RICHARD’S “CANADA AM” REVIEWS FOR JANUARY 9 WITH BEVERLY THOMSON.
“Canada AM” film critic Richard Crouse reviews “Selma” and “Taken 3.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
Posts Tagged ‘Tom Wilkinson’
Deliver Us From Evil part of a long line of ‘true’ supernatural tales
By Richard Crouse – Metro Canada
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
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.
THE DEBT: 3 ½ STARS
Helen Mirren seems to be in a new phase of her career. The English actress, best known for her Oscar winning portrayal of her majesty in The Queen and for recently taking top honors in the L.A. Fitness body of the year poll at age 66 is now also an action star. In “Reds” she was an ex-CIA agent alongside Bruce Willis, wearing pearls and shooting AK47s and this weekend she’s an ex-Mossad agent with a secret.
When the movie opens it is 1997. Retired Mossad agents Rachel, David and Stefan (Helen Mirren, Ciarán Hinds and Tom Wilkinson) are heroes, acclaimed for their brave capture and execution of a notorious war criminal in 1966. But when new information about the case turns up, it threatens to expose a long held secret. Cut to an extended flashback sequence detailing the real details of the operation (with Jessica Chastain, Marton Csokas, and Sam Worthington as the younger versions of the trio), including the romantic entanglement that complicated the mission. Back in 1997 Rachel comes out of retirement to uncover the truth and repay an emotional debt.
The flashback sequence makes up the bulk of the film so it’s fair to say this isn’t Helen Mirren’s film, but her character Rachel’s. Dame Helen and Chastain (in her third film this year) provide the movie’s emotional core. Unusual for an espionage movie, the story is told through the eyes of a woman. Rachel is as tough as the men, but adds depth to what is essentially a pulpy spy story with a twist.
Performances are top notch (although some dodgy accents appear) but Sam Worthington, last year’s it boy, underwhelms. Luckily Mirren, Chastain and the film’s powerful sense of suspense pick up the slack.
THE BEST EXOTIC MARIGOLD HOTEL: 2 ½ STARS
“The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel” is predictable and a bit stuffy but it is hard to dislike this movie’s lost in translation story because it is so obviously aiming to please.
Featuring a cast which includes most of the senior members of British Equity, the movie quickly introduces us to Evelyn (Judi Dench), a widower whose husband left behind a great debt, Douglas and Jean (Bill Nighy and Penelope Wilton), a retired couple without a nest egg, the infirm Muriel (Maggie Smith), Supreme Court judge Graham (Tom Wilkinson) who impulsively leaves the bench, aging lothario Norman (Ronald Pickup) and Madge (Celia Imrie), a much married woman in search of a sugar daddy.
Their common link is uncertainty over how to spend their golden years. Individually they come up with he idea to outsource their retirements to a senior’s hotel in Jaipur, but what looked like an Eden on the brochure turns out to be a dilapidated guesthouse run by the feckless Sonny (“Slumdog Millionaire’s” Dev Patel). Together and individually this band of ex-pats explore life in their adopted country.
“The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel” offers up of fish-out-of-water clichés—“If I can’t pronounce it, I’m not eating it!”—mixed with a story about rebirth, regrets and the Kama Sutra. Despite the setting, it’s a bland blend, but the likes of Dench, Nighy, Smith and Wilkinson salvage some real humanity from the script’s saccharine offerings.
Wilkinson, as a gay man who travels back to India to find his first love, is particularly effective. He effortlessly underplays the character of Gordon, the staid lawyer who bears guilt for an indiscretion that may have ruined another’s person’s life, portraying a man who sat in judgment of others all the while judging himself. It’s a marvel of subtlety, richly detailed, yet simultaneously delicate.
The rest of the cast of old pros hand in good work, but aren’t given the same caliber of material to work with.
Perhaps it’s because there are too many stories colliding on screen, filling up the running time with details and unnecessary scenes–in addition to the retiree’s stories there are also Sonny’s subplots about love, family and trying to save the hotel. Or perhaps it’s because the filmmakers are tying to present something for everyone, but “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel” feels like there is a really good movie hidden away in the layers of the film struggling to get out.
