Patriots Day

Patriots Day is the third movie in an unofficial trilogy directed by Peter Berg and starring Mark Wahlberg (the other two being Lone Survivor and Deepwater Horizon). I say it's unofficial because no one has come out and said as much, but when you watch all three back to back, you can definitely see a unified theme. And that's the idea that Americans can band together to overcome adversity. The first one was a single man, the second a small group of people and this one a whole city.

The movie starts the night before the 2013 Boston Marathon, where BPD Officer Tommy Saunders (Mark Wahlberg) is arresting a suspect of a murder. He is on probation for his unconventional techniques and is told by Commissioner Ed Davis (John Goodman) that the probation will finish if he patrols the marathon in uniform. As the day of the marathon begins, various people go about preparing for their day, whether it's going to the marathon or baseball, or just another day of school or work. Also preparing for something, although much more sinister, are Tamerlan (Themo Melikidze) and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev (Alex Wolff), two Chechen-American brothers intent on committing a terrorist act in the name of radical Islam. The majority of the movie takes place after the bombings during the subsequent manhunt for the brothers.

This movie does a good job at not stirring up anti-Islamic sentiment in it's characters. There is even a hesitation on the part of the lead FBI investigation to even call it terrorism. There isn't even any dialogue condemning Islam apart from a character asking "Is it Al-Qaeda?" only to be shut down. The only real bias this movie has is a pro-Boston leaning, in which it showcases the strength and unity the people of the city had during the tough few days. The Bostonian elements are also are weakness for the film as there are a lot of over the top stereotypes. There are accents galore, especially from the proud hometowner Mark Wahlberg, as well as a scene where a native husband teaches his wife to say "let's watch the Red Sawx and Fenway Pahk". While it would be fun to satirise in any other movie, it doesn't really have a place here. I think the only two other more Bostonian films you're going to find are Good Will Hunting and The Departed.

Peter Berg does do a great job in building the tension leading up to the bombings. He builds the scene by cutting from the victims (who we've met) to the brothers placing the bombs. This heightens the fear that we have for what is about to happen. Various use of actual news and CCTV footage from the event is edited into the actual film quite seamlessly and this is aided by the fact that Alex Wolff looks shockingly like the real Tsarnaev. The shootout that happens towards the end with one of the brothers is handled well, although it is a little over the top. This sequence has the best (and pretty much only) part of J.K. Simmons appearance in the film. In it he's jumping over back fences spouting one liners, it's a fun five seconds.

That's also one of the more frustrating parts of the movie, the fact that there are way too many characters. We spend the first ten minutes getting to know characters who disappear halfway through, or don't have any importance to the plot until the latter part of the film. Take for instance, Dun Meng (played by Jimmy O. Yang). He is kidnapped by the Tsarnaev brothers three days after the bombing, but we see him at the start of the film. While I understand that this was done to show the widespread impact the whole event had on everyone involved, too much time is used to build a life for these characters. There are a lot of characters in the film who suffer from this because they are all based on real people and I guess they didn't want to do injustice to any of the people. Nearly all of them are real anyway, all except Mark Wahlberg's character. I think they were trying to make him the main character, but failed as they spread themselves way too thin.

Patriots Day has the best intentions. But I think those intentions have made it difficult to cover such a harrowing event. There seems to be a feeling that every aspect of those couple of days has to be covered. Instead of focusing on just the people of Boston or the investigation or the bombers themselves, they try and cover all of it. When you do that there has to be a sacrifice of details and I feel as though that is what happened.

Manchester by the Sea

The ultimate challenge for a filmmaker is creating a rich enough atmosphere to connect audiences with the deeper themes and emotions they are presenting on screen. From sorrow and loss to heart and love, Manchester by the Sea delves deeply into the story of a man who’s lost his way; his sense of self.  Not a single opportunity is lost in creating a rich emotional story for all audiences to get absorbed into.

Lee Chandler (Casey Affleck) is a lonesome yet irritable man living a reserved life in Boston. He seems content living out his days completing odd jobs for cash and moping his way about the city, until news of his brother’s (Kyle Chandler) passing summons him back to his hometown to take care of his nephew Patrick (Lucas Hedges). This return to his past fully unearths Lee’s demons; an emotional tragedy linked to his past he has clearly been trying to forget. With Lee’s past tragedy showing itself once again, he is tested as he is forced to confront all he has tried to run away from, with relations such as his ex-wife Randi (Michelle Williams) being shoved back into his life.

