Demolition

Demolition is the latest film from Jean-Marc Vallée (Dallas Buyers Club, Wild) and stars Jake Gyllenhaal in another of his roles as a dejected man who seems incapable of feeling emotions, a bit like how I felt at the end of this film.

Davis (Jake Gyllenhaal) works in investment banking for his father-in-law Phil (Chris Cooper). Davis and his wife Julia (Heather Lind) are involved in a serious car-crash, and whilst she’s killed, he suffers only minor injuries. Wandering the wings of the hospital afterwards, he has an encounter with a dodgy vending machine and writes a complaint letter to the company that owns it, explaining his troubles for context in a unique form of grief that could only belong to a Gyllenhaal character. However, things take an interesting turn for Davis when he receives a response from customer service representative Karen (Naomi Watts). What follows is one of the most leisurely paced, unprofound, waffling films that we’ve seen so far this year.

Demolition starts off promisingly - a car-crash that will undoubtedly send Davis into a cinematic spiral of insanity - but what follows is...well, tedious. There’s always a couple each year, the films that could be brilliant but end up a conceited mess. Think Words and Pictures. Demolition is one of those. I’m not one to dismiss character-centric dramas, in fact I tend to take a high-horse attitude and think that if you judge a film solely on its supposed ‘lack of plot’, you’re most likely a toddler who hasn’t learnt to think for themselves - bloody plebs, am I right?. But the characters in Demolition are either unrelatable or just plain unlikable, which doesn’t leave much of interest to draw you in.

But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Throughout there are these little references to 9/11, and whether intentional or not it felt as if it’s was pushing a not-so-subtle message toward how grief has evolved in a post-9/11 America. It also keeps drawing weird linkages between Davis’s dejection and how it could be cured by embracing his inner child. Whilst normally these would be buried deep into our subconscious viewing of the film, in Demolition there’s not a lot more to focus on and so they stand out like a sore thumb. It starts to skate the thin line between intellectual cinema and ‘art for art's sake’.

You also get the impression that detail is important to Davis, and so little close-up montages are scattered throughout. They work but only to a certain point, even though the editing is one of the better takeaways from this. Don’t get me wrong, there are other positives as well. There’s a scene right at the end with a carousel which was about the only time I felt something in the nearly two-hour run time, is that a positive? There’s certainly a handful of funny moments but it’s not laugh-out-loud. A lot of Yves Bélanger’s cinematography is well-constructed and interesting, even if the film isn’t. You can tell that both Gyllenhaal and Watts are invested in crafting good performances but that never really happens because of deeply flawed character writing/direction.

In the early stages of Davis’s downfall, you see him meticulously take things apart, but never put them back together. This film feels a bit like that, a series of scenes that should have some sort of coherence as a whole, but just don’t. It’s not awful, just frustrating, tedious, a waste of talent and of your time.

Point Break

Kathryn Bigelow’s 1991 film Point Break is considered a classic by many, and is one of several films that mark the transition in style between 80’s and 90’s action flicks. Now the latest in a string of Hollywood remakes, 2015/16’s Point Break, directed by Ericson Core, promises breathtaking action and a new take on the story. 

Johnny Utah (Luke Bracey) is an extreme-athlete that knows the ins-and-outs of just about every ultimate sport imaginable. After a tragic accident that claimed the life of his friend, Utah retires and trains as an FBI candidate. Utah is brought in to investigate a heist which ended with a parachute escape and soon draws a connection between several of these heists and a man known as Bodhi (Édgar Ramírez). Utah goes undercover and learns that the crime syndicate is composed of thrill-seekers that are attempting the ‘Osaki 8’, a series of ordeals that pit man against nature through extreme situations. 

The very first article I wrote for TOMB was essentially a rant about the ridiculousness of Hollywood remakes, and my opinions are still the same with the new Point Break. Point Break didn’t need a remake, just as much as Memento definitely doesn’t need a remake. This film is undeniably worse than the original – no matter what you may think of it – and this only got made because the various production companies involved understand how to exploit audiences with 3D thrillers and have a thirst for quick cash. Having said that, I have to give them credit for at least bringing in new elements to the story. I actually thought the idea of the Osaki 8 ordeals was quite cool, and visually the film is stunning, with beautiful locations and superbly choreographed stunts. 

The problem with Point Break is that basically every character in the film is an obnoxious wanker; from the FBI chief who always has his “ass on the line” for the mission, to Bodhi who lets the spiritual enlightenment of nature lead him through life, to Johnny Utah who somehow goes from an “extreme athlete” performing motocross stunts – a great opportunity for subliminal advertising from GoPro and Monster Energy drink – to an up and coming FBI agent who is conveniently assigned to a case on a syndicate of extreme athletes. Ray Winstone is totally wasted as Pappas, an agent in the cockney-branch of the FBI who stands around shouting, pumping his shotgun and growing a moustache. Luke Bracey brings little inspiration to Utah – his job is basically to show off his rock-hard abs looking sad – and Teresa Palmer’s Samsara is amazingly bland as Utah’s love interest. Characters died, and I honestly didn’t care. Johnny Utah in particular has severe character development issues. He starts off the film essentially as an extreme sports master and when he unsurprisingly finds himself in the middle of the Osaki trials – feats against nature that would make even Bear Grylls cower in a puddle of his own urine – he is not at all fazed. I mean he literally goes though the trials with a blank, disinterested face. The result is no tension and no risk to the payoff, which defeats the whole purpose of the trials. 

That just leaves Bodhi, who becomes the anti-hero (whatever that really means) of the film. He’s a bit of a Robin Hood type figure, following his own interpretation of Osaki’s teachings, “giving back” by taking from big corporations and distributing to the needy/the Earth, which is where the crime element comes in. Ultimately the real story is whether or not Bodhi will finish the Osaki 8 – which you genuinely hope he does – and whether the spiritual enlightenment gained from this achievement outweighs the crimes he’s committed to get there. I wouldn’t call the character fleshed out exactly, but Bodhi is the best that Point Break offers, and often that’s far from enough. 

Ericson Core also acted as cinematographer on Point Break, and perhaps he focused too much of his attention on camera settings and not enough on direction. The whole purpose of the remake seems like an opportunity to pander to those that live their lives strapping GoPro’s to things and performing sporty selfie-stick moves, a far-cry from the original action piece. However as I said before, they clearly didn’t use GoPro’s here because the film is absolutely stunning. I can’t speak for the 3D and honestly I don’t really care about it, but the 2D experience features jaw-dropping landscapes which once again more than prove the worth of Arri Alexa cameras. Comparisons could be made to last year’s Everest, however where that balanced cinematography with decent character and story, Core has decided that the buck stops with the visuals. 

Point Break is testament to the unimaginative recycle-for-cash nature of the current Studio system. Whilst the new story elements manage to bring something fresh to a fifteen year old film and the visuals are undeniably gorgeous, the shallow, ridiculous and annoying characters more than destroy any hope this film had for success.