The worst part of writing reviews is regurgitating the synopsis. Perhaps that’s one of the reason I liked “Free Fire,” the new shoot-em-up from director Ben Wheatley, so much. His follow-up to the psycho sci fi movie “High Rise” can be described with an economy of words: Ten bad people meet, a grudge emerges, bullet fly. The End.
For those craving more detail, the story begins at a rundown warehouse in Boston with Irish Republican Army out-of-towners Chris (Cillian Murphy) and Frank (Michael Smiley) and their henchmen Bernie (Enzo Cilenti) and Stevo (Sam Riley) buying thirty rifles from Vernon (Sharlto Copley). Vernon’s team includes Martin (Babou Ceesay), Gordon (Noah Taylor) and Harry (Jack Reynor). Bringing them together are Justine (Brie Larson) and Ord (Armie Hammer) fixers who stand to make mucho bucks.
The deal goes south, however, when a beef erupts between Stevo and Harry. Words, then punches and finally bullets are exchanged as the situation spins out of control. Soon it’s every man or woman for himself or herself as everyone exchanges bullets and barbs.
The gun battle makes up the bulk of the film but this is no average bullet ballet. Wheatley and co-writer Amy Jump carefully calibrate the action, mixing gunfire with sharp dialogue and plenty of irreverent, dark humour. Their best trick is keeping it real. When people get shot in “Free Fire” they don’t shake it off like most action movie characters. Instead they shriek, whine, wince and in pain, putting the strong silent type clichés of most first person shooters in the rear view mirror. As the situation grows more desperate so do the characters as they struggle to stay alive long enough to grab the elusive suitcase filled with cash, settle old scores and trade schoolyard taunts.
It’s hard not to see echoes of “Reservoir Dogs” in “Free Fire.” The warehouse setting and sketchy characters suggest Tarantino but Wheatley has done something else here. He’s packed away all pretension, all sentiment and focussed on making a down-‘n-dirty but wildly entertaining b-movie.
Richard and CP24 anchor host Nneka Elliot have a look at he weekend’s big releases, Melissa McCarthy’s “The Boss,” Jake Gyllenhaal in “Demolition” and “Hardcore Henry’s” wild action.
Richard and “Canada AM” host Jeff Hutcheson kick around the weekend’s big releases. They find out if the boss is always right in Melissa McCarthy’s “The Boss,” if Jake Gyllenhaal can overcome his grief in “Demolition,” how Hank Williams became a star in “I Saw the Light” and if “Hardcore Henry” should come with a medical advisory.
“Hardcore Henry,” a new in-your-face voyeuristic violent fantasy starring Sharlto Copley, is the first movie of the year that should come with a medical advisory. It is such a visceral You Are There experience, I fear the rollercoaster cinematography may not only cause nausea, but also sleep disturbance, constipation, flatulence, and vomiting.
You’ve been warned.
Shot from the perspective of the main character, the story begins with Henry strapped to a gurney. He’s in rough shape, missing an arm or two, a leg and who knows what else. Luckily he’s under the care of his wife Estelle (Haley Bennett), a brilliant doctor who not only supplies tender loving care but prosthetic limbs as well. When she is done he’s a modern-day Six Million Dollar Man, part cyborg, part human. Just as she’s about to insert his vocal chip all hell breaks loose and he’s forced to make a daring escape. Separated from Estelle he finds an ally in a mysterious and resilient man named Jimmy (Copley) who helps him track her down.
Cue the carnage—parkour, tanks, fist fighting, gunplay, testicle squeezing, grenades, no form of combat is ignored. Remember, this is all shot from his point of view in a blur of fists, bullets and blood. It’s capital ‘V’ violent.
Depending on your POV “Hardcore Henry” either plays like a fun, inventive twist on the action genre or a demo to illustrate director Ilya Naishuller’s abilities at staging action scenes. His style is fleet-footed, undeniably male—for no good reason, other than titillation, he sets one bloody scene in a brothel—and ham-fisted. There is creative use subtitles in one frenzied scene and the odd kill that’ll make you sit up and take notice, but it is such an orgy of ultra violence that by the end I was feeling desensitized to Henry’s antics.
