Kill The Messenger

Movies about journalists stumbling onto conspiracies involving the government come along far too long for my liking. And when you watch them, they always seem over the top, filled with action sequences and other things that never happened to the real people. Kill The Messenger, however, doesn't rely on these theatrics to get people engaged. It uses a gripping true story that is hard to comes to terms with because the real world implications are terrifying.

Gary Webb (Jeremy Renner) is a journalist who works for the San Jose Mercury News. He finds out about a conspiracy that involves the CIA wilfully letting drug dealers sell crack cocaine in South Central Los Angeles in order to fund a revolution in Nicaragua that it backs. Webb writes an explosive three-part story that gets everyone riled up. He then has to deal with people attacking his ethics and whether or not the story is true.

This movie takes an interesting approach to the way the history is shown. While the story of Webb and his investigation goes on, the film sometimes cuts away to media footage from the time as well as film taken of the actors as though they were in the 90s. Although this is a fun technique, I found at times that it was slightly distracting.

Jeremy Renner dominates this movie. I know that he is the star, but there is never a scene where he isn't there. I feel that with a movie like this there should be at least one or two scenes where we don't need to see the lead actor. Mary Winstead is amazing as Gary's editor who really wants him to succeed, but feels pressure from her bosses.

Apart from these two actors, everyone else features intermittently or dropped a couple of scenes after they have served their purpose. Barry Pepper, Michael Sheen and Michael K. Williams are all fantastic actors who appear for a scene or two, but their characters are underdeveloped, especially Williams, who plays drug dealer "Freeway" Rick Ross, a man who probably deserves a movie to be made about his own life.

Verdict: A decent movie that tells a part of history that everybody would already know about, hopefully. Not essential watching.

Robin Williams Tribute Month: Bicentennial Man (1999)

Bicentennial Man was one of Williams' movies that wasn't that well received when it came out, but there is something about it (like Jack) that struck a chord with me when I first watched it that still resonates with me today.

One day, the Martin family get a delivery of a new serving android, whom they call Andrew (Robin Williams). Over time, they come to realise that Andrew is a special robot, who is able to feel and convey emotions, something which he shouldn't be able to do. Andrew's owner, Richard (Sam Neill), takes Andrew to the company where he was constructed. Instead of taking Andrew to study him, the head of the company suggests that they reprogram him. Time passes and the family grow older. Andrew eventually decides to look for similar robots like him and comes across Rupert Burns (Oliver Platt). Together they work on making Andrew more like a human, both in features and internal workings. After a long time away, Andrew returns and meets Richard's great-granddaughter, Portia Embeth Davidtz), who he falls in love with.

Robin Williams' performance in this movie is really fun. It evolves from an extremely robotic to a regular human being. Watching him misunderstand human emotions is extremely fun. He has incredible chemistry with Embeth Davidtz, who also plays Richard Martin's daughter, Amanda or "Little Miss". Sam Neill is also a pleasure to watch in this movie as a man who is incredibly tolerant of his 'property'.

Thematically this movie is all over the place. It touches on concepts such as humanity, slavery, prejudice, maturity, love, intellectual freedom, conformity and sex. Whilst these all may have worked well in Isaac Asimov's novel, for a film that is a lot to cover, especially a family movie.

The theme of slavery and humanity are probably the most prevalent of themes. Andrew eventually is granted freedom by his master and obtains the right to die. These themes have been and are still important in today's world.

Verdict: A good family film that suffers slightly from having too much content.

Chef

Writer director Jon Favreau (Iron Man, Elf) has made a really fun movie about following your dreams. It is extremely uplifting and you'll finish watching it feeling good about your life. You'll also be extremely hungry. Painfully hungry, in fact. It also tackles soft issues like responsible uses of social media, family and, most importantly, how to seduce people with food.

The driving force in the story is that head chef Carl Casper (Favreau) has been introduced to Twitter by his 10-year-old son, Percy. After an unfavourable review by food blogger Ramsey Michel (Oliver Platt), Casper engages in an online feud which culminates in an unflattering confrontation that goes viral and ruins Casper's career.

Supported by his family, Casper goes to Miami with his ex-wife Inez (Sofia Vergara) to help take care of Percy. There, Inez puts Casper in touch with Marvin (Robert Downey Jr.), her other ex-husband. Marvin gives Casper an old taco truck that he can use as a food truck. Casper calls Martin (John Leguizamo), his old friend, to come help him. Once they fix it up, Casper, Percy and Martin drive back to Los Angeles, selling food along the way.

And that brings me to the food. There is so much food in this movie that it gets it's own montages (that's right, food montages). And there isn't just one style of food in this movie, there's lots. There's fine dining at restaurant food, food truck food, food cooked at home, food as a substitute for foreplay, all the food. And it's shot in such a way that it dominates the screen.

Verdict: A tortuous movie if you're hungry and an uplifting film if you're down. People with the munchies beware.