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Film Review - The Gambler (2014)

Genre:
Crime, Drama, Thriller
Distributor;
Paramount Pictures
Release Date:
23rd January 2015 (UK)
Rating: 15
Director:
Ruper Wyatt
Cast:
Mark Whalberg, John Goodman, Jessica Lange, Brie Larsson, Michael Kenneth Williams, Gordon Kennedy
Rupert Wyatt’s remake of the 1974 drama, The Gambler serves up little justification for its existence beyond a few decent all-or-nothing moments of gambling insanity. Occasionally fun, often embarrassing, this stalled-then-revived Scorsese pet project gets bogged down with inane dialogue and the questionable casting of its leading man.

Jim Bennett (Mark Wahlberg) lands himself in a whole heap of debt after blowing his wad in a casino owned by a Korean gang. His plan to extricate himself from his financial mess involves borrowing even more money and gambling that in a double-or-quits spin of the roulette wheel. He loses and ends up owing over $300,000 with 7 days to pay or be whacked.

There’s certainly some joy to be had watching Walhberg’s laissez-fare, addict attempt to gamble his way out of debt, grinding himself further into the ground and slowly towards his apparent doom. Despite the sleazy giddiness of the gambling scenes though, there’s a fundamental problem with this daft betting drama.

If your protagonist is a self-destructive gambling addict then, yes, by all means cast Mark Wahlberg in that role. If your protagonist is also an author and associate professor of English literature at a university, then for God’s sake don’t hand that role to a former rapper and underwear model. Wahlberg’s performance in this provides no real evidence to suggest that he has ever read a book, never mind written one. As he blathers on about Shakespeare and the source of genius, you start to seriously doubt the wisdom of any college dean who would place Wahlberg’s remote, depressed and wildly idiotic lecturer in charge of the sculpting of young literary minds.

There are laudable supporting performances from Jessica Lange, John Goodman and Michael K Williams, but these too are often hamstrung by moments of incredulity. An expletive-laden conversation between Goodman and Walhberg about the joys of saying “fuck you” to your enemies seems to veer into Lynchian moments of arch-surrealism. Williams, in a moment of baffling,

childlike optimism, proudly boasts his intention to quit the crime racket, go straight and establish an avocado farm. It’s exchanges like those which draw attention to the vein of absurdity running through the whole film and mark it out as a bit of a busted flush.

★★
Chris Banks

Kodi Smit-McPhee Is All Grown Up Full Of Angst In All The Wilderness Trailer

It's been a long time since we first met Kodi Smit-McPhee and since The Road and Let Me In he's done a lot of growing up and in his latest film he's once again unleashing his teen angst, watch the official  trailer for All The Wilderness.

In The Road as The Boy his childhood was stolen from him thanks to an apocalyptic event, In Let Me In bullying destroyed him and in All The Wilderness he's a young man struggling to cope with the death of his father. He attends counselling meeting a psychiatrist (Danny Devito) who through his visit meets Val (Isabelle Fuhrman) another patient who introduces him to a whole new world that changes his life.

On paper this looks like it maybe another generic coming of age story but reading reviews from it's festivl runs it looks like its better executed than other entries. The film also further shows the talent that Smit-McPhee is becoming too, Beautifully shot and with a film soundtrack  which has the likes of Sigur Ros on it should see this film get some form of release in UK&Ireland.

All The Wilderness is due for a limited/VOD Release in USA on 20th February co-starring Virigina Marsden and Evan Moss.