Gamers will find “Hardcore Henry’s” first person technique familiar, but at ninety minutes the film feels like an idea that overstays its welcome by at least half-an-hour.
Richard reviews “Chappie,” “Unfinished Business,” “The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel” and “Kidnapping Mr. Heineken” with “Canada AM” host Marci Ien.
Pair it with ‘pants’ and it evokes memories of childhood summers. Match it with the syllables ‘and sweet’ and it conjures up a pleasant feeling but when you partner it with the word film, as in short film, you open up a world of possibilities. Just ask Tim Burton, Paul Thomas Anderson or Sam Raimi.
Each of them started by making shorts, several of which were later expanded upon to become well known features.
Burton’s Frankenweenie first saw life as a Disney short way back in 1984. The Dirk Diggler Story is the 1988 mockumentary short written and directed by Anderson that became the basis for Boogie Nights and Within the Woods was the short calling card that helped Raimi get Evil Dead made.
This weekend short films inspired two big releases.
The Babadook is the feature directorial debut of Australian Jennifer Kent. The horror movie plays up the most terrifying aspect of a primal relationship—the bond between mother and child—coupled with a young boy’s fear that a storybook beastie, the titular Babadook, is going to spring from the page and eat them both. The ideas that make The Babadook so unsettling first took shape in a ten minute short called Monster that screened at 40 festivals worldwide.
“I had a friend who had a child that she was really having trouble connecting with,” Kent told Den of Geek. “He was little and he kept seeing this monster man everywhere. The only way she could get him to calm down was to get rid of it as if it was real. And then I thought, well what if it was actually real? That’s how the short idea came about.”
Eleven years ago District 9 director Neill Blomkamp’s short Tetra Vaal asked the question, What would happen if we could build a robot to police developing nations?
The answer may lie in his new feature, this weekend’s Chappie. The South African-born, Vancouver-based director said Chappie is, “basically based on Tetra Vaal,” with the spirit of the South African rap-rave group Die Antwoord infused in the story. The minute-and-twenty-second short features Blomkamp’s signature mix of gritty realism and high tech computer generated images and stars the “ridiculous robot character” with wild rabbit ears—inspired by Briareos from the manga Appleseed—played by Sharlto Copley in the big screen adaptation.
Blomkamp said he made his shorts as “a collection of work so I could get representation as a commercial director,” but they soon opened a world of possibilities for him when they caught Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson’s eye. To paraphrase Dave Edmunds, “from small things baby, one day big things come.”
Imagine “Short Circuit” shot with hand held cameras. Or maybe “Bicentennial Man” with better special effects. Or a less politically astute “RoboCop.” No matter how you wire it “Chappie” is a movie that feels like a bucket of nuts and bolts borrowed from other films.
Set next year in Johannesburg, “Chappie” is the story of Scout 22, an “officer” in a droid police force created by arms corporation Tetra Vaal lead designer Deon (Dev Patel). The mechanized cops use ultra-violence to subdue drug dealers, gangsters and other assorted criminal riff raff.
Deon’s creations are a success but he wants his androids to be more than just killing machines. He wants them to think and feel, to write music, appreciate art [and] “have original ideas.”
When Scout 22 is injured in the line of duty, Deon Wilson—counter to Tetra Vaal’s CEO, Michelle Bradley (Sigourney Weaver) and hardline hardware designer Vincent’s (Hugh Jackman) wishes—scoops up the ‘bot’s broken bits and pieces with the idea of reprogramming him to become sentient. “I brought you into this world. A machine that can think and feel,” says Deon.
Before Deon can create his new synthetically sensitive robot, however, he and the pile of damaged droid parts find themselves held hostage by a trio of gangsters, Yo-Landi, Ninja (Die Antoord’s Yo-Landi Visser and Ninja) and Amerika (Jose Pablo Cantillo), who want Deon to shut off Jo’burg’s robocops so they can roam free and pull off a heist with no police interference.
When the terrified programmer explains there is no off switch for the crime fighters, a plan is hatched to turn Scout 22, now dubbed Chappie (a motion-captured Sharlto Copley), into “Indestructible Robot Gangster Number 1.”