The dynamics explored between Lee and various other characters are fantastic. A man who has completely shut himself off emotionally, forced to face the realities he has been running from for so long; no doubt a big ask. Affleck nails this range perfectly, while the severity of the situation is contrasted with vibrant flashbacks to Lee’s former life, making his emotional unavailability even more jarring. Surprisingly tasked with the job of taking care of his nephew, Lee is distant and unsupportive to a teenager who doesn’t want to admit he is grieving. Tense freak-outs line their dynamic as grief displays itself in strange ways, and Affleck’s range is tested as Lee looks to battle fresh grief and old sorrow at the same time.

As a whole, this emotional atmosphere is created and maintained well. A blanket of calm seems to lay over a catastrophe of pain and loss in Lee’s life, and the audience can really feel the tension. As the severity of Lee’s personal situation begins to reveal itself, this aura increases in intensity, and by the end of the film you’d find yourself completely engaged. Affleck’s acting ability headlines the credits for this success, but merit must be given to writer/director Kenneth Lonergan who no doubt worked tirelessly and meticulously to create this rich environment on screen.

With The Oscars fast approaching, Manchester by the Sea has definitely thrown itself in the running for a plethora of awards. The rich, emotional acting across the board has not gone unnoticed, as the audience really gets pulled into the story of sorrow and grief on display. Exploring the entire range of human emotion, Manchester by the Sea is a great flick, as it easily draws in audiences and leaves them wanting more from the emotionally turbulent story.

Superbowl Special

It's that time of year where people pop out the chips and drinks and watch that most special of events, you know, the Super Bowl Halftime Special and tiny movie trailers (unless you're one of the people who like to watch the futbol and find that stuff an annoying distraction from Tom Brady). Instead of waiting till next Sunday, we've decided to give you all the mini movie trailers in one easy spot.

Logan

We know that this one is R-rated, so it's expected that Wolverine is going to be ripping hearts out, but I hope mini-Wolverine will be tearing faces off as well.

John Wick: Chapter 2

Well we definitely know that there will be exploding heads in this one. My guess is even girls will be wanting their significant others to take them to this over Fifty Shades for Valentine's Day.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2

I'm more inclined to say that I'll be watching this more for Drax than Baby Groot.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales

Part of me wants as little Johnny Depp in this movie as possible, but we all know that can't happen. But hey, Orlando's back, that should be good.

Transformers: The Last Knight

Oh, I get it, Sir Anthony Hopkins is an actual knight and he must be the last one. But seriously, putting him in this isn't going to elevate your movie, if anything it'll probably tarnish his career.

The Fate of the Furious

Family.

Baywatch

Sometimes The Rock takes himself seriously and other times he knows he's a big joke.

A Cure for Wellness

Oh no, I've been feeling some of these symptoms.

Trailers Week 135: 05/02/17

Fist Fight (NSFW)

This is the third time that I've shown a trailer for this movie and there's only so many variations of 'Never get into a fight with Ice Cube' that I can do. But hey, imagine if your guidance teacher at high school smoked meth. They probably did.

Girls Trip

When the letters that spell out the title of the movie pop up, I though it said GIRL STRIP, but then it highlighted an even bigger problem for me. There's no apostrophe in girls. Unless it actually means "Watch these girls trip on mushrooms". I just don't know.

The Blackcoat's Daughter

Enough with the 'funny' stuff already, let's get to the real trailers. This here is an example of a good horror trailer. We get the feeling something sinister is going to happen, there's talk of devil's cults and creepy teens and there's no sign of any monster jump scares.

Personal Shopper

We go from that to another less conventional horror movie where a dead brother tries to communicate with his sister. Actually that sounds like it's very conventional.

Life

When I watch this, I feel as though Ryan Reynolds and Jake Gyllenhaal are going to be the new bromance that everyone wants to see in all the movies.

Their Finest

In the current world that we live in, I guess it's okay to start making movies about how they made propaganda back in the day. I mean we all have to learn sooner or later.

Beauty and the Beast

I'm glad I know this story back to front already because this trailer would ruin the whole story for me.

Gold

This review is going to venture into spoiler territory. I really tried not to, but a lot of Matthew McConaughey's good acting comes into play about ten minutes from the end of the film.

Matthew McConaughey has had a good run over the last five years. He has successfully rebranded himself as a serious actor who is able to handle fare that is outside the surf-rom-com flicks that made him famous. Because of this turnaround, I think that there is a lot of unwarranted pressure for every performance he gives to be bigger and better than the last. While the performance in Gold isn't his best, the character he plays is very captivating and surprisingly original (only partly original, but I'll get to that).

