Ruben Guthrie

There has been a trend recently with Australian films that get marketed as comedies, but ultimately end up being quite serious dramas that have light moments, but they ultimately leave you thinking. Brendan Cowell's latest flick Ruben Guthrie is a film that does just that. It is a film with a lot of open ended questions that can either make you hopeful that things will work out for the characters or gives you a hollow feeling that things will never change and just keep going as they always have.

Ruben Guthrie (Patrick Brammall) is on top of the world. He is a young, award-winning advertising executive with a stunning European supermodel girlfriend, Zoya (Abbey Lee), and has all the fun that a guy could have. He also has a crippling alcohol addiction that he can't acknowledge. It's only when Zoya decides to leave him and tells him to give up alcohol for a year to be with her that he decides to do something about it. But Ruben has temptations from all sides. His boss at the advertising company, Ray (Jeremy Sims), tells him the only way he's able to work is drunk, his parents (Jack Thompson and Robyn Nevin) can't admit they have their own problems with alcohol and his best friend Damien (Alex Dimitriades) thinks the only way they can have fun is by getting hammered.

The big statement that Cowell is trying to make with the film is that Australia has a drinking problem, even going so far as to call it an "alcoholic country" many times. All the main characters drink with the main purpose of getting "fucked up", although they don't all describe it as such. Ruben's father constantly sees it as a way of bonding with his son.

Patrick Brammall plays the main character of Guthrie almost as a Van Wilder-esque character, albeit with a darker, tortured soul. At many times throughout out the film I even thought he looked like Ryan Reynolds. Brammall is exquisite at playing Ruben's darker moments, showing deep characterisation (this is also a testament to Cowell's script).

The supporting cast is mainly strong. Abbey Lee does a superb Czech accent, but ultimately plays what she is in real life. Alex Dimitriades is hysterical as Damien, but also makes you laugh in some dark, inappropriate moments. Jeremy Sims is fantastic as Ray, Ruben's boss, and he has a mysterious alcoholic past that is left unanswered, but enough is hinted at to show his character's pain. Even Brenton Thwaites wasn't too annoying in this film, but then again he was playing an annoying idiot.

I feel like Ruben Guthrie is a real triumph of Australian cinema for this year. I would strongly recommend it for our international readers because it is a truly great insight into Australian culture. As for all you Aussies out there, maybe watch this film to reflect on our own drinking habits.

Son Of A Gun

I don't know how a hero of a movie could be so dumb. Like really dumb. But then again if he wasn't so dumb, the events that cause main plot of this movie wouldn't have happened. Julius Avery's crime thriller is certainly a ride for the audience, but at moments I feel like he dropped the ball.

JR (Brendan Thwaites) is a young crook who is adjusting to his first stint in prison. Eager to prove he is not a weakling, he gets in fights with other inmates and this brings him to the attention of Brendan (Ewan McGregor), a fierce armed robber. Brendan takes JR under his wing and once JR is out of prison, Brendan gets him to do various jobs for him.

The plot of this movie is a little all over the place. Instead of just sticking to one particular part of the criminal life, the movie jumps from a movie about prison life, mobsters and heists. While many of these sequences work well as their own small plots, smashing them together to form a larger narrative doesn't really work. The themes of this movie are also a little too obvious. Throughout the film, games of chess are played by characters who want to prove how smart they are. But the film also labours the point that each character represents a type of chess piece.

The character of JR is intriguing at times, we never learn why he was in prison and his background is hinted at, but never fleshed out. From that we are left to fill in the blanks and give our own theories as to who he actually is. One thing we do know is that he is an idiot and I think he is told this by nearly every character in the film. Thwaites plays him well, although whether he is meant to be a likeable character is a mystery to me.

Unlike the idiot that is JR, McGregor plays the character of Brendan with sharp wit. Brendan can see what is happening around him and the consequences of other's actions with a lot of foresight. McGregor also brings a lot of charm to this violent character, but unlike the other characters, his back story is glaringly lacking.

The character of Tasha (Alicia Vikander) is a bit of a missed opportunity. She only really serves to be a love interest to JR. She hints at a violent and turbulent past in coming to Australia but that is picked up and then dropped almost immediately. She is an Eastern European girl who is bought to Australia with the promise of a passport after she gets a student visa, but ultimately ends up working in a strip club. This was a perfect opportunity to explore the scary and sadly real world of sex trafficking, but it wasn't to be.

The supporting characters only serve to move the plot along and once they have served that purpose, they are unceremoniously dumped. Brendan's partner Sterlo (Matt Nable) is a fun character to watch, but he is killed off soon after he is no longer needed. Also the primary antagonist, Sam (Jacek Koman), is used so negligibly that I didn't know his name for the first half of the movie. Damon Herriman makes a brief cameo as a crazy gun runner in a scene that was a fun break in the tension.

The film's action sequences are rather spectacular. The driving chase scene that takes place is a stand-out sequence, with tense moments and amazing crashes. To see something like that in an independent Australian film is great to see.

Verdict: Despite having some plot problems and the main character being a complete idiot, Son Of A Gun manages to tell an intriguing and fun crime movie.

The Giver

As with other teenage dystopian books converted to movies, fans of The Giver (written by Lois Lowry) were worried about how Phillip Noyce's film adaptation of the same name would turn out. But hey, it has Meryl Streep and Jeff Bridges in it, so it can't be that bad right? Can it?

In 2048, after a damaging war, society has placed itself in a controlled environment, devoid of colours and emotions, and with the citizens' memories from before this new society erased, in an attempt to prevent history repeating itself. The Societies' Chief Elder (Meryl Streep) is assigning roles to young adults as they mature, but Jonas is not selected. However, as it turns out, Jonas has a special ability that has seen him assigned to the position of Receiver of Memory.

As Receiver of Memory, he will be the only one to hold the memories of the past and must use these to advise the elders. But first he must be trained by the current Receiver of Memory (Jeff Bridges). It is during this training process that he receives the truth about society.

I have never read the book, but the plot, whilst convoluted, was at least a change from some of the more generic tales of dystopic societies. However, it never quite evolves into anything that challenges its characters or proves particularly thought-provoking. For a movie about the removal of memories and manipulation of emotions, its attempt to illicit an emotional response from us through the flashback of memories, whilst cinematically stunning, feels a bit too superficial.

However, there were also some serious faults with the acting. Bridges and Streep are both fine, but this is hardly up there with either of their best performances, and the three younger actors playing Jonas (Brenton Thwaites), Fiona (Odeya Rush) and Asher (Cameron Monaghan) were pretty appalling, although they vastly improved as the film went on.

The most interesting part of the film for me, was its significant and select use of colour, utilised not just as a visual motif but as a plot-point. Beginning in black & white, colours slowly bleach in and out throughout the story, emerging with increasing contrast and intensity. The colourists have done a fantastic job with this film.

However, interesting cinematic elements aside, this film fell flat for me. It's certainly not a terrible movie but, although it did improve a fair bit towards the end, it was just too little, too late. It's a shame to see a film that clearly had potential become, for want of a better word, pedestrian.