“Congratulations! You just signed your own death warrant. If you’re not dead within a week you get your money back.” So begins the business deal between unpublished writer William Morrison (Aneurin Barnard) and Leslie O’Neill (Tom Wilkinson), the man he has just hired to kill him. “You seem like a decent man. I’m very happy to kill you.” That exchange sets the tone for what is to come in this dark comedy from writer-director Tom Edmunds.
The story of the benevolent hitman who only kills those who want to die is quite simple but there’s a twist. We learn more about the characters.
Leslie is an aging contract killer afraid he’ll be terminated from by the British Guild of Assassins if he doesn’t keep his quota up.
William is obsessed by death and plagued by questions—What’s the point? Why am I here? What am I contributing?—but starts to see some light at the end of the tunnel when he meets Ellie (Freya Mavor), a book editor with an interest in his book.
Will William go through with the planned assassination or will he try and get out of the ironclad contract?
“Dead in a Week” has a low-key but pitch black tone. The farcical, occasionally over-the-top treatment Edmunds applies to death and dying is tempered somewhat by Wilkinson’s performance as the genial but deadly Leslie. Ultimately the movie isn’t about the suicidal writer but the broader story of a man forced into retirement before he wants to go. “Retirement,” he moans. “It’s the start of the end of our lives.” He’s the most compelling character and as the movie finds itself drawn to cliché it is Wilkinson that keeps us interested.
“I can’t understand why people don’t always say what they are thinking,” says Emory University professor Deborah E. Lipstadt. “I’m missing a certain filter. I say what I think.”
Lipstadt, a specialist in modern Jewish history, emerged into public life from academia as the subject of a 1996 lawsuit brought against her by self-taught British historian and Holocaust denier David Irving. Irving, upset she singled him out in a book as a less-than-reputable historian, launched a libel lawsuit claiming Lipstadt and her publisher were part of a worldwide conspiracy to rob him of his livelihood.
Donations from benefactors like Steven Spielberg paid for the gruelling eight-week, £3,000,000 trial which boiled down to one main question: Is Irving a liar and a falsifier of history or simply a historian who sees things from Hitler’s point of view? The stakes were high; if Irving won, his account of history would be given credence.
The sensational court case is chronicled in Denial, a new film starring Rachel Weisz as the outspoken academic.
“In the story of this trial and this case, a lot of very good people said to me, ‘Don’t do it,’” Lipstadt says. “A lot of people didn’t want me to do it because they thought I’d be giving him publicity. How do you fight bad people without building them up and giving them a billion dollars of free publicity?”
But the publicity helped expose Irving and other deniers, says Weisz.
“I think the more people who know that the better. Most people don’t know who David Irving is. He has his core group of followers and they’re going to be very happy about this publicity. Or not. I don’t know how they’re going to feel about this, but it is more important that people should know about it. And nobody does. It doesn’t really bother me that he’s getting publicity. It’s not good publicity.”
“I think Rachel is right,” says Lipstadt. “It’s a balance. I knew fighting him would give him publicity but it would serve a purpose.”
The British actress says capturing Lipstadt’s essence — from the heavy Queens accent to her personal boldness — was “a beautiful, delicious challenge.”
“Deborah came and hung out with me in New York,” says Weisz, “sat in my kitchen for two days straight. I filmed her on my iPhone so I would be able to look back at it. Deborah told me stories about her childhood, her parents and about the trial. It was just being able to be near her and soak up her spirit and attitude and find the places were we intersect as people. There are some (people) when you find that you think, ‘I could be this person if my life had gone differently.’ It became imaginable to me then that I could be Deborah had my life gone that way.”
Lipstadt describes watching Weisz’s performance as “an out-of-body experience,” adding that her friend, legal eagle Alan Dershowitz wrote her a note, saying, “She catches your accent but even more she captured your attitude.”
“It’s fun being you,” says Weisz. “I enjoyed it. You get to say what you think. I like it, it’s very healthy. Get it out.”
Based on the book by Professor of Modern Jewish History and Holocaust Studies at Emory University Deborah E. Lipstadt, the new film “Denial” chronicles a real-life court case that could have made it acceptable to deny the Holocaust.
The action in “Denial” begins with Lipstadt (Rachel Weisz) giving a lecture in support of her latest book. In the audience is David Irving (Timothy Spall), a self-taught British historian and Holocaust denier. Because Lipstadt steadfastly refuses to debate deniers, Irving, upset she singled him out in her book as a less than reputable historian, brings the argument to her. He theatrically offers a $1000 reward for any printed link between Hitler and the Final Solution.
