Snowden

At the beginning of last year, I reviewed the documentary Citizenfour, which was a blow-by-blow story of Edward Snowden that was made by filmmaker Laura Poitras, who was one of the people Snowden contacted to tell his story right. That film was a masterpiece and when I heard that there was a biopic being made about Snowden, I dismissed it straight away, believing that it would not be able to convey the weight of what he did. But after watching it, I realised that the point wasn't to show people what he had done, but rather to humanise him in the eyes of a public who still vilify him as a traitor.

Edward Snowden (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is a bright eyed young special forces recruit who is hopeful for a career in the military, but after he breaks both legs, he is discharged and looks for a new way to serve his country. He soon comes upon an opportunity in working for the CIA as an intelligence analyst after going through rigorous training under Corbin O'Brien (Rhys Ifans). His various jobs soon take him around the world and he learns that the NSA has a program that allows them to gather information from everyone in the world. Knowing this makes Snowden increasingly paranoid to the point where he clashes with his girlfriend Lindsay (Shailene Woodley) because he wants to protect her. Soon his conscience gets the better of him and he decides to expose the truth to a handful of journalists including Glenn Greenwald (Zachary Quinto).

Oliver Stone is definitely someone who knows how to make a movie that will appeal to a lot of people, which is something that Citizenfour may have been lacking. While it doesn't go into a great amount of detail about what Snowden leaked, it gives a general overview of what the US government was doing (and still is). This works to the films benefit because any in depth analysis would leave audiences confused. Stone's style of over the top filmmaking draws you into the film and makes you feel a lot of empathy for the characters. This is good because the point of the film is to humanise Snowden. A lot of the media around him portrays him as a cold traitor who has no acknowledgement of the danger he caused with his leak. That couldn't be further from the truth and Stone attempts to show that he is really a patriot who was looking out for his fellow citizens. While the majority of performances are good and exactly what you'd expect from a movie this size, the surprising parts come from the cameos that a director like Oliver Stone can get. Timothy Olyphant, Logan Marshall-Green and Nicolas Cage all pop in small roles. The Nicolas Cage cameo is quite surprising because he's the last person you'd expect to see in this film.

Some of the problems I have with this film have to do with the fact that some of the events of the film have been documented in Citizenfour, yet they are shown differently in this film. Snowden's communication with Poitras is rushed and limited to a single email, whereas in reality the communication took place over many months and only after he failed to contact Glenn Greenwald through a secure means. That's a small thing that was jarring for me and I'm sure would effect others who have seen both. Stone also drags the film out by added smaller details (that go into humanising Snowden) which seem irrelevant. Snowden's diagnosis of epilepsy and his relationship problems really slow the film down in some key parts of the film. Also there is too little time devoted to the time he spent in Hong Kong (probably the most important part of the story). The inclusion of the real Snowden at the end of the film also throws some doubt onto JGL's portrayal of him. In his last couple of films JGL has been making some strange vocal choices and after being able to compare his voice to that of Snowden, you can hear the definite difference.

I had thought that Snowden would present the story in an ambiguous way, leaving you to make up your own mind on whether or not he had done the right thing. But now after seeing the film it's clear that Stone has made it in line with his own left-wing leanings. I'm not saying that his own politics had any input on whether the film is good or not. He has made a film that may not stand the test of time, but for time we live in it's a very good movie.

Unfinished Business

Director Ken Scott and Vince Vaughn team up once again in the comedy Unfinshed Business. With a strong cast, 90-minute running time and following in a similar vein to the Jump Street series, this promises to be another bite-sized fun American comedy, at least that's what I had hoped.

Daniel Trunkman (Vince Vaughn) works for a horrible boss (different movie), Chuck Portnoy (Sienna Miller). One day, he decides to quit and start his own business, going into direct competition with Chuck. He recruits Timothy (Tom Wilkinson), whose just been made redundent, and Mike Pancake (Dave Franco), a special-needs man who just failed an interview. One year later, they're coming close to making a deal with a big client, so they travel to Europe. But things get complicated when it turns out that Chuck's company is also vying for the client.

Unfinished Business was written by Steven Conrad (The Pursuit of Happyness), and unfortunately it has a very weak plot. The unlikely party-goers theme has been done several times before, peaking with 22 Jump Street, but here it's just feels tacked-on and not much fun. I honestly can't even rememeber how they ended up doing all the stupid crap that they did. I would never have guessed that I would see Tom Wilkinson starring alongside Vince Vaughn and Dave Franco, smoking a bong, taking (what I assume is) ecstasy tablets and dancing in slow-motion whilst topless women have a pillow fight around him, but then again, he is having somewhat of a renaissance with unusual roles (an Australian cop in Felony, the U.S president in Selma). Suffice to say, this is his weirdest and worst role in recent years.

Dave Franco plays a mildly-autistic "special" young man, who is often the butt of the jokes, and Franco's quirky performance is by far the best part of the film. Unfortunately though, the comedic elements are lukewarm. It doesn't have the huge volume of jokes that attack you from all angles in similar comedies, and the few jokes that are there often don't deliver. This is the kind of comedy that's good for a mild chuckle but will never have you erupting in laughter, something which I was able to test with the three or four mostly silent other people sitting in the cinema with me. On a side-note, there's a surprising amount of nudity in Unfinished Business, with a comparatively high penis-to-breast ratio of somewhere around 4 to 50, take of that what you will...look I was kinda bored, okay.