The reprogrammed Chappie is “raised” by his “maker” Deon and the gangsters, with whom he forms a defacto family. From Deon he learns creativity; from Ninja and Co. he finds an appreciation of “Masters of the Universe,” street lingo and bling. While Deon is busy trying to prevent Vince from sabotaging the Scout project, Ninja and Amerika manipulate Chappie into doing the one thing he swore he would never do—break the law.
“Chappie” feels like a kid’s movie; a violent and action packed children’s film. The character has a childlike wonder about the world, and there are several almost Disney-esque moments—but the feel-bad Disney where parents die and defenceless characters are left to fend for themselves. Trouble is none of those moments have the same oomph as “Your mother can’t be with you anymore, Bambi.” For all of Chappie’s childlike innocence there’s nothing particularly endearing about him and without an emotional connection to the main character he is little more than a computer with legs and funny rabbit ears.
Director Neill Blomkamp’s trademarked mix of gritty realism and sleek state-of-the-art CGI are present in “Chappie” but one-note performances—I’m looking at you Ninja!—and a story that feels cobbled together from other, better robot movies makes one wish for more intelligence—artificial or otherwise—in the storytelling.
“Let us tell you an old story anew,” says “Maleficent’s” narrator ((Janet McTeer), “and we’ll see how well you know it.”
The new Angelina Jolie film takes some liberties with a time-honored story, but doesn’t stray too far from the necessary fairy tale elements. There is some grim stuff—treachery and de-winging—but there are also traditional themes about good and evil and the redemption of evil becoming good.
This reimagining of Disney’s “Sleeping Beauty” begins with Maleficent as the pure-hearted fairy protector of the enchanted Moors, “where no man goes for fear of the magical creatures who live within.” When Stefan, a greedy, ambitious human whose betrayal turns her colder than the Polar Vortex, breaks her heart, she vows revenge.
Later, when Stefan (Sharlto Copley) becomes king Maleficent (Angelina Jolie) exacts her vengeance by cursing his baby daughter named Aurora (Elle Fanning with the words, “Before the sun sets on her sixteenth birthday, she will fall into a sleep-like death!” To seal the deal, she adds, “This curse will last until the end of time. No power on earth can change it!”
For the next sixteen years Maleficent is a ghostly presence in Aurora’s life. When they finally meet instead of fear, the young princess welcomes her. “I know who you are,” she says innocently, “You’re my Fairy-Godmother!”
The two hit it off, but to no avail. Maleficent’s curse is irreversible and even though the evil-fairy-turned-surrogate-mother begins to feel protective of Aurora she is powerless to change her fate.
Archly theatrical, “Maleficent” harkens back to everything from vintage Disney, to “Lord of the Rings” to the ”Addams Family.” It’s a beautifully rendered film, visually rich, from the Moors’ creatures that look like they escaped from Jim Henson’s “Labyrinth,” to Maleficent soaring through the air, drifting above the clouds. A winged Angelina Jolie is a formidable force.
Like all good fairy tales it is simply told. It’s a familiar story, with a twist, but unlike its spiritual cousins, the “Lord of the Rings” movies or “Snow White and the Huntsman,” it clocks in way under two hours, moving at a deliberate but brisk pace.
The leads are wonderfully cast. Fanning conveys the sugar and spice and everything nice of the innocent princess, while Jolie is a striking screen presence. He extraordinary looks are made even more otherworldly with the addition of cheekbones that would make Kate Moss green with envy. Beyond the superficial, she brings to life the complexity of a fairy scorned; a kind-hearted, loving creature turned to stone but with a glimmer of good burning deep within.
“Maleficent” may be too intense for very young “Sleeping Beauty” fans, but is a fine addition to the Disney collection.
The worst part of writing reviews is regurgitating the synopsis. Perhaps that’s one of the reason I liked “Free Fire,” the new shoot-em-up from director Ben Wheatley, so much. His follow-up to the psycho sci fi movie “High Rise” can be described with an economy of words: Ten bad people meet, a grudge emerges, bullet fly. The End.
