No. 255 : The Missionary (1982)

 

The Missionary at the IMDb

I’m currently working my way through the Michael Palin Diaries on Audible and in ‘Halfway to Hollywood’ he covers at length the gestation, filming, promotion and reaction to ‘The Missionary’. It is a fascinating listen and well worth the required 27 hours of your time.

 

When you learn about the many issues in play, it’s amazing that any film is ever made and a good one even more. At the time of production, Palin was fresh from the success of ‘Life of Brian’ and ‘Time Bandits’, both of which gave him a writing credit. He was given free reign for his first solo feature, following the TV success of ‘Ripping Yarns’. ‘The Missionary’ was the result, one of the fledging films of ‘Handmade Films’ largely bankrolled by ex-Beatle, George Harrison.

 

Having learned so much about the background of the film I felt guilty in not liking it more. It is a worthwhile production but seems somewhat insubstantial with a lot happening off camera and there not being much in the way of believable character development.

 

Palin stars as Charles Fortescue, the titular missionary. The film opens with his name being painted out from an honours board, so we know things don’t end well for him, at least as far as the establishment is concerned. We flashback to his time in Africa and there are some sumptuous scenes of Palin in the bush, no not like that, teaching kids and spreading the good word.

 

After ten years of service, he heads back to England for his next posting and to marry his patient fiancé, the annoying Deborah, who has the twin irritations of a nasally voice and a love of filing. Fortesque meets the bishop (Denholm Elliott) who asks that he set up a mission for fallen women in the slums of London. To add to his challenge, he is also to arrange the funding for this endeavour. He meets with the wealthy Lord Ames (Trevor Howard in fine batty form) but makes more of a connection with his wife, played by Maggie Smith.

 

Lady Ames is a frustrated housewife who wastes no time in telling Fortescue that if he takes care of her, she’ll take care of the funding. The deal is settled when following a late-night visit to his room, the good lady takes care of Fortescue under the covers.

 

Things move apace with a wonderfully realised London giving a fine backdrop to Fortescue’s research and then mission house. He goes to a hooker’s house to ask her some questions but soon succumbs to her questionable charms. I didn’t really buy his weakness here, but I guess the point is he’s sexually repressed and will take any offer he gets – and he does!

 

Soon the mission house is full and when Lady Ames finds Fortescue in the company of some scantily clad lovelies, she withdraws funding. This causes the girls to go back on the streets and the place is soon flourishing. Alas, the other mission houses aren’t getting their share and complaints to the bishop cause Fortescue to be given an ultimatum to leave or be defrocked. He doesn’t have his troubles to seek as he also gets wind of a plan of Lady Ames to kill her husband, and he must head to Scotland to intervene.

 

On the grouse fields will Fortescue save the day? and what will become of Lady Ames and the mission?

 

There is a lot to like here with some wonderful sets and some fine cinematography. Great care is taken over every shot and the cast is excellent, with Timothy Spall appearing in a small role and Michael Hordern as a scatty butler who does his getting lost bit too often for my liking.

 

The film does ask a lot of the viewer. It’s only 80 odd minutes and the character jumps are somewhat jarring. Fortescue is seemingly a devoted missionary and fiancée but is soon boffing anything that moves. Lady Ames is also poorly drawn with late revelations and an outcome that didn’t ring true at all.

 

In his diaries Palin bemoans poor test screenings and late edits and I’ve no doubt a longer and better film lies chopped up on the editor’s floor. For all it’s faults though there is plenty to like with a few laughs, a fine cast and some lovely sets, setting it apart from the standard period piece.

THE Tag Line : Let us pray - for a better film! 58%

No.235 : The Irishman (2019)

 

The Irishman at the IMDb

I’d put off watching ‘The Irishman’ due to its infamous length of over three hours, but having watched it in two sessions it just flew by and it’s certainly one you should look up. That said it could have done with some serious editing with a lot of stuff padded out, or not really necessary to tell the story.

The Irishman of the title is Frank Sheeran, a hit man and union leader played by Robert De Niro. We meet him at first in an old folks home where he’s recounting his story to an unseen person. His story dissolves to a flashback where he, Joe Pesci and their wives are heading to a wedding. Their car breaks down and De Niro and Pesci reminisce about how they first met. So the flashback becomes a further flashback to the days when De Niro was a truck driver and Pesci a gang boss.

De Niro soon rises through the ranks of the local mob by ‘painting houses’ a euphemism for whacking people, normally with a couple of shots in the back of the head meaning their walls get a nice bit of decoration. Pesci's mob boss works closely with the Teamsters trucking union which is run by Jimmy Hoffa (Al Pacino) and De Niro is loaned to him to help out with some business. He later becomes a union organiser himself and as the years pass we witness their involvement in the Bay of Pigs and Kennedy assassination amongst other dubious events.

Meanwhile De Niro is estranged from his four daughters, mainly because he’s such a big psycho that beats up the local grocer and for all the murders. The pivotal event of the film is the famous disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa and it is covered in some detail. Seemingly the facts are disputed but the film certainly hitches its wagon to real life confession of Frank.

We meet loads of other gangsters and the film helpfully adds captions giving their names and how they met their demise - not many died of natural causes! Eventually we are back in the care home with De Niro nearing the end of his days with all his contemporaries having gone before him. Can he find redemption from the church and can he reconcile with his family?

This was a great film that was very much in the same style as ‘Goodfellas’ and ‘Casino’. I don’t think it was as good as those films, but they do set a high mark. Essentially you get a trip through 40 years of gangland violence and racketeering set against the soundtrack of the time. It is well documented that the three leads were de-aged by computer and the effect was generally good. I didn’t buy that the 70 year old plus actors were in their 40s but they certainly didn’t look their years.

