No. 251 : The Outfit (2022)

 

The Outfit at the IMDb

 

After a long hiatus the Definite Article Movie Blog returns! The ‘W Movie Blog’ has also had a recent entry and the long awaited Michael Shannon Blog, ‘Michael Shannon and On and On’ is coming soon. It is truly a golden age of unread blogingness!

I picked this film up on Netflix, mainly because it featured Johnny Flynn whom I recently enjoyed in a cinema screening of the play ‘The Motive and the Cue’. He played Richard Burton in that and gave good Welshness. In this one he plays gangster against Mark Rylance’s tailor, sorry cutter.

The film feels like a play itself, with only a couple of sets and the action all taking place over a few days, and in mainly during one night in 1950’s Chicago. Rylance is excellent as Leonard an English tailor who has set up shop in The Windy City, citing the advent of blue jeans in London as his reason for his move. We later learn that there was more than denim behind his emigration, but from the start he’s a simple and quietly spoken man going about his work.

The film opens with a voice over as we witness Rylance making a suit. We learn of the various fabrics involved and the skilled and complex process behind the making of a bespoke garment. He corrects people when he is described as a tailor, whom mainly do alterations – he’s a cutter who cuts out the many shapes of fabric needed for a suit, before stitching them together.

As he goes about his business various shady men appear and drop off envelopes in a locked box at the back of the shop. It’s not clear what’s going on initially, but Rylance just minds his own business. Some of the envelopes bear a distinctive mark which we learn is that of ‘the outfit’. This is a shady organisation, seemingly started by Al Capone, and the local low level gangsters think that they may soon merit an invite to the top table.

We learn that Rylance’s first customer was a mob boss and he has since dressed all manner of underworld figures. There is however an issue as there is a rat in the organisation and ‘the outfit’ has sent over a copy of audio tape that fingers the suspect.

The tape sets in motion a night of violence and double crosses as gangster Flynn and the boss’s son try to work out who the rat is. Gun play and double crosses ensue, and soon rival mob bosses are in the back shop - and they’re not after a new pair of trousers.

Who is the rat? And what other secrets does the mild mannered cutter have in store for us?

This was a superior offering that passed me by on it’s cinema release. The whole production is played out like a theatre offering and I don’t think much was lost with a Netflix viewing at home. Rylance does his usual excellent work and he was ably assisted by a fine supporting cast.

The film kept me guessing and, despite it’s single set staging, it never seemed limited or unambitious. The dialogue crackled along and I like how Rylance’s true character slowly emerged as the film wore on. The twists were well realised and fully earned and I liked the cut of this one’s cloth overall.

THE Tag Line : A Cut Above 74%

No.241 : The Stranger (TV, 2020)

The Stranger (TV) at the IMDb

Based on the novel by Harlan Coben ‘The Stranger’ is an 8 part series made by Netflix. The New Jersey setting of the novel has been transplanted to the UK with the series filmed in and around the Manchester area and using a lot of familiar actors.

Solicitor Adam seems to have the perfect life - he has a nice house, two sons and is married to her off ‘Ballykissangel’. His life is turned upside-down however when the titular stranger shows up and tells him to have a dig about his wife’s bank account. He does so and finds evidence that her pregnancy, which ended with a miscarriage two years previously, was in fact faked. He confronts her about this and shortly thereafter she goes missing.

Meanwhile a teenage rave goes wrong when a doped up youth is found naked in the woods and a decapitated alpaca is dumped in the town centre. Elsewhere Jennifer Saunders, who runs a coffee shop, gets a couple of shots of her own - to the head - and the police are at a loss to tie all these events together. Adam’s full plate is in danger of tipping over as he tries to protect his client Stephen Rea from eviction at the hands of Adam’s estranged father, Anthony Head.

All the while The Stranger is demanding blackmail money from a variety of victims about whom she knows their most intimate secrets. Are her actions purely financial or does she have moral convictions at the heart of her schemes? As the series progress the disparate strands of the story start to come together, with the exposed secrets causing untold damaged to those involved and their families.

I wasn’t too sold on this show at first as it looked like one of those ‘event’ ITV dramas that usually end up being a lot of predictable guff designed only to advance the career of some non-entity that they foolishly signed a contract with. I was however drawn in by the complex story and the compelling drama that unfolded. There were perhaps too many plot strands with a few going nowhere and serving only to distract you from the main thrust of the story. I guess a bit of misdirection is par for the course in a mystery drama, and the pace was such that I never lost interest in the next development.

The story developed logically and the detection angle was good. Siobhan Finnernan stood out as the lead detective although her accent made me think she was a refugee from Coronation Street. Richard Armitage was also good as the father struggling to understand what was going on and Rea and Paul Kaye did well in supporting roles that ran deep.

I was less impressed with ‘The Stranger’ herself who didn’t have the menace or gravitas the role demanded. I see in the book it was a bloke and this failing may have been down to the casting director looking to mix things up by casting a young woman, when the role demanded something a bit more sinister.

