JCVD is fine here, which I find sort of shocking. He displays levels of vulnerability that Seagal couldn’t even consider. The Brussels lad (I can’t be bothered spelling his name) can act if given the right role.
An intriguing premise that is fulfilled, decent action, JCVD doing the splits for a reason, a slimy Ron Silver, Bruce McGill who seems to be in everything, and two female leads who aren’t annoying.
This was a decent movie.
But not as good as this:
A movie almost unique in its seamless harnessing of script, characterisation, and style, Oldboy (2003) is two-in-one, arthouse and popcorn cinema. Its influence international and far-reaching, one must be conscious of not just lifting a few stand-out scenes for praise, but the corridor scene is immense. Not only did it connote the visual delights of Donkey Kong on the SNES (or is that just me?), it gave a whole new dimension to the sequence shot, one that went beyond just an aesthetic achievement.
No matter how many times I’ve watched this, it still impresses. And that score. Wow.
Bob Hoskins as the criminal parvenu Harold Shand in The Long Good Friday (1980).
A “testicle on legs,” as Pauline Kael once wrote of the lad. An extraordinary performance from a bloke who never gave a bad one despite not a single acting class in his life. He was a born thespian.
Bob Hoskins was quality – even in a Mario Bros. movie.
‘The Yanks love snobbery. They really feel they’ve arrived in England if the upper class treats ’em like shit.’
First of all, let’s get the ‘controversy’ out of the way: the director is correct when he says these critics make no sense. How many actors could fit the comeback story of Brendan Fraser in this? How many obese actors are out there? Haven’t fat suits been around for a long time? More importantly, what is the big overall deal? There isn’t one, just something for folk to moan about.
Anyway, it’s not a brilliant film but it’s worth watching. The performances are fine, and Fraser does a rather sublime job at eliciting sympathy without mugging it. And it doesn’t feel like a marathon experience despite the entire story being set within the confines of a house, the shots mostly of Fraser. It reminded me of Tom Hardy in Locke (2013), a sort of less indulgent and more engaging companion piece. Maybe the latter was more captivating for I viewed it melted on a rickety plane dancing over Siberia.
I must confess that I have expected more in recent times from Aronofsky, but I suppose his mega-impressive triple bill of Pi (1998), Requiem for a Dream (2000), and The Fountain (2006) are his stylistically expansive works; he appears to have withdrawn into the interior these days. The shackles are back on.
Decent movie, though. It shows what is possible with a minuscule budget and a whale.
How does this even exist? The cast is something out of a piss-up, a charades gone wrong. Sly, Bobby Moore, Michael Caine, Ossie Ardiles, Pelé, Max von Sydow. Erm, what? And to boot it’s made by John Huston.
Less interesting is the movie, a run-of-the-mill affair, the footy action shot with all the imagination of your random YouTuber.
But it still fascinates merely by its existence. And that’s why it hasn’t been destroyed. It’s a testament, a relic, if you will.
An expertly put together drip-feed narrative and an atmosphere from the world of peak Michael Mann keeps this enthralling to the very end, the gloom and the whispers working where most movies flounder. It demands patience and it is rewarded. A film that respects the concentration span of its audience is something to be revered these days. That, and the captivating performances. Can Joel Edgerton ever supply us with a bad one?
And what is it with Sean Harris? He is your go-to actor if one requires a creep, a bad boy, or just your general weirdo. Would love to see him in a whimsical romantic comedy.
Get this seen.
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Saw this years ago, a pal lending me it on an ex-rental VHS. I didn’t think much of it at the time, but viewing today, seeing it within the prism of the Indian summer of Jack’s film career, it’s given extra significance, the decade-long swansong exhibiting his craft and cementing his legacy.
The movie sets a grim and melancholic tone straight away, a scene of Jack on his retirement day looking forlornly out of his office window at a bloke on a zimmer, the room adorned with photographs of him in his heyday.
The film carries an air of convincing menace, the isolation of the milieu matching that of the character, the bloke always correct in his hunches but clearly losing his marbles. It’s not exactly an uplifting experience, but if you fancy dwelling in depression for two hours, this is the one for you.
Great.
I am most familiar with Brussels by night – a vignette from real life that was the glorious Eurotrip of 2010. Belgium was my Waterloo (1815), hell but like a dreamland in retrospect. I’ll never go back. No point.
This was most interesting as a documentation of a time and place as well as for its drama and peculiar narrative style
The protagonist has quite the rugged and haggard face, unusual for a film, aye. He isn’t likeable but you still keep engaged.
The seemingly random progression of scenes and their emphasis on the mundane – everyday tasks which accompany our hissy fits – do a proper job of drawing you in to this wholly unpredictable and almost peak Godardian semi-banger.
It reminded me of Last Tango in Paris (1972) a bit, but without the psychobabble and the creepiness.
Let’s get this over with quickly.
Claire Danes’ daft performance is … daft. She just stands and stares, and clearly can’t act at all.
A dreadful antagonist in a movie which is derivative to the max and for some reason mocks itself (lack of any other scripting ideas), even the action is badly choreographed.
The ending is decent. But this is mainly because you’re on fire because the torture is done.
Total shite.
The pull of this being a true story is enough for one to recommend it, but it does have more than that, capturing the fear and suspicion of the time in impressive ways, the claustrophobia seeping from every room. The casting and performances also elevated it above your standard spy fare. The premise appeared ripe for the pedestrian BBC-style treatment, but it was a surprise to see a riskier exercise in the spycraft genre.
The actor Merab Ninidze who plays Oleg Penkovsky. He needs to be in more movies. He’s simply excellent here.
Wanderings and ... wonderings. 