance at the Sugar Bowl a few years back. They didn’t explore why he didn’t use his time travel phone box to fix things, which may have made for a more exciting film.

His chance of redemption comes along pretty quickly, as all the overpaid football stars are going on strike. The producers must have been a bunch of commies as the players were made out to be the bad guys with one moaning about the price of Ferrari insurance. Too bad it’s a short career that leaves most with brain damage!

Local team, the Washington Sentinels, are an outside bet to make the playoffs - if they can win 3 out of their last 4 games they qualify. The club’s owner gets washed up boss Gene Hackman to take over the team and to recruit a posse of replacement players to win the day. We get a quick montage of loads of characters who might, just might, be the greatest players you’ve ever seen.

Strangely the cheerleaders are also recruiting - must be out in support of the players- , with the ladies getting a ‘Britain’s Got Talent’ style montage of all the losers making a tit of themselves. A full stable of cheerleaders is however found in the strip joint with their leader definitely not going to fall for Keanu’s quarterback, as she doesn’t date players. Well for about five minutes she doesn’t.

The team go through training, fights and then bonding and soon the first game looms. Can they win  3 out of 4 after losing the first? - 3 out of 3 then Duh! And will the various misfits find the redemption they crave?

This was a strange kind of film that had no interest in the labour laws situation and it didn’t address things like crossing a picket line or undermining the original players’ genuine grievances. I’m no Ted the Red (Cuba!) but it seemed a bit strange for a blue collar film to side with the management - it was ‘Carry on at Your Convenience’ all over again.

The reasonable cast fared badly with some poor material. Reeves was OK in the lead but Jon Faverau was wasted as an annoying character who just ran into people. Rhys Ifans was better as soccer player Nigel from Wales who could kick massive field goals whilst smoking a fag. It looks like he was let down in the edit as his arc didn’t make any sense at all. There was also a lot of shoving and name calling and, most regrettably, dance numbers.

Hackman phoned it in and showed no passion at all - compare him to Pacino in ‘Any Given Sunday’ and you’ll see a lightweight getting smashed by a heavyweight in the 'down at heel football coach' role.

The games were poorly scripted with each of the four games coming down to the last seconds with our guys just behind. There was very little in the way of actual game play, the kind you see most Sundays, with every point being either a comical mishap or a death defying kick or throw.

It was OK in places but ultimately it was an uneven mess with unengaging characters and a suspect premise.

THE Tag Line : Strike it off your list!   55%

No.195 : The Circle (2017)

The Circle at the IMDb

Emma, one of the famous Watsons along with me and Bubba, stars in this tech thriller that outstays its welcome by a good half hour.

She plays Mae, who works as a temp for a water company and drives a crappy old car. She has an admirer in Mercer who fixes her car and doesn’t realise he has no chance. Mae gets a job at tech company ‘The Circle’ thanks to her friend Karen Gillen who sets up the interview.

The job is basically customer service, but soon the inevitable creepiness starts to appear. The Circle demands full access to all employee details and expects them to socialise within the company. Mae is resistant at first but when she sees the benefits, such as medical care for her sick father, she buys in.

Her enthusiasm is noted by company supremo Tom Hanks and CEO Patton Oswalt. Neither of these two are overly involved and Hanks looks like he filmed his scenes in a single afternoon.

Mae meets John Boyega off ‘Star Wars’, who seemed a bit miscast as the tech genius behind some of The Circle’s products, and he warns her of getting in too deep. Mae doesn’t listen and gets wired up for 24 hour webcam exposure to promote the company’s new ‘See Change’ technology. Later innovations such as compulsory voter registration via The Circle make us a bit uneasy and when Mercer dies in a company stunt, Mae has to reevaluate her commitment to the company.

Can this once temp worker bring down the multi-national tech company with help form the Star Wars guy? Are the company really evil and is the message really going to be that blunt? You Bet!

This film started out OK but as soon as Mae steals the kayak it goes downhill. The message about privacy was hammered home with a sledgehammer, with the tech company basically planning to record everything we ever say or do. Hanks was a bit one note and I wasn’t sure if he was meant to be evil or just misguided. Watson was OK but had a lot of heavy lifting to do and I really didn’t care for her journey. The peer pressure was well realised, but I was expecting a big reveal that she’d been brainwashed when she really just got caught up in the hype.

The guy playing Mercer looked like he found the part in a cereal box and Boyega’s ‘deep throat’ character was a waste of time. Some scenes ran too long and I felt like I’d spent days in the auditorium watching product demos - buy ‘The Circle’ products! It did look like there had been a big change of plan midway by the production as Karen Gillan’s character went from high-flyer to mentalist in the blink of an eye.

It was sad to see Bill Paxton and Glenne Headly as Mae’s parents, as they were both dead within a year of this film coming out. Paxton looked terrible and I assumed his character’s MS was the actor’s own. He actually died of a stroke so good performance here Bill!

‘The Circle’ had a hollow ring to it and I didn’t believe the public’s buy in to their shenanigans, which weren’t really evil just a bit invasive. If you want to watch something about an shady tech company watch ‘Devs’ instead of this - that’s got Ron Swanson in it too. This one was over long and under developed.