The sets and costumes were great and the evocation of the eras depicted was well done. The film was too long however, and I think it could have been boiled down to two hours or at least turned into a 4 part mini series. The depiction of Hoffa’s last hours went on for an age and I don’t see what all the talk of a fish did to help the flow of the scenes. You could say it built tension, but I was losing interest as they rambled on about whether it was a cod or halibut.

There were some great supporting performances too with people like Stephen Graham, Jessie Plemons, Bobbie Cannavale and an under used Harvey Keitel all getting a look in.

Overall the film is worth the investment of your time. I think director Martin Scorsese was probably given too much of a free hand as the film was allowed to ramble and go off into irrelevant tangents, so maybe a non-director’s cut is the one to look out for!

Best Bit : Grocer gets checked out    75%

No.175 : The Bookshop (2017)

The Bookshop at the IMDb

You know those films with alien invasions, car chases and lots of sex and violence? Well, this isn’t one of those, although there is an awkward bit of hand holding at one point.

Emily Mortimer stars as Florence, a widow who dreams of opening a book shop in the village she grew up in. She finds a run down building and orders in some stock. So far so good, and she even nets a regular customer in the reclusive Bill Nighy, who is also on his own and in the need of some action. Book action.

But there are clouds on the horizon. Light fluffy clouds, but clouds no less. Evil Patricia Clarkson wants Florence’s building for her Art Centre and her dirty tricks to get it no know bounds. Well she opens a rival book shop and poaches Florence’s schoolgirl helper.

Will the bookshop prevail? Will the friendship will Bill go anywhere and does she have adequate fire insurance?

Clearly I’m not the target audience for this film, but it really was meandering pap. I get that it was gently paced with loneliness a big theme but I was just waiting for something to happen - anything.

At one point Florence invests in 250 copies of ‘Lolita’ but that didn’t go anywhere. We never saw the rival bookshop and James Lance’s miscast London arty type villain offered little and delivered less.

The film looked good and evoked a gentler time in 1950s East Anglia. The perils were minor and everyone was quite nice although they were all bastards underneath. I could have done without Julie Christie’s pretentious voice over and it was no surprise to learn which character she was - clue the only young female in the cast.

I don’t think we learned anything here and there were certainly no laughs or thrills. You could dress it up as a ’slice of life’, but it would be a dull and unconvincing life.

The cast was mostly decent with Bill Nighy doing his usual thing in a suit and Patricia Clarkson trying to channel Cruella DeVille. Mortimer does OK in the lead and is likeable but you never got the sense she was truly invested in the shop, and the ending kind of underscored that.

Over all this was an inoffensive bit of period drama but an instantly forgettable one - read a good book instead!

THE Tag Line : Don’t Book a Viewing   - 54%

No.138 : The Colony (2015)

The Colony at the IMDb

My regular reader will remember that we have already reviewed a film called ‘The Colony' way back in Episode 114.

Fear not, no repeats on this channel, unless you are talking about the jokes. This is an entirely different ’The Colony’ and stars her off the Harry Potters. Which is the best Colony? Well read and find out. (it’s the other one).

Hermione plays an air stewardess  heading to Chile. The airline isn’t named and her nationality isn’t revealed so I’m guessing she’s English given no attempts are made at an accent. This is one of these inspired by true events’ films so they can basically make up what they like. Hernione, or ‘Lena’ to give her name in this is, paying a bootie call to her German boyfriend (Daniel Bruhl) whose character is conveniently called Daniel.

Daniel (the character) is a political activist and keeps himself busy designing posters for revolutionaries and attending rallies. Lena spots him from the airport bus and soon they are back at his apartment having very modest foo-foo. Their four days of delight are cut short when a military coup begins (well it is 1973) and they get rounded up. A man with a bag on his head grasses Daniel up and he gets carted off to the ‘Colony of Dignity’.

Lena makes some enquiries and after two minutes she is at the gate of said colony resplendent in a grey cardigan, a crucifix and slut shoes. They don’t do anything in the way of background checks at The Colony and she is immediately put to work peeling spuds. Daniel meanwhile is tired about being tortured all the time and pretends that the electric shocks have made him a mentalist. HUGE mistake. Next day the military show up and ask for a subject to test out the poison gas that The Colony is mixing up for them - and Daniel is the prime candidate.

Despite segregation the two manage to meet up and make plans to escape. Will they get away in an ending ripped off from ‘Argo’ or will they remain captive? (It’s the first one).

This was a decent enough film that passed the time but was in no way memorable or as statement making as it thought. Half an hour in they started a ‘Day 1’ caption that went up to Day 132. Although some were skipped it felt like we lived them all. There was no real point to this timetable as most of the stuff happened at the start or in the last few days.

The Colony was quite well realised but ‘The Cult’ would have been more appropriate - maybe they wanted to avoid confusion with the band? The cruel overlords led by Michael Nyqvist were good in a boo-hiss sense with his nastiness later being replaced by him being a total nonce. Boo hiss indeed.

Hermione was decent, but clearly the star of the show - even in the work camp she had nicely fitted blouses and platted hair to die for. She was also a bit stiff in the love scenes, with her main motivation being to keep the sheet as close to her chest as possible. Obviously this blog isn’t looking for titillation, but it does take you out of the scene when the character is coy about showing her boobs to the boyfriend she hasn’t seen for weeks. The Potter fan boys do get a couple of thrills especially when Lena is ordered to remove her blouse. A few expelianiouses in the fan boy pants there, I bet!

The eventual escape from the colony was a bit easy and the flight from Chile was too familiar. The closing captions said that basically nothing changed following the events of this film, which isn’t surprising as it appears to have been mostly made up. Worth a look, but no where near as much fun as the other ’The Colony’.

The Tag Line : 132 days of torture 55%