I liked how the story threads weaved together and the fact that everyone’s secrets impacted on those about them. The ending wasn’t a great surprise given the clues seeded throughout, but it was still a satisfying conclusion to an excellent and compelling drama.

THE Tag Line : Secrets, Secrets Are No Fun…  76%

 

No.221 : The Sinner (TV) (2017) Series 1-3

The Sinner at the IMDb

A second trip into the Definitive world of TV now as we look at all three seasons of the American show ‘The Sinner’. Each season deals with a single case and lasts for 8 episodes. This may seem like overkill for a single investigation but the format does lend itself to an exhaustive approach to the crime and the motivations behind it. It won’t be for everyone, especially if you need a lot of action, but fans of the police procedural will lap it up.

Bill Pullman stars as Harry Ambrose a bearded detective working out of a precinct in Dorchester New York. It’s a well heeled community and you get the sense that murders are the exception rather than the norm. Harry has a basket full of issues, with a troubled marriage, that is soon dissolved, and a few kinks of his own including paying fat hookers to beat him up. These edges start to disappear in the later series which are pretty much straight up investigations, with Harry’s quirks largely set to one side.

The three seasons broadcast so far deal with individual crimes although mentions of the previous events do crop up in later investigations. The crimes all involve unlikely murderers and Harry’s, largely self appointed, task is to understand the motivations behind them and whether they can be explained or justified.

The three seasons are named after the main subject with the first being Cora. Cora is a young mother who one day at the beach stabs a man to death with a fruit knife. It looks like an open and shut case and she pleads guilty, but Harry knows he has 8 episodes to fill, and starts to dig deeper. As he slowly unravels details of the case we learn of a larger conspiracy and a horrific back-story that begins to explain her actions.

In the second season a young boy poisons his two carers, with tea made from a deadly root. Again it’s an open and shut case, but why did he do it and what has the mysterious cult, in which he was raised, got to do with it all?

In the last season to date, a young teacher survives a car crash in which his friend dies. An examination of the timeline shows that the friend could have been saved,. Why was he allowed to die and what about these other murders that are cropping up?

For me the first two seasons were great with the third only being so-so. I liked the fresh approach to detective work, although it beggared belief that Harry would be given free reign to pick apart an open and shut case whilst, presumably, loads of other murders were going unsolved, The first series was the most satisfying in terms of revelations and detective work. Harry has no special powers apart from asking the right questions and reading people. At first his kinky life is a major factor in his character but that’s rightly sidelined as the series progresses. I know every cop show needs an angle but I don’t need to see my leading man get his face sat on, on a regular basis.

The second series involving the cult was good too and I liked how the conspiracy was all over the town with various worthies getting drawn in. The creepy kid was excellent as was Carrie Coon, who you’ll know off Season 3 of ‘Fargo’. It was also good to see ‘Mr Dresden’ off those old Orange Cinema ads as ‘The Beacon’.

The third season was still enjoyable but it stretched things a bit far in terms of the indulgences allowed to Harry and by him to his suspect. When he agreed to be buried in a grave to win his suspect’s trust you could almost hear the ‘whoosh’ as the shark was jumped.

Bill Pullman is likeable in the lead, as the sharp but laid back detective. He is given too much latitude in his investigations to be believable, but you give it a pass as it’s enjoyable to see him dismantle an unbreakable case.

At the start I thought there was going to e a supernatural element to the series but in the end it is down to nothing more than peoples’ minds and their motivation, which is ultimately more satisfying than a lot of paranormal gubbins.

The series has been renewed for a fourth season and I’d certainly recommend that you get on board before that comes out. All series can be found on Netflix.

THE Tag Line : Sinner’s a Winner 74%

No.212 : The Harvest (2013)

The Harvest (2013) at the IMDb

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

THE Tag Line : Pick of the Crop!  73%

No.211 : The Gift (2000)

The Gift at the IMDb

We finish our Keanu year 2000 triumvirate with ‘The Gift’ following ‘The Replacements’ and ‘The Watcher’. To say this is the best of the three is like saying Alec is the best Baldwin brother actor - it’s not really a competition.

This has quality written all over it with a top cast, cracking director in Sam Raimi and even Billy Bob Thornton showing up as co-writer. 

Cate Blanchett stars and gets a before the title credit which seemed strange so early in her career, but having seen the film you can see why - she is in nearly every scene and gives a cracking performance. She plays Annie, a young widow with three boys who possesses a psychic gift. She doles out readings to locals, such as beaten wife Hilary Swank who is married to the brutal Keanu. Keanu is a total bastard and blames Annie for his marriage problems rather than his philandering and wife punching powers.

Annie’s kids are playing up and on a visit to the principal Greg Kinnear she meets his fiancée, Katie Holmes. Katie has learned of Annie’s gift and asks if she sees anything in her and Greg’s future. She says she doesn’t, but we get a flash of Katie’s scabby and wet feet and know that things don’t bode well for her. Into the mix we also get Giovanni Ribisi’s slightly slow mechanic and Bill Lumbergh as the sleazy town prosecutor.