THE Tag Line - Not Fully Rounded     56%

No.194 : The Strangers (2008)

The Strangers at the IMDb

This film opens with a caption saying that there are 1.3 million crimes of violence a year in America and that this film is ‘inspired by true events’. Off the bat we know that our own fears of being murdered will be played on and that they have basically made everything up. Just as well really as it’s nasty and pointless film that you’d hope would never happen in reality. But probably does.

We get a brief preamble of two boys entering a blood soaked house  - we can’t see any bodies but carnage has ensued. It is soon apparent that this is a flash forward…

Kirsten and James arrive home late after a night out. They drive a Volvo so we know that they are safety conscious and middle class. They arrive in silence and a flashback tells us that James proposed at their night out and she didn’t accept. Despite it being 4am they stick on some records and have a drink.

A knock on the door is the first sign that all is not well. A woman asks for someone they don’t know and we wonder if this was just a test to see if anyone is in. James goes out to get Kirsten some cigarettes and whilst he’s gone the door knocking continues. More sinister things happen such as a broken smoke alarm is found put back together and a man with a bag on his head is seen at the window.

James is initially sceptical but starts to buy in when his car gets trashed and his lost mobile phone shows up on the counter. He gets his father’s shotgun and the pair hide out in a back room -predictably the phone lines are down and the mobiles aren’t working.

Unfortunately for him, James’ friend Dennis Reynolds shows up and is promptly shot in the face. This doesn’t put off your bag and mask wearing bad guys however, with the three of them now revealed and in the house. Our heroes try to make it to a barn that has a radio but soon the pair are tied to some chars and, worryingly, the bad guys take off their masks. Who will survive? Why are they doing this and have I locked the door?

This film was all about the tension with every long period of silence ended with a scream or a jump scare. I find this very annoying and the screeching Liv Tyler, in the lead, lost any empathy from me long before the end. I didn’t like that there was no motivation from the bad guys and that they were simply just psychos. Even that is an assumption as we barely hear them talk and they are little more than devices for our characters to run away from.

It’s a common flaw in films like this that the bad guys have second sight - they always know what window to stand at and when to jump out of the way just as the character turns around. Just once I’d love to see one stub his toe and shout as he’s silently stalking the hero.

The violence was pretty nasty and I could see this film doing well in a darkened cinema with all the scares in full surround sound. There just wasn’t any substance. It takes about 15 minutes to start properly and only lasts 75 minutes in total. Even with just an hour of action it seems padded with the whole quest of getting to the radio in the barn seeming pointless and proving to be so.

If you like a good home invasion film check out ‘The Desperate Hours’. This one was just desperate.

THE Tag Line : There’s Somebody at the Door!  45%

No.181 : The Alibi (2006)

The Alibi at the IMDb

As a fan of most things Coogan, I was hoping that I’d unearthed a hidden gem here from 2006. Alas it’s a dud and rightly forgotten.

Steve plays Ray Elliott a slick businessman who operates a high end organisation that supplies alibis to cheating spouses. We open with him meeting with regular client James Brolin who is a happy customer, so much so that he recommends the outfit to his son, Cyclops off ‘X-Men’.

The set up seems unnecessarily complex with operators intercepting calls and operatives checking into hotels in the client’s names with identities switched. Of course the elaborate scheme immediately comes undone, with Cyclops’s girlfriend dying during some kinky sex. There’s no suggestion of murder so I don’t know why they can’t just say it was an accident, which it was. That’s not a plot however, so what follows is a lot of convoluted encounters that makes the whole mess more complicated than Mensa running an episode of ‘3-2-1’.

Near the start of the film we see Steve employ Rebecca Romijn and he explains the operation to her as well as to us, the unconvinced viewers. It seems however that Rebecca may have her own agenda. Meanwhile, Brolin hires Sam Elliott to whack Steve to protect Cyclops, whilst Sam’s daughter Selma Blair fancies Steve and plans an assignation with him. We also get John Leguizamo, in some ill advised corn rows, as the real boyfriend of Cyclops’ date and some side plot about Coogan’s unseen partner ‘Jack’ who may or may not exist.

The various players meander their way towards a big showdown at a hotel which is maybe played for laughs, but I wasn’t sure. They did go for farce and to be fair it couldn’t have been more farcical if Ronnie Corbett had shown up with his trousers at his ankles.

There were a few signs early on that this was a troubled production. Two directors isn’t a good start nor is narration to tell you what’s going on - show, don’t say! There was also a lot of fast edits and call backs, and the whole enterprise was just plain confusing.

I get that they were trying to make some sort of commentary on social mores but it just came across as a lot of random stuff loosely patched together into an incoherent narrative.

Coogan tries hard but he seemed out of his depth in the leading man role, and it was a mistake to have Romijn as his love interest as she towered above him. Usually reliable heavy weights like Brolin, Elliott and Lezguizamo were given precious little to do, and what they got was a poor use of their talents.

You didn’t care for Ray and his sleazy business and at the end the big reveal was met by me with a resounding ‘so what’? It was also a bit tame also for a film about adultery, with everyone keeping their underwear on and swearing kept to a minimum. These seemed strange choices, and you have to wonder what audience they were actually aiming for?

My guess is that the end product was the result of massive cuts and reediting that led to the voice over and short 86 minute run time. There may have been a decent film here at one point, but it certainly wasn’t the one that oozed shamefully onto my DVD player.

The Tag Line : Make an excuse not to watch -  45%