Film Reviews (Everest/Irrational Man/Legend)

Everest – An all-star cast features in this real-life drama about an expedition to reach the higest peak in the world in 1996. Released in IMAX 3D, Everest is an intense and atmospheric journey through arduous terrain and tense drama, even if the constant obsession with the scenery and it’s beauty make you feel like you’re about to wander into a Werner Herzog documentary. Still, for all of the film’s technical merit, it’s the drama that wins out. Whilst not exactly a great film that will last in the memory, it’s still worth experiencing at least once. The high-calibre cast includes Jason Clarke, Josh Brolin, Jake Gyllenhaal, Keria Knightley and Emily Watson. **** (film of the week)

An Irrational Man – Woody Allen’s latest feature stars Joaquin Phoenix as a burned-out and depressive philosophy professor. His boredom in teaching and life is soon relieved by a budding relationship with a bright young student played by Emma Stone and the possibility of perhaps committing the perfect crime. Woody Allen’s been on something of a roll for the last couple of years with the prolific director’s Blue Jasmine (2013) getting some well-deserved recognition and the charming and rather underrated Magic In The Moonlight last year. This effort, sadly, feels a little lazier and pedestrian. It does enough to keep interest and is one of Allen’s more flippant and irreverent films, clearly not meant to be anything more than just ingested and enjoyed, it’s just a bit of a shame that he’s clearly done better than this as of late. ***

Legend – Tom Hardy stars as London gangster twins Reginald and Ronald Kray in Tom Hildebrand’s 60’s-set crime drama. A very clear influence of Martin Scorsese runs through this picture, but ultimately hinders the production rather than helps it. Throughout there is rather ham-fisted narration (possibly put in for an international audience less aware of the Krays or London’s crime history) and the film takes another Scorsese-influenced route in providing a non-moralistic portrait of the twins. Unfortunately, making them come across mostly as charming and lovable rascals rather than the rather hard thugs that the film also tries to address. Hardy’s lead performance is still a winner however as both the charming and suave Reg and the completely demented Ronnie, but this glossed-up tale of East-End violence feels somewhat inappropriate and struggles to reconcile the Kray twins’ sadistic actions and the rather odd (and difficult to tap into) affection felt towards them. Take with a (significant) grain of salt. Also features Emily Browning, Chris Ecclestone, Taron Egerton, Chazz Palminteri, Paul Bettany and John Sessions. ***

Movie Reviews (L'Eclisse/Straight Outta Compton/The Treatment/We Are Your Friends.

L’Eclisse

Michelangelo Antonioni’s 1962 Italian drama has been given a brand new re-release thanks to the BFI, introducing this work of the Italian New Wave to another generation. Monica Vitti stars as Vittora, an adventurous and newly-single young woman courting  Alain Delon’s Piero, a young stockbroker. Like a lot of the European New Wave, the film is big on experimentation and tipping its hat to the American cinema that inspired it (and in turn took inspiration from the New Wave through the generation of Coppola, Scorsese and Spielberg) and is admirable as a technical exercise but sometimes a little too opaque for some (including my own) tastes. Still, the film has some definite moments of entertainment, particularly it’s witty satirical swipe at the stockmarket.

Straight Outta Compton

Musical biopic about the rise and fall of the massively influential gangsta rap group, N.W.A. Focusing mainly on the lives and works of Dr Dre (Corey Hawkins), Eazy E (Jason Mitchell) and Ice Cube (O’Shea Jackson Jr.), the casting is remarkably on the money, particularly with O’Shea Jackson Jr; Jackson Sr. being Mr. Cube, himself as well as Paul Giamatti playing the group’s manager, a role not too far from his recent turn in Love & Mercy (2014) or Rock Of Ages (2012) before that. The film is best served when it acts as a social document through the gang violence, drug busts and the LA riots that affected Compton and its surrounding Angelino neighbourhoods in late-80’s and early-90’s, especially since it dismisses some vital and controversial parts of the N.W.A’s own history. However, the film still manages to find a tone that is both faithful to the group without getting too bogged down in the necessary nastiness and cruelty of the world that music came from. At its absolute best, this is a film that puts forth a valiant effort to prove the truth that rap is as equal an art form as any other and that voices must not be silenced. (pick of the week)

The Treatment

Tough Belgian detective story about a cop (Gert Van Rampleberg) investigating a sex-related child murder whilst also struggling to come to terms with his own childhood trauma.  Somehow even more bleak than the premise makes its sound,  The Treatment’s sombering subject matter and dim cinematography do get rather wearing. However, this is compensated by some solid acting and a story that eventually becomes rather engaging. The film’s lack of will to soften its message has its merits in brute honesty but its flaws in its sheer unpleasantness but if you want a film that makes you feel like you’ve been hit by a truck for two-and-a-half hours, it’s not too bad.

We Are Your Friends

The other big music-related movie release of the moment, We Are Your Friends stars Zac Efron as an aspiring DJ trying to make it big in the San Fernando Valley. With the film also being touted as the possible breakout role for Emily Ratajkowski (known mostly for Robin Thicke’s Blurred Lines music video and Gone Girl (2014)) and with Efron in the lead, the entire film has something of a vacuous image-obsessed annoyance to it, despite Efron’s talent and doubtless charisma, with his supporting cast of friends being a largely unlikable bunch with whom it seems very unclear whether the audience is supposed to find them annoying. What music is offered is rather interesting and the music’s dissection and use to help build the emotion are the film’s main strengths, but the film’s weaknesses just barely manage to outweigh those.