Rebuffed, he launches a libel lawsuit claiming Lipstadt and her publisher are part of a worldwide conspiracy to rob him of his livelihood as a historian. The case, filed in England, left the burden of proof on the accused, Lipstadt. Baffled by the foreign legal system the American is led through the complicated case by Richard Rampton (Tom Wilkinson) and Anthony Julius (Andrew Scott), the solicitor who handled Lady Diana’s divorce. “We have no strategy,” says Julius, “we’re trying to box him in with the truth.”
Donations from benefactors like Steven Spielberg paid for the gruelling eight-week, £3,000,000 trial which boiled down to one main question: Is Irving a liar and a falsifier of history or simply a historian who sees things from Hitler’s point of view? The stakes are high, if Irving wins his account of history will be given credence. “The man is a liar and someone needs to say so,” Lipstadt says.
For much of its running time “Denial” is a taut court procedural—kind of like the last half of a great “Law and Order” episode—with colourful characters. Weisz, a feisty force of nature amid the more reserved Brits, holds the center of the film with a combination of grit and concern. Scott is the epitome of the stiff-upper-lipped lawyer but it is Wilkinson who shines, hiding a sharp legal mind behind a grandfatherly façade. As the villain Irving, Spall brings desperation, indignation and condescension to a man who wants respect for his opinions.
“Denial” moves along at a zippy pace, exploring the pertinent details but taking the time to add an emotional wallop with a research trip to Auschwitz. A drawn out ending slows things down a bit in an attempt to add drama to a verdict that is historical record but satisfies both as a precedent setting slice of legal history and a big screen entertainment.
If there ever was a story tailor made for Oliver Stone’s sensibilities, “Snowden” is it. Polarizing in the extreme, Ed Snowden, an American computer wiz who leaked classified information from the National Security Agency to The Guardian, was called a traitor by Donald Trump and a hero by the New Yorker. Two hours into this biopic it’s not hard to see which side of the fence Stone falls on.
It’s 2003 when we first meet future whistleblower Snowden (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) he’s a grunt in the US Army struggling through basic training. The deeply patriotic high-school dropout wants to serve his country but his body doesn’t cooperate. Honourably discharged for medical reasons he turns to the CIA, hoping to find meaningful work as a computer specialist and because, “it sounds really cool to have a top security clearance.”
Hired on, he learns the tools of today’s warfare. “The modern battlefield is everywhere,” he’s told while designing and building computer systems he believes will keep his country safe. Meanwhile the secretive nature of his work is slowly driving a wedge between he and girlfriend Lindsay (Shailene Woodley), a liberal leaning photographer who doesn’t always support Ed’s views but always supports him.
Over the next decade his efforts to prevent terrorists and cyber attacks leads him down a rabbit hole of intrigue and double-dealings. Partially responsible for running a dragnet on the whole world he helps gather information—using cell phone and computer cameras—on regular everyday citizens as well as the baddies and begins to question his mandate. The NSA, he says is tracking the cell phones of everyone. “Not just terrorists or countries,” he says, “but us.”
In June 2013 he decides to go public by leaking classified information from the National Security Agency to The Guardian. “I just want to get the data to the media so people can decide whether I’m wrong,” he says, “or if the government is wrong.”
A title card at the beginning of “Snowden” reads, “The following is a dramatization of events that occurred between 2004 and 2013.” That gives director Stone ample leeway to tell the story his way. In other words, this ain’t a documentary. It is clear he is on Snowden’s side, that he doesn’t see him as a traitor or snitch but a hero. His thesis seems to be that you don’t have to agree with your politicians to be a patriot. Stone supports his view visually—Snowden literally comes out of the darkness and into the light when he leaves the NSA building for the last time—and through the actions and words of several of his characters. Rhys Ifans plays a CIA trainer/master manipulator who feeds Snowden’s naïve patriotism with defence mantras. “Most Americans don’t want freedom,” he preaches, “they want security.” Later Snowden’s NSA supervisor Trevor (Scott Eastwood) argues that a job like the one Snowden is doing, can’t be criminal “if you’re working for the government.”
But hey, this isn’t CNN or Fox News, it’s a big screen entertainment and on that score it works. Gordon-Levitt transforms into a monotone über nerd, equal parts sweetness and paranoia. What he lacks in warmth Woodley more than makes up for, handing in a performance that is all emotion and concern.
When Ifans leaves a video conference call with the sign off, “I’ll see you soon,” those simple words take on a sinister feel when it is clear that he really can see you, whether you know it or not. Stone may not be able to shape the way you feel about Ed Snowden, but if nothing else he’ll make you want to cover the camera on your computer.
At it’s very core, Snowden is about privacy and how much of it you can expect to enjoy every time you turn on your computer or pick up your mobile phone.