Kenny Wells (McConaughey) is an unlucky businessman whose family has been in the prospecting business for four generations. After his family business fails, he finds himself working out of a small bar in Reno, Nevada, trying to get backers on potential mining claims with little to no assurance that the sites he has chosen have any real mineral deposits. One night, he has a drunken dream about a geologist he once met and a potential claim in Indonesia. Pawning all the gold he has, Wells hopes on a plane to Indonesia to hunt down Michael Acosta (Édgar Ramírez), the geologist from his dream. Together they journey into the jungles of Borneo and and stumble across the biggest gold find of the decade.

It really made me happy that Gold was pretty original. While it is based on an actual tale that happened in Indonesia in the early 90s, only key elements are really taken from that and even then things have been changed. The first half of the movie is definitely the strongest part. It is a fun jungle adventure with hints of Apocalypse Now, Indiana Jones and Jurassic Park. It is as if director plucked the essence of the jungle scenes that appear in those movies and used it to lay a familiar setting that we can feel comfortable with. The other good part comes at the end of the film, where it turns out that there was no gold claim at all and Acosta just faked the fact that there was a deposit where he said there was. He did this through a con called salting (it's pretty cool). Not only is this twist and the end of the film pretty awesome (the whole time we're assured that there is gold), but McConaughey is amazing as a man who has just been betrayed by someone who he thought was his best friend. The movie starts out with what we think is narration by Wells, but we learn at the end is actually an FBI interview to see if he is guilty of fraud.

Gold really struggles during the middle and lead up to the twist reveal. It switches from not quite adventure movie to slow business drama. There's a lot of talking about who to sell the gold to and people taking advantage of Wells. It becomes really quite boring. There is an imitation of The Wolf of Wall Street as we see Wells claw his way back to the top, but we've seen that in countless movies before and since then and this doesn't add anything new. There are countless supporting characters who get lost in the mix and it's quite disappointing considering the fact that they are played by well known actors like Stacy Keach and Corey Stoll. These actors are wasted talents in this movie, especially Bruce Greenwood, who at least tries to stick out with a decent South African accent, but is hampered by having only three scenes in the movie. I will praise Toby Kebbell however, for his tiny role as the sympathetic FBI agent.

While Gold has some good elements, it focuses on all the boring parts of the story. The relationship between Wells and Acosta gets buried by focusing too much on the business side of things, which while helpful in setting up the twist, is a tiring time to get through. Stellar performances from the three leads (McConaughey, Howard, Ramírez) are cancelled out by the many mediocre ones.

Live By Night

Okay. I know that Ben Affleck is incredibly famous and therefore can pretty much do whatever he wants now. But I went to see this film with a good friend of mine and we both left more than a little baffled at how this film was bungled so badly, so apologies if this review seems a little lost in translation. I’ll do what I can to try and make sense of this Batfleck rollercoaster and maybe it’ll help me understand it better? Here goes nothing.

Set in the 1920’s, Live By Night follows the life of ‘good man’ Joe Coughlin, who becomes disillusioned with the life of rules and laws after his time serving the war in France. Upon his return home he turns to petty crime and robberies, which he executes with his trusted partner Dion (Chris Messina). Although content in this life, Joe’s father and Chief of Police Thomas (Brendan Gleeson) warns him that his bad deeds will come back around. In particular, Thomas is concerned about Joe’s fraternising with Irish mob boss Albert White’s (Robert Glenister) mistress, Emma Gould (Sienna Miller). When their affair is discovered Joe is beaten almost to death, and after serving time seeks out revenge on White by joining his rival, Italian mob boss Maso Pescatore (Remo Girone). From here, Joe and Dion set up shop in Florida and attempt to make a living illegally transporting rum to Pescatore’s speakeasies, however seem to run into trouble at every turn. Conquering the coast while prohibition is still in full swing, the pair must make decisions about what is more important to them: money or morals. The film also attempts to discuss issues of love, loss and family, while being surprisingly funny in moments.