The action ramps up when Katie goes missing and, after a few days, they call in Annie for some clues. Police chief J Jonah Jamieson is sceptical, but less so when Katie’s body is fished out of Keanu’s pond, following Annie’s tip. 

After a court case, where Annie is branded a witch, Keanu goes down but Annie’s visions keep on coming. She knows that Keanu didn’t kill Katie, but who did?

This was a great film that was well told and edited with lots of clues peppered throughout. You have at least four solid suspects for the murder, and although I guessed correctly, any of the others would have been just as likely.

Blanchett does well as the wise women and I liked how she inhabited her visions while the past played out. The solid cast all did well apart from maybe Ribisi who was a bit too ‘Of Mice and Men’ for my liking. Word was that Billy Bob was asked to play the part, but I can see why he refused as it may have been a bit too close to ‘Slingblade’ for comfort.

I liked how Keanu was set up as the villain, but even after his conviction which saw Annie freed from his abuse, she still fought for the truth. Keanu was good as the bad guy and looked powerful when dishing out the lady beatings. Down the cast I liked Katie Holmes as the slutty Jessica and I wish we’d seen more of Bill Lumbergh’s pants down prosecutor.

The pacing and direction was excellent and I liked the final twist that gave an even more spooky and satisfying end to an entertaining film. Overall a cracking supernatural offering that will leave an impression.

THE Tag Line : Give Yourself the Gift of The Gift   -  80%

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.190 : The Pact (2012)

The Pact at the IMDb

Johnny Rico out of ‘Starship Troopers, stars in this film - Would you like to know more? If you’re smart you’ll say ‘No, I’m off to see ‘Love is Nice’ with Jennifer Aniston . This was a dull, depressing and low budget effort that wasn’t worth the bother.

Annie returns to her home town in California following the death of her mother. She can’t convince her sister to return to their childhood home as the sister has a lot of bad memories of the place. Annie seems in denial somewhat and has a troubling night when unseen forces watch her having a pee before chucking her about the place.

Annie manages to escape with her young niece but learns that her sister is now missing and she’s the only suspect. Rico is a nice policeman who hands out ice cream to suspects and enjoys listening to their wild and fantastical theories of what’s going on.

The pair return to the family home and discover a boarded up room complete with a rickety bed and enough peepholes to make Norman Bates blush. With the cops no use Annie starts her own investigation and finds a woman waving at her from Google Maps. She also visits a bunch of stoners in a scene so annoying with industrial clanging that I had to fast forward it. I think they were trying for a ‘Silent Hill’ type unsettling vibe but it was just plain headache inducing.

Believing there to be a supernatural explanation for her troubles Anne drafts in Stevie, a pale, scary looking psychic, who yells Judas before freaking out - must be a Dylan fan. After some more internet wizardry Annie earns about the Judas Killer, a serial killer from her neighbourhood who remains at large.

Rico does some investigating of his own and soon wishes he hadn’t. But fear not! we have a Ouija board and some ghostly special effects that may save the day.

I didn’t like this film at all. From it’s washed out palette to its uninspiring lead. The clues were all over the shop and the obvious explanation was the one they went with. There were too many jump scares and no real horror. Some of the effects were somewhat unsettling but I’ve seen better elsewhere, even in video games.

The plot, about repressed memories and childhood abuse, was never going to float my boat but it could have made an effort beyond the standard haunted house tropes. The film was made for a shoestring $400k and it does show with a lot of talk and very little show.

Rico was miscast as the nice policeman and his comeuppance was a small mercy at least. His reappearance in Ouija was a chuckle and I wondered if his pay had ran out and he phoned this bit in. The revelations were decently handled although the helpful ghost took a bit of acceptance. The baddy reveal was a bit of a letdown, but sometimes the real horrors aren’t ethereal, they are bald guys with their shirts off. The climax was reasonably good with it let down somewhat with the eye at the peep hole at the end - oh no! It’s starting all over again.

Over all I wasn’t scared or affected or even interested throughout. Make a pact with yourself and give it a miss.

THE Tag Line : Pact Full of Nothing 32%

No.183 : The Objective (2008)

The Objective at the IMDb

Box office Mojo gives this film’s domestic gross as $95. Having watched it, that seems about a hundred bucks more than it’s worth.

We open with a portentous voiceover which is never a good sign. CIA Agent Keynes tells us that 3 days after 9/11 mysterious signals were detected in the Afghan desert and he’s been sent to investigate. He meets up with the usual rag tag of soldiers who accompany him on the mission.

The briefing takes all of a couple of minutes as he explains they are going to get a statement from a holy man. The mission starts off OK as they visit some locals and hand out some candy. They gain a guide in the form of Abdul and head off to the mountains, where the holy man is hanging out.

Almost immediately they are attacked in an ambush and lose a soldier. They kill a few terrorists but their bodies mysteriously disappear. The fire fight takes out their jeep and most of their water supply and things predictably go downhill from here.

Keynes stays aloof from the men and is constantly peering at his thermal image camera. They witness some strange lights and before long their numbers are whittled down as men are vaporised by an invisible enemy.