The story of Edward Snowden — an American computer whiz who leaked classified information from the National Security Agency to The Guardian — has been reimagined for the big screen and premiered at TIFF on Friday.
“Unfortunately,” says controversial director Oliver Stone, “Edward Snowden has warned us, more than once, about privacy and he says in the movie the next generation won’t know what privacy is.”
Snowden uncovered widespread snooping by the U.S. government that may have violated the civil liberties of millions of people. Zachary Quinto, who plays journalist Glenn Greenwald in the film, says working on Snowden made him think differently about even simple Internet searches.
“I became more aware of our vulnerability while working on this film and took specific measures to protect myself in ways I hadn’t before,” he said.
“I had this experience the other night. I was shopping for a washer and dryer online. I was Googling the consumer ratings. I left that search and went to another website and immediately the pop up ads on this other website, which had nothing to do with consumer reports or shopping, were about washers and dryers. What we are willing to sacrifice in our privacy without even thinking about it for convenience sake, what we’re willing to give up in our own freedoms and interests just in sitting down at our computers is shocking.
“You can take precautions. You can take steps to enact two-step verifications and put tape over your laptop (camera) and strengthen your passwords but all you need to do is shop for appliances and you are exposing yourself to some kind of tracking, a collection of data.”
Co-star Shailene Woodley, who plays the whistleblowing title character’s girlfriend Lindsay Mills, takes simple precautions to ensure privacy. “I have a Band Aid over my computer (camera),” she says. “Privacy is a privilege now and it is only a privilege if you are privy to the fact that it is a privilege because it is not something you inherently have as a human being in 2016.”
What Joseph Gordon-Levitt has to say about ‘Band-Aids’
“Working on this movie made me much more thoughtful about how the whole internet works. Everyone has asked me about the Band-Aid over the webcam. I think that is a weird metaphor, an unintentional metaphor. ‘Oh yeah, this will fix it,’ but I don’t think it will,” said star Joseph Gordon-Levitt about people putting Band-Aids over their web cams to ensure privacy.
Travis Parker (Benjamin Walker), the male lead of the new Nicholas Sparks tearjerker “The Choice,” only has one deck chair outside his North Carolina
Home. “A man with only one chair outside his house,” we’re told, “wants to be alone,” but does he really? This is a King of Romance® Nicholas Sparks, the man with a romantic plan so the whole movie is basically a countdown to Travis and his beautiful new neighbour, medical student Gabby (Teresa Palmer) have movie sex and experience a trademarked Sparksian tragedy.
Travis is a good ol’ boy who’s used to getting what he wants from women without ever falling in love. A combination of good looks and Southern charm—although some might call it Southern smarm—means that he is rarely without company. His on-and-off girlfriend Monica (Alexandra Daddario) boomerangs in-and-out of his life but mostly he goes it alone… that is until Gabby moves in next door. She’s cramming for her medical boards while working at the local hospital side-by-side her fiancée Ryan (Tom Welling) and future father-in-law (Brett Rice). She calls Travis a walking cautionary tale and has no interest but he is smitten and everyone around them thinks they have great chemistry.
“Are you two..?” asks Travis’s father Dr. Shep (Tom Wilkinson).
“Hell no!” drawls Travis.
“Gross!” spits Gabby.
Their lips say no, but their eyes say yes. When will they kiss? When will they walk in the rain? When will the inevitable tragedy that strengthens their love happen?
“The Choice” is all about decisions, the little determinations you make along the way that may have long-term effects on your life. I’m here to help you decide if buying a ticket for “The Choice” will have any effect, good or bad, on you.
If you know Nicholas Sparks movies like “The Notebook,” “The Last Song” or “Dear John,” you already know what to expect. There will be “witty” repartee that, I guess, is what passes for foreplay in the Sparks universe. The story will be tinged with tragedy and the main couple will hate one another at first. Someone will offer up old timey romantic advice like, “If you see a man sleeping on the cold floor there must be a beautiful woman nearby” and at some point something vaguely supernatural will happen. It’s a formula geared to make you well up and this movie has every Sparksism in spades. In truth, however, it is about as affecting as a Canadian Tire commercial.
If you enjoy being manipulated and cry easily you make (or may not) enjoy the movie. That choice is yours.
“Unfinished Business” is a good title for a movie that feels fragmentary. It has a beginning, middle and end, so it technically qualifies as a story, but its reliance on mawkish sentimentality and non-sequiturs to forward the plot and an overload of narration to tie the loose ends together leave it feeling unfinished, unsatisfying and worst of all, unfunny.