The positives: The amount of historical references this film has is actually pretty cool. Its clear that Affleck was trying to be as accurate as possible, and although he fell a little short of the mark at times, it still made for a lot of interesting plot twists in the film. The acting from Messina, as well as Elle Fanning’s role as Loretta Figgis (the daughter of Florida Chief of Police) really stood out as both comic relief and symbols of purity in the world of skewed morals respectively. As well as this, the acting from both of the major mob bosses (Girone and Glenister) was also gritty and at times genuinely frightening. However, of all the scary things about this picture, the worst is that its still surprisingly relevant to the world of today. With issues of race relations, dirty cops and even the Ku Klux Klan making an appearance, this film feels as though it speaks to a lot societal issues, even though its set back in the 20’s and 30’s. Its actually a little depressing to think about, but its true.

The negatives: How do I even begin to talk about the plot of this film? Although the subject matter and characters were interesting (partly because I’m a sucker for 1920’s history), after about 40 minutes in the entire setting changes and it feels as though you’re watching an entirely different film. There were parts of the dialogue that felt unnecessarily convoluted, and plot points that came out of left field and left me struggling to keep up. In short, some of the most interesting parts of the movie didn’t revolve around Affleck’s character, most of the female characters were simply used as pawns for the males, and there were other bits that just felt slow and ruined a lot of the fun of the action, like the chase scenes and shootouts. All in all, the film felt like it was edited poorly and the scriptwriters hadn’t been given enough time to work out the kinks, which is a shame because this could’ve been a really great film had it been thought through more.

If you’re like me and you love the 1920’s era, or maybe you’re just an Affleck fan, you might enjoy this film. But its definitely not worth a watch in the cinema and its messy setup really let it down. Hopefully we’ll see better from Affleck in the future.

Split

Guess who’s back! After what could only be described as the week from a nightmare and a brief soiree in Bankstown Hospital I am back on my feet and ready to review the shit out of this movie. Come at me Shyamalan.

Split follows the stor(ies) of Kevin, a man who has spent his life living with Dissociative Identity Disorder, with 23 different personalities inside his head. His dominant identity, ‘Barry’, has been treated for many years by his therapist, Dr Fletcher, who has a fondness for people who suffer with DID and believe they possess abilities that other humans could never achieve. However, things start to go sour when three of Barry’s ‘banned’ identities, nicknamed ‘The Horde’, start to take control. ‘Dennis’, an obsessive compulsive with a desire to watch girls dance, ‘Patricia’, a mother hen and religious enforcer, and ‘Hedwig’, a nine year old boy with a penchant for Kanye West, all begin to hatch a plot to bring about a possible 24^th identity, known only as ‘The Beast’. This plot involves kidnapping three young teenage girls and holding them prisoner until ‘the Beast’ arrives, as well as silencing Kevin’s other identities so they cannot find help. Can the girls gain an identity’s trust long enough for them to escape?

The positives: This movie is genuinely a really interesting and engaging film that really explores its subject matter in the sense that they don’t try to rush anything. The moments of suspense really keep you on edge and you become invested in these characters. James McAvoy does a great job convincing us that he is multiple people and this film is a testament to his acting ability. The 3 girls Claire (Haley Lu Richardson), Marcia (Jessica Sula) and Casey (Anya Taylor-Joy) are also great at showing what typical people would do when faced with this situation, with a shoutout to Anja who’s role as Casey is both haunting and intriguing (and definitely one of the best characters in the film). As well as this, Dr Fletcher (Betty Buckley) is also a surprisingly interesting character, as a person who does not try to ‘fix’ Kevin but rather tries to understand him. Thinking back, I’m not sure there was bad acting from anyone, so props to the casting director.

The negatives: They really push the idea of ’23 personalities’ but only about 8 are fully explored: I don’t quite understand what the drive behind the number 23 is (aside from that shitty Jim Carrey horror movie, sorry Jim). They really shove it on the movie posters and in the trailers but it never really impacts the film: there are about 4 personalities that ‘take the light’ and another 4 that are discussed/viewed briefly, but why the need for another 15? There were also a few issues with the plot here and there: things that you only notice afterwards when you’re finally able to process the film as a whole. As well as this, although I doubt most people will feel this way but it bears mentioning: this movie is in no way a reflection of people who actually live with DID. Seriously, this films portrayal of the actual disorder is very much a Hollywood-ified version, and I know it sounds stupid to bring it up, but considering that a talking orange is currently running the US forgive me if my faith in humanity is a little lax.

In the end, the movie is an entertaining thriller that Shyamalan fans or thriller movie fans are going to enjoy. Although its not his best work, its certainly a step in the right direction for him. He seems to be getting his groove back and that’s good news for the film industry, I look forward to seeing what he brings to the table next.