Eventually Keynes comes clean to his rapidly depleting crew - they are trying to track an ancient and terrible force that took care of some British troops in the first Afghan war and which was documented by Alexander the Great. Unfortunately for us it’s not exciting aliens or monsters but some lights that form a triangle - excitement she wrote!

With further loses to dehydration and desertion, Keynes is on his own but he finds an oasis in the desert. Just as he has hope of recovery, his camera picks up a new image - will this be death or salvation?

I didn’t enjoy much about this film apart from the great Moroccan locations that doubled for the slightly more hostile Afghanistan. The acting was uniformly terrible with the lead being the most wooden turn since Pinocchio. The voice over was pretentious with philosophical gubbins being trotted out at every turn. The usual men on a mission clichés were all present and correct as was the standard ‘unit depleting one at a time‘ narrative.

The end, and indeed the whole film, didn’t make a lick of sense and I was really none the wiser about what was going on as the credits rolled. It could have been interesting given the location and overarching ideas in play, but the execution was awful and compounded by a terrible script and lamentable acting.

The Tag Line : Your Objective : Give this a miss! 23%

No.145 : The Invitation (2015)

The Invitation at the IMDb

Don’t you hate it when you get invited to a yuppie dinner party and it turns out to be a new age death cult?

That common occurrence is the subject of this horror / mystery which stars a few people you’ll know to see but you won’t know their names.

Our hero is Will, who looks like Jesus and who is heading to a party with his black wife, Kiara. There is a bit of mystery afoot as we learn that Will used to live in the house which is now occupied by dinner party hosts, David and Eden. There is some back-story to be had, but no doubt we’ll get that later. The journey is interrupted when Will runs over a coyote that he has to finish off with a tyre iron. I may be slow, but I think this is a metaphor for the rest of the film.

They arrive at the party and we are introduced to several of their friends who look like a Benetton commercial. We learn that the hostess, Eden , is Will’s former partner and that they share a sad history - it’s revealed later on had they had son who died. Eden has a new partner in the shape of David who is a bit intense and to add to the mix they have invited Sadie and Pruitt who are downright weird.

The party goes OK at first, but it seems a little off, a situation that intensifies when the gang are shown a video of a cult in Mexico where David and Eden met. The cult deals with death and healing and the video includes a women dying of cancer. As you’d guess this really helps the atmosphere. The crew worry that they are going to get the hard sell to join the cult, but that will be the least of their worries.

As things intensify Will does some snooping and finds a big pile of drugs and a video from the cult leader who says that ‘Tonight is the night’! Will it be a blood fest or is the troubled Will just imagining stuff? He’s totally not.

I liked this slow burner of a film that seemed a bit disjointed but ended up strangely satisfying. The awkwardness of social gatherings was well realised with Will initially appearing a paranoid loon ball when a couple of his accusations were disproved. Guess it’s safe to drink the wine then!

The cast were mostly good although I didn’t buy into crazy Sadie. The only recognisable face for me (apart from ‘The Wiz' off Seinfeld as the cult leader) was John Carroll Lynch as Pruitt who gave good value as the head mentalist. You probably won’t know his name but he is recognisable from ‘The Founder’ and ‘Veep’ amongst others.

The film piles on the intensity in the last twenty minutes and it was good that a few familiar tropes of the ‘killer in the locked house’ scenario were dropped. I was sure he was getting up again!

There was plenty of blood and a few wrong foots that, although not unexpected, made it good fun. Several genres merged, especially towards the end and we almost broke into another franchise altogether - The Purge anyone?

You’ll find this one on Netflix and it’s well worth 100 minutes of your time.

THE Tag Line : Don’t drink the wine! © Blackadder 73%

No. 135 : The Commuter (2018)

The Commuter at the IMDb

Liam Neeson takes time off from his busy schedule of looking for black people to beat up to make this routine, but decent thriller. If you have seen his ‘Die Hard on a plane’ thriller ’Non Stop’ you’ve pretty much seen this, as it is the same script with ‘plane’ cleverly changed to ‘train’.

Neeson plays the titular commuter and the opening credits show him making the same commute into New York through all weathers in a variety of jackets. Neeson does stretch himself with the part however, with his character being an Irish man who lives in America. He has range, you have to give him that.

He lives with his wife and teenage son and his quirk is that he reads old books to help his offspring with his schoolwork. This leads to him showing the odd bit of literary insight and something to talk about with fellow commuter, Mike out of ‘Breaking Bad’. It’s a shame Mike didn’t have a bigger part but seemingly he had a bus to catch.

The action all takes place over one day and on one train ride, so if you are looking for car chases and sex scenes this is not the film for you. Before he boards the fateful train we see Neeson sell insurance to a young couple and he reveals he lost everything in the credit crunch. He has only five years until retirement (must have had a tough paper round) and should have enough money to squeeze by if everything goes OK. Almost immediately he is pulled into the manager’s office and given the boot as he costs more than he brings in. Nice to see there’s none of that HR nonsense about giving people a warning and due process etc.