Vince Vaughn plays Dan Trunkman a consultant who impulsively left a high powered job rather than take a pay cut. Now in business for himself—“I only have two employees,” he says, “one’s too old and one’s too young.”—he’s on the cusp of the biggest contract of his career. The oddball trio—Trunkman, Timothy McWinters (Tom Wilkenson) and the unlikely named Mike Pancake (Dave Franco)—travel to Portland, Maine in what should be a routine trip to close the deal.
But because this is a Vince Vaughn screwball comedy there is nothing routine about the trip.
Upon arrival he finds himself in a Davey and Goliath situation as his former boss, Chuck Portnoy (Sienna Miller), is pulling out all the stops to snag the business for the multinational company Dynamic Progressive Systems. Out gunned and on the verge of bankruptcy, Trunkman pulls out all the stops by flying to Berlin to meet with the top brass and show them a good time in hopes of winning their goodwill and the business. Instead they end up in a tiresome tour of Germany’s fetish bars, rave scene and unisex saunas.
“Unfinished Business” in its current unfinished-feeling state will make you wonder what could have happened if someone like Judd Apatow had been allowed to have a crack at the same material. Apatow is a master at finding the balance between heartfelt social commentary and socially inappropriate fratboy jokes. It’s the tone director Ken Scott, in his sophomore effort with Vaughn after last year’s charming-but-slight “Delivery Man,” seems to be going for but falls short on. Way short.
The gags mostly involve poking fun at Pancake’s reduced intellect, gay panic and tone-deaf sex jokes. It is occasionally amusing to see the usually oh-so-serious actor Tom Wilkinson let it rip as a randy old man and Nick Frost make the best of a bad situation, but for the most part the laughs feel like leftovers from a rejected “Hangover” script.
As a look at modern life it hits on some hot button topics, like bullying and providing for a family in a world where full time employment can be elusive, but even the serious stuff, meant to give the movie some heart, veers to the saccharine side and is about as insightful as a philosophical debate on twitter.
Ultimately the failure of “Unfinished Business” falls on Vaughn’s desk. He’s the boss at the center of the story but not even his natural charisma can salvage this very bad day at the office.
The spooky new supernatural thriller Deliver Us From Evil sees Eric Bana play a jaded NYC police officer. “I’ve seen some horrible things,” he says, “but nothing that can’t be explained by human nature.”
That changes when he meets a renegade priest (Édgar Ramírez) who convinces him a plague of demonic possession has infected the Big Apple. Working together, they combat the evil forces with exorcism and faith.
Deliver Us From Evil is based on a nonfiction book of the same name authored by Ralph Sarchie (with Lisa Collier Cool), a sixteen-year NYPD veteran who investigates “cases of demonic possession and (assists) in the exorcisms of humanity’s most ancient—and most dangerous—foes,” in his spare time.
“Before going out on a case,” he writes, “I put aside my gun and police badge and arm myself with holy water and a relic of the True Cross.”
Sarchie’s story joins a long list of exorcism movies with roots in true events.
The Exorcist, the granddaddy of all demon possession movies, is based in part on the 1949 case of an anonymous Maryland teenager dubbed Roland Doe. He was determined by the Catholic Church to be under a diabolical spell when strange things started happening — levitating furniture and holy water vials crashing to the ground — after he played with a Ouija board.
Exorcist author William Peter Blatty first heard about Doe’s story when he was a student at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. in 1950. He drew from newspaper reports and a diary kept by the attending priest, Fr. Raymond Bishop, as the backbone of his novel.
The character of Father Lankester Merrin, the elderly priest and archeologist played by Max von Sydow in the movie, was based on British archaeologist Gerald Lankester Harding. Blatty said Harding “was the physical model in my mind when I created the character, whose first name, please note, is Lankester.”
In recent years hits like The Rite, starring Anthony Hopkins as a real life exorcist tutor, and The Exorcism of Emily Rose with Tom Wilkinson as a priest accused of murder when a young woman died during an exorcism, are based on true events.
Finally in The Possession, a haunted antique carved “Dybbuk” box — containing an evil, restless spirit — turns the behaviour of a young girl (Natasha Calis) from angelic to animalistic. The owner of the real-life box offered to send it to producer Sam Raimi but the filmmaker declined. “I didn’t want anything to do with it,” he said. “I’m scared of the thing.”
In The Bedroom is a simple and spare study of the far reaching impact that one meaningless act of violence can have on a family and their community. First time filmmaker Todd Field displays a remarkably strong directorial hand, relying on silence and ultra-realistic performances to create the film’s tension. It is a tearjerker without being maudlin, a low-wattage thriller that entices you and delivers some unexpected turns along the way. There is Oscar buzz around Sissy Spacek’s performance as Ruth, but to my mind it is Tom Wilkinson who really shines as Matt Fowler, a father struggling to come to grips with the loss of his son.