Vince Vaughn plays the grounded, sensible one, which also makes his character rather dull, and Nick Frost is surprisingly lively for the badly-written part that he recieved. On almost every level this film is just meh. I should disclose that the American sense of humour exhibited here is definitely not aligned with my own, but that's no excuse, because I've really enjoyed similar films over the years like the Jump Street films. It's somewhat saved by Franco's performance and the situations that Wilkinson ends up in, but that's not enough to make it a good movie.

Selma

Ava DuVernay's latest film Selma is probably one of the best movies about the Civil Rights movement of the 60s and probably the most honest in its portrayal of the brutality suffered by African-Americans in the South at this time. It also shows the outright racism that was accepted at the time and even leaders like Governor George Wallace doing nothing to stop it.

After receiving the Nobel Peace Prize, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (David Oyelowo) returns to his home in Atlanta, Georgia to find the next step in his Civil Rights movement. He finds it in the town of Selma in Alabama, where black people are still unable to register to vote, despite legally being able to. King is joined by fellow members of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) to tackle this issue. Meanwhile, President Lyndon B. Johnson (Tom Wilkinson) is nervous about about the tension King being in Alabama is having with racist governor George Wallace (Tim Roth). King and his followers eventually decide to walk from Selma to Montgomery as a peaceful protest.

DuVernay's film is masterfully created and captures the feeling of the time perfectly. Martin Luther King is such an important figure of the twentieth century and it's movies like this one that help expose certain parts of history to mainstream audiences. One problem I do have (and it's only minor), is that the film overuses brutal violence to get it's point across. Whilst it's not absolutely excessive I felt like you could maybe cut out one or two scenes of this and still get the point across about how terrifying it was to live as a black person during these times.

This movie has a huge cast and all of the performances are so amazing. David Oyelowo is so amazing as King that I forgot about all other movies he had been in and could only focus on him. It is so disappointing that he is not up for Best Actor for this movie because I would have chosen him in an instant. While President Johnson's portrayal is slightly inaccurate (he championed the Civil Rights movement and was not against it), Wilkinson brings his talents to the fore and is wonderfully followed round by Giovanni Ribisi.

Carmen Ojogo is superb as King's weary wife and Oprah Winfrey makes a superb cameo as a woman who just wants to vote and demonstrates a mean right hook. Tim Roth made my skin absolutely crawl as George Wallace, but also backs up his ability as a great dramatic actor. Stephen Root is just as despicable as Major Al Lingo who orchestrated some of the more brutal attacks on the peaceful protestors.

Selma is deserving of all the praise it has received. It isn't just an affirmative action film because it justifies the reasons for the Civil Rights movement. Ava DuVernay and David Oyelowo make a superb team and are supported by a fantastic cast.

Felony

It's good to see a movie that isn't just cops against crooks for once. Matthew Saville's latest film pitches cop against cop in this fantastic drama that questions what the right thing to do is.

Mal (Joel Edgerton) is a drug cop who becomes a hero after taking a bullet on a raid on a Sydney warehouse. After a big night celebrating, Mal is driving home and clips a young boy riding his bike. He is questioned by two detectives, Carl (Tom Wilkinson) and Jim (Jai Courtney), where he lies about what happens. This lie eventually snowballs and drags in Mal's wife, Julie (Melissa George).

Felony is by no means a fast paced movie. It is slow and brooding and sometimes takes time away from the main plot to watch the characters take part in actual police work. This is a welcome change from movies that get too caught up in their own plot. Edgerton also wrote the script and accurately portrays the minute details of Australian policing. However, there is a subplot where Jim has a slight romance with the victims mother, played by Sarah Roberts, which seemed to go a tad too far.

On the whole, the performances were solid, which is what you'd expect of a cast like this. Wilkinson manages an Australian accent without fault (although it is relatively easy for British actors). Jai Courtney has also become one of my favourite new actors to watch. From playing in big American action movies like Die Hard 5 or Jack Reacher to smaller Aussie dramas like this demonstrates fantastic range. I felt as though Edgerton was slipping at times, but still delivers a great performance.

Verdict: A great slow-paced drama that is full of intrigue and has a gripping plot, although I am a bit confused by calling the film after a level of crime that technically doesn't exist in Australia.

The Lone Ranger

When I first heard that they were making a new film version of the 80 year old character, I was a little dismayed and saw it as a cash grab by Jerry Bruckheimer to make a new franchise to replace the diminishing Pirates of the Caribbean. How wrong I was.

This film deals with the creation of the outlaw (Armie Hammer) and his first adventure with Tonto (Johnny Depp) to take down a corrupt railroad tycoon (Tom Wilkinson) and his criminal henchman (William Fichtner), whose scheme is to steal a large amount of silver and retire to San Francisco.

This movie is actually a lot of fun. All of the elements that go in to make a Lone Ranger adventure are there, including the William Tell Overture, Tonto's broken English and lots of action.

This is the first time I've enjoyed Johnny Depp in a film for a long time. Jack Sparrow began to wear on me after a while and no one can play Willy Wonka like Gene Wilder. But in this, his eccentricities went a long way and in fact I sensed a little Raoul Duke from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. He brings a levity to a film that has a very bleak premise in an unforgiving land.

Of course, I can't talk about a Lone Ranger film without talking about the man that played him. Armie Hammer (who we know from The Social Network) does a great job bringing such a revered character to life. He has a great chemistry with Depp and I feel as though this is the point that his star will rise from, rather than the past films he has worked on.

There is only one problem I found with the film and that is the extreme violence that is juxtaposed with lighthearted and funny moments. I know that this film is marketed to kids, but most westerns are quite bleak and dark at times. It doesn't really take away from the film, but it does make it a bit of a roller-coaster to watch.

Verdict: A genuinely good effort at reinvigorating a story that has been part of the public consciousness for almost 100 years.