He heads to the pub where he meets former police partner Patrick Wilson and police chief Sam Neill. Wilson comes across nice and Neill a dick. Bet those positions are set in stone! After stiffing Wilson with the bar bill he heads home. Surely his day can’t get any worse? Of course it does, but first the lovely Vera Farmiga shows up and starts chatting to Neeson. He thinks she’s trying to chat him up but in reality she’s offering him $100k for finding a bag, as you do.

Cash strapped Neeson smells a rat but pockets the £25k deposit and starts looking for the elusive bag holder. We then get a long period were we meet the various commuters such as douche bag Wall Street broker Clem Fandango and a weasely ticket inspector who was at least a bit of fun.

Slowly the number of suspects reduces as Neeson gets involved in a few fist fights and rampant vandalism - it was just like the last train to Paisley Canal! As the train approaches its final destination, and with Neeson’s family held hostage, will he get the bag and free his loved ones? Will the rail company refund his ticket due to excessive delays and will the police’s geriatric recruitment programme save the day?

This was a decent effort in the ‘We’ve got a few stars with 10 minute gaps in their diaries - let’s churn out something quick’ genre. Neeson paints by numbers in his portrayal of a man let down by the system trying to save his family. At no point to you have any sympathy for his situation as you wait for the next choreographed punch up. You have more sympathy for the fellow commuters who have a beer soaked Irish man shouting ‘What’s in your bag’ at them with annoying regularity.

Farmiga has about five minutes on screen and Wilson and Neill much the same. The supporting cast do OK with thinly written parts and it was fun to see Clem Fandango say something other that ‘Steven, can you hear me?’

The overall premise was ridiculous. The hunted bag belonged to a witness and the baddies wanted it back before it was delivered to the cops. Fair enough, but with their resources and eyes on everything overview you’d have thought relying on a troubled commuter would be the worst plan possible. Clearly they weren’t shy about some blood letting so why not just blow up the train rather than hope that Neeson will deliver?

The film ramps up in the last 20 minutes with a pretty decent crash that many CGI pixels gave their lives for, followed by a siege that wasn’t as tense as the director was hoping for. There was a funny take on ‘I’m Spartacus’ and then an after the fact sequence where we catch up with Neeson which although somewhat pat, at least it gave us some closure.

If you went into town on a train to see ‘The Commuter’ at the cinema you would have regretted paying for the off peak travel but as a find on Amazon Prime it was a decent offering that stayed on the rails for the most part.

THE Tag Line : Worst Train Ride Since Jimmy Savile
Rating : 64%

No.104 : The Package (2013)

The Package at the IMDb

 When a film stars Steve Austin and Dolph Lundgren you know it isn’t going to be Oscar bait; but is it a credible entry in the wrestler becomes action hero genre? Hmmm, not really!

Stone Cold plays Tommy Wick and I don’t think that was intended as rhyming slang. Wick is an ex-marine reduced to debt collecting for a mob boss due to his indebted brother being in prison. I think you are meant to think he’s a decent guy but he comes across as a sadistic asshole as we join him on a routine collection job at the bowling alley. He sticks one guy’s head through a table and another into the ball return slot before giving him the obligatory 24 hours to pay.

He returns to his boss with the day’s takings and gets another job; to deliver a package to ‘The German’ for a fat bonus that’ll see his brother’s debts written off. We’ve already met The German (Lundgren) who turns a double cross into his favour when he kills a dozen heavily armed guys with a small knife. He’s tasty too you see - I can see a big fight finale in our future!

Tommy goes on his delivery job with his colleague reasonably asking why can’t the Fed-Ex the package, which is a small computer drive. This logic is not required and he gets a shot in the head for his troubles from an unseen sniper. Rather than come to a slow stop their vehicle does a massive flip from which only a wrestler with a two foot neck can escape. Luckily we have one and when the rival gang snatch squad arrive to recover the package Tommy is ready to kill loads of them in slow motion.

Realising this shit got real Tommy calls his boss but is persuaded to carry on as the threatened 50% pay cut would endanger his brother. Meanwhile The German is doing his own handiwork and teaching various henchmen the finer points of music and smoothies before killing them all - what a waste of an education.

Eventually Tommy is captured and after some very mild torture escapes only to get caught again and delivered to The German. Once again Tommy is strapped to a table and the Smoking Man off ‘The X-Files’ is ready to go to work on him. Can Tommy escape and will the secret of ‘the package’ be a surprise to anyone?

This was a dreadful film but it just about qualifies as a guilty pleasure. The acting is uniformly awful as is the action which mainly consisted of slow speed fist fights. People were taking half a dozen haymakers to the jaw with no effect. The gun play was worse with Austin spraying bullets like fly spray. He seemed constantly surprised when he ran out of bullets but we all knew that was just an excuse to punch some more face.

Attempts to soften Austin’s image with some intimate moments with his wife were wasted as you were too worried that she’d get splinters from the big lump of wood in her bed. Swedish Dolph excels at being a bad actor playing a German and his fighting skills have faded badly since he took that beating off Rocky Balboa.

The action takes place over the course of the day and although there are about 50 deaths and a million bullets spent it seems like the longest day you’ll ever endure. It was decent brain-dead action but you have nothing invested in anyone involved and when the credits roll you feel slightly ashamed that you have spent 90 minutes in their charmless company.

THE Tag Line : Package Fails to Deliver  43%

No.74 : The Reckoning (2002)

The Reckoning at the IMDb

Off to the Middle Ages now on the Definite Article Blog with this tale of actors, murder, child abuse and some illicit sex - well they didn’t have the internet back then.

We open as Paul Bettany gives himself an  impromptu haircut with a sharp rock. We jump back and forth to hairier time, when he was a priest giving a sermon. He catches the eye of a buxom wench and we assume he’s been defrocked after being caught in the act with the temptress. He chucks his priestly robes in the river but keeps his crucifix in case it might come in handy later.

He wanders the woods until he happens upon a travelling troupe of actors. He witnesses one murder another but quickly accepts it was a mercy killing and asks to join up - clearly he wasn’t put off by their grievance procedure.

The actors include such luvvies as Brian Cox, Willem Dafoe and the always lovely Gina Mckee. They take on the errant priest to fill the minor roles in their production despite some sensing he has more to hide than he lets on. They are soon on the road and arrive at the fakest looking hilltop castle this side of ‘The Holy Grail’. The town is empty as the villagers are all at the trail of a local woman accused of murdering a young lad. She is found guilty but we know she’s innocent as she’s so darn pretty.

The actors stage their production of ‘Adam and Eve’ to lukewarm reviews and after being refused a burial for their dead colleague by the local vicar our once priestly friend agrees to do a comeback gig to plant the stiff. There are however rumblings in the town and it can’t all be down to the stew. The villagers think the condemned woman is innocent and Dafoe thinks recreating the murder may be a money spinning idea to get the troupe’s cart fixed. They bribe Simon Pegg’s overacting jailer to get access to the woman for plot tips and start to piece together the mystery. A exhumation confirms their worst fears and we have to wonder if the woman will be saved and if those responsible will meet justice.

For a medieval murder mystery this was pretty good stuff. It’s no ’In the name of the Rose’ but it had plenty going for it, not least a top notch cast. OK Dafoe’s accent is all over the shop and I’ve no idea why we had to keep seeing him do stretches in his pants but he’s always a strong and likable presence. Brian Cox does his usual blustery outrage shtick and for one performance he dresses up as Darth Maul - maybe he’s hoping for a gig in the new trilogy. I was sorry not to see more of Gina, but Bettany was excellent at what he does best - the oddball religious character. He should try and broaden his range - he was really convincing as a Pro tennis player in ‘Wimbledon’, then again…

The detection angle was well done with the gristly exhumation a real stomach turner. It was clear from the off that Ewen Bremner’s sneering monk would be involved as would the man seen peeping out his windows a lot . The finale where the actors utilised their skills to convince the thick townsfolk of the real villain was well done and although low budget they did capture the grime and smells of ye olde world shit hole.

The main twist was that we had a priest trying uncover child abuse rather than be involved in it, but the resolution was great and well earned. One thing I would have changed was the non-descript title - maybe ‘Luvvies Vs Nonces’ was already taken?

THE Tag Line : Luvvie to See You   76%

No.65 : The Village (2004)

The Village on IMDb

 Even you haven’t seen ‘The Village’ you will doubtless know the twist ending, but in case you’ve been living in a cave for the last ten years I’ll begin with *Spoilers* follow.

We open with a village community surrounding the cemetery - they are standing well back as Brendan Gleeson is weeping and cuddling a small coffin. We learn later it was his daughter and her tombstone indicates the year to be in the 1880s. Things go along OK for a while but strange behaviour is noted such as the burying of some red flowers lest their ‘forbidden colour‘ be seen. Village simpleton Adrien Brody larks about and has a fancy for the blind Bryce Dallas Howard, while young men test their bravery by standing close to the woods.

Romances also blossom with the quiet Joaquin Phoenix being pursued by Judy Greer and widowers William Hurt and Sigourney Weaver having a mild flirtation. Through all this character development we learn that the village is in a valley surrounded by woods, which are occupied by ‘those we do not speak of’. An age old truce keeps these presumed monsters out of the town, and the villagers out of the woods.

There are however signs that the truce may be ending, as small incursions into the woods see animal corpses strung up in the village and red marks on their doors. Tensions heighten until the shambling, red cloaked creatures start vacationing in the village making us all a bit scared and wondering who does their tailoring.

Things reach a head when Adrien stabs Joaquin for stealing his girl and leaves him critically injured. As he hangs on to life it’s up to his new and blind fiancé to brave the woods and hopefully secure the medicine that may save his life.

I saw this film in 2004 and remembered it as being better than this repeat viewing. I can’t remember if I was aware of the big reveal prior to seeing it originally but now watching with the full facts it seems daft and heavily signalled from the off. Sigourney’s big secret box foreshadows the drawn out reveal and the danger towards the end was totally impotent given William Hurt was showing off the suits like a Burton’s salesman.

The cast, impressive as it is, deliver pretty poor performances. Adrien Brody goes ‘full retard (thanks ‘Tropic Thunder’) and never convinces as the simple yet latently psychopathic Noah. Joaquin is flagged early as being ‘quiet’ which is a blessing to all as it limits his dialogue. He does however deliver a master class in understatement when he’s stabbed.

I’d like to have seen more of the dependable Weaver and Gleeson but instead we get loads of the earnest and portentous William Hurt.

The direction, tension building and reveals are all clumsily handled and the pacing is poor. We trudge through an hour of slow boil tension build only for it to be undone with little or no pay off.

Overall this is an OK kind of distraction but on reflection it’s really just a one trick pony, and a lame one at that.

THE Tag Line - Village People not worth a song and dance.  57%

No.36 : The Box (2009)

The Box at the IMDb

It’s 1976 and the Voyager space probes have been launched. Cameron Diaz is married to Cyclops out of ‘X-Men’ and is about to get a delivery. The couple find a box on their door step with a message saying that the delivery man will call the next day - maybe the sender hadn’t put enough stamps on it.

The next day the box delivery man arrives in the shape of Richard Nixon himself, Frank Langella, complete with a CGI covered half face. He tells the couple in a matter of fact fashion that if they press the button on the device inside the box someone they don’t know will die and they’ll get a million bucks. Rather than just smack the button down and demand the cash they have a restless night pondering the dilemma before Cameron presses the button. Huge mistake.

Frank returns to collect his box and delivers the cash. As he leaves he tells them the box will now go to someone else who will be made the same offer - the implication being that Cameron and Cyclops may be the victims of a future button press. Understandably upset they try to weasel out of the deal but are undone at every turn as the box distribution people have confederates on every corner - usually identified by a bleeding nose.

Things start getting a bit weird as legions of seemingly mind controlled people start chasing Cyclops around a library before he is sent home via a big block of water. Meanwhile we see some panicked souls at Langley who know that Frank was killed by lightening shortly after the Voyager probe took off, before being returned to life. They now know that he is in the box and money distribution business but to what end?

Slowly we start to gather the threads together and learn that the whole box set up is a test by persons unknown to gauge the moral value of society and of humanity in general. With Frank back at Cameron’s house he offers an impossible dilemma and the identity of the unknown person who must die in exchange for the cash may not be so unfamiliar after all.

When I saw the first half hour of this film I was wondering why it was called the ‘The Box’ rather than ‘The Button’. As the film progresses however you realise that the button isn’t important and that the box referred to isn’t the container but the restrictions by which we live our lives. At first the dilemma seems a no brainer but then the film cleverly wrong foots you to the point where you think any button pressing would definitely be a bad thing.

I liked the general air of menace and unease that permeates through the film and the idea that everyone is in on this massive conspiracy was a fun if slightly unoriginal one. The first hour of the movie is like a 70s melodrama with a ‘what would you do?’ type narrative before it heads off into totally unexpected places. The CGI of the suspended blocks of water look a bit out of place in the beige 70’s setting but are unnerving and sinister all the same.

The film doesn’t fully explain what was afoot or the motivations behind those involved but I liked that it made you think and subverted your original expectations.

The three leads all do serviceable turns with Diaz possibly the weakest with her varying Southern drawl. I liked how her character was fleshed out with stories of how she lost her toes and it was a brave move to take on an offbeat film like this complete with unflattering fashions. Langella exuded quiet menace throughout and James Marsden did OK with a limited role that mostly involved looking a bit confused.

I’d imagine a lot of Saturday night cinema audience would have left ‘The Box’ with a ‘WTF’ attitude but I enjoyed it’s weirdness and thought provoking subject matter. It was maybe a bit long at two hours but over all it’s well worth taking delivery of ‘The Box’.

THE Tag Line : Box Tops! 78%

No.19 : The Jacket (2005)

The Jacket at the IMDb

The ‘jacket’ in question is a straight-jacket and it helps someone travel through time. Sounds a bit fanciful and light? Not really, it’s so grim that bits had to be filmed in Scotland!

We open with Adrien Brody fighting in the Gulf War and getting his just desserts, in the form of a bullet in the head when he tries to help a gun toting tot. We see him again a few months later back home, after he has been discharged form a military hospital. His lucky streak stays hot when he fixes the car of a mother and her young daughter but gets the bum’s rush as a reward.

Things look up slightly when he hitches a lift, but wouldn’t you know it? the driver is a nutter who goes on to kill a cop and frame our man for the crime. Adrien gets the worst punishment imaginable - he gets sent to a Scottish mental hospital that doubles for the USA and gets Kris Kristofferson as a doctor.

Kris is a bit of a maverick in the care stakes and his treatment consists of drugging up patients, sticking them in ‘the jacket’ before bunging them in a mortuary drawer. This cruel and unusual treatment has a side effect on Adrien who manages to jump through time, by the time honoured route of the camera darting into his eyes.

He wakes up in 2007 and manages to snag a night on Keira Knightley’s sofa. He finds his army dog tags and soon works out that Keira is the young girl with the dodgy car we met in paragraph two. She sensibly poo-poohs his far fetched tale and tells him that the real Adrien died years back, a mere four days after he went into the drawer.

Adrien spends the rest of the film darting back and forth through time in a bit to solve the mystery of his apparent death and to try and secure a better life for Keira who seems to have grown up a bit skanky. He also gets the information in the future that buys him his favours in the past, in a sort of causality loop that would make the Borg explode if they tried to work it out.

I saw this film way back in 2005 and couldn’t remember much about it what with my own time machine in the shop and all. At first I thought it was going to be a bit grim but an intriguing plot and a top notch cast made it a really enjoyable and thought provoking experience.

It shares a lot with ‘The Butterfly Effect’ although thankfully not Ashton Kutcher. The non-linear narrative and the other world sense throughout keeps you guessing and it’s gratifying when all the pieces come together. Some of the cast do buy into the time travel angle a bit too eagerly and I think I’d be wanting some lottery numbers rather than a few snippets any punter could have gleaned from the papers.

Adrien Brody gives his usual great performance and he’s the kind of actor who seems genuinely likable. Keira does OK and fills the role of the druggy waitress well with her slender frame. In the second string we have Kris as a not quite menacing enough doctor and a pretty frumpy looking Jennifer Jason Leigh as a doctor on the fast track to losing her licence. For your money you also get Daniel Craig as an overacting patient and the great Fish out of Marillion showing he can twitch with the best of them.

The mechanisms in place are never explained and although you could come up with something along the lines of ‘he’s dead at the start’ or something you’d be better off just believing that it’s a magic drawer and be done with it.

The familiar theme of redemption worked its usual magic with me and although the ending wasn’t exactly happy we did get a bit of hope for our troubles - and Keira got a slightly nicer car out of it too!

The direction was great also with the unnerving world of the mental hospital and the claustrophobic environment in general well realised. It doesn’t quite all come together with a few plot strands and ropey performances letting the side down but it’s certainly worth a look and an enjoyable night in (a drawer)

THE Tag Line : This Jacket Required 73%

No.17 : The Happening (2008)

The Happening at the IMDb

Problem : You have an opinion that you want to get across to an audience but it’s not really backed up by any facts or evidence.

Solution : Make a film where the environmental bogeyman takes the form of whispering trees and kills us all.

Outcome : Widespread ridicule

‘The Happening’ must be one of the worst reviewed films of all time and it’s easy to see why. It has dreadful acting, a ludicrous concept and dialogue that wouldn’t cut it in a porno film. There are a couple of moments that make it almost worth a watch, but not quite.

We open in New York where a busy crowd suddenly stops dead in their tracks and start killing themselves. We think at first it might be an Emo convention but no! We then move to a building site where the workers start diving off the scaffolding - that economy has a lot to answer for.

We then move to a Philadelphia school room where teacher Marky Mark is discussing the reason for environmental problems. He’s interrupted by the principal who sends everyone home as the government is declaring a terrorist emergency. Marky hooks up with his wife Zooey Deschanel and his pal John Leguizamo who brings along his cute daughter.

They head out of town of a train but as always with trains it stops and the most portentous guards you’ll ever meet declare that all is lost. They soon split up and John comes to a sticky end when he hitches a lift in the wrong car. Marky hooks up with a weird couple, the male of which likes to wax lyrical about the greatness of hot dogs. The narrative as it is, is kept moving by sporadic information that comes from phones, passers by and, handily, a radio tied to a fence in the middle of nowhere.

They encounter more scenes of mass suicide and realise that it’s nature herself that they are fighting and their only hope is to stay in small groups. They end up in a remote farm house occupied by an old mental woman and the bets are on to see if they’ll survive and whether the incident is isolated or a precursor of worse to come.

The message in this film hits you like you’ve been kicked in the nuts by a deep sea diver. The ‘mystery’ of the event is signalled like the four minute warning with every event heralded by some trees rustling and we quickly realise that nature is fighting back. If that wasn’t clear enough we get other subtle hints like massive cooling towers pumping out, well water vapour, and some houses built in green belt land. We had it coming I tells ya.

In mitigation there are a couple of disturbing scenes like the lemming builders and the mass hanging but these serve only to highlight the total mess all around. Marky and Zooey have no chemistry and they both have scenes acting to objects such as a mobile phone and a rubber plant and it’s quite clear that we are not witnessing a master class from either.

The whole concept is ridiculous and justified with some really ropey science about tobacco plants defending against beetles. OK, even if you accept that, why do the plants instruct people to take elaborate steps like a man turning on the petrol and then the ignition of a lawn mower before jumping in front of it - hardly the actions of an irrational man taken over by a silver birch. Similarly why does the man woman chose to smash all the windows when killing herself to endanger Marky - that was one specific gust of wind!

To nit pick a mess like this is like picking flies off a turd - messy and totally pointless. A really awful film that is almost so bad it’s funny but not quite.

THE Tag Line : Happening Is Non-Event 34%