Synopsis
James (Kodi-Smit-McPhee) has shut himself off from his surroundings, falling into a world of imagination and darkness. Visits with his psychiatrist (Danny Devito) have proven unhelpful – though he takes a liking to fellow patient, Val (Isabelle Fuhrman). As James begins to rebel against his single mother (Virginia Madsen), he ventures into the night where he meets a mysterious kid (Evan Ross) who welcomes him into an eccentric city. Relationships are put to the test as James navigates unfamiliar territory, wrestling with the reality of his own personal wilderness.

source: Apple

DVD Review - Torment (2014)

Genre:
Horror
Distributor:
Altitude Film Distribution
Release Date:
26th January 2015 (UK DVD)
Rating: 18
Director:
Jordan Barker
Katharine Isabelle, Robin Dunne, Peter DaCunha, Stephen McHattie, Noah Danby
Buy:
Torment [DVD]

Jordan Barker’s Torment probably wont be as tormenting as you’d like it to be, but its still worth a look if you’re a fan of home invasion narratives. Newly weds Sarah and Cory Morgan (Katharine Isabelle and Robin Dunne) travel to their country home to put the past behind them and start a new family, with them is Cory’s 7 year old son Liam who is still dealing with his mother’s death the year before. When the family arrive, evidence of squatters begins a night of violence and abduction.

Torment borrows a lot of narrative techniques from some of the best horror films of the past decade, (The Strangers, Sinister) but never really forms its own world or characters. A middling set of stakes and too few spooks keep the film from really demanding our attention or imposing some kind of memorable experience. It doesn’t help that Adam Wingard’s You’re Next has essentially given the home invasion sub-genre a kind of spring clean, showing how dynamic, enjoyable, and terrifying a film can be when properly balanced. Comparisons are unfortunately against Torment, which is a shame because there are some great elements here.

                Starting with the obvious, Liam’s teddy bears, once decapitated, produce some startlingly eerie old-school masks which never quite lose their creepiness. Which is important because once Mr Mouse starts talking any terror, you might have felt, will be drained away via poor dialogue drawled in a strange Bane impression. Silence, perhaps, would have been golden. Similarly the sound tracking reaches a crescendo far too soon in the film’s prologue, undermining the tension and leaving the viewer a bit bewildered in the face of the opening credits. Thankfully the music finds its footing later on, helping keep the pace up in the more action-based second half of the film, and proving especially great in a gruelling suffocation sequence.

Isabelle looks like she’s having the best time being terrified, but she’s hardly flaunting the degree of skill she paraded in American Mary. Stephen McHattie ( Lance Henriksen: Mark 2, or is Lance Henriksen a Mark 2 McHattie? ) pops up for literally 2 scenes then gets blown up so yeh, no cool old guys to save the day here. Add Dunne’s pretty uneventful inclusion and the casting becomes a bit lacklustre.

Barker clearly has some great ideas on how to shoot basic manoeuvres which could otherwise have looked dull. Playing with the focus whenever one of the assailants enters a room works well as a means of obscuring, as does fading the gruesome family in and out of shots throughout the house. Barker keeps the camera roomy around his subjects to hint that – at any second – another character could appear. The general effect is to transform his human threat into a near-supernatural  omnipresence we never quite get a handle on. Of course all this is somewhat ruined by the dopey revelations that come later.

Dodgy dialogue and a meandering sense of panic eventually bog Torment down in its own lack of creativity, however there’s successful suspense and a few nifty set-pieces to maintain your attention for a fun and forgettable night of home defence.

★★1/2
Scott Clark

Film Review - A Most Violent Year (2014)

Genre: Action, Crime, Drama
Distributor: Icon Film Distribution
Release Date: 23rd January 2015 (UK)
Rating:15
Running Time: 125 mins
Director: J. C. Chandor
Cast: Oscar Isaac, Jessica Chastain, David Oyelowo, Albert Brooks

1981 is on record as statistically being one of the most dangerous years for New York City.  As well as being a dangerous year, it is also my birth year, so I sat down to enjoy this film thinking about those The Year I Was Born books that you got given as ‘original’ gifts as a child, eager to find out about New York City, in the year I was born.

The film follows Abel Morales (Oscar Isaac; Ex Machina, The Two Faces of January) and wife Anna (Jessica Chastain; Interstellar, Zero Dark Thirty) as they try to succeed with their oil trading business in the most violent year.  Business has been up and down for them, someone has been stealing oil from their tankers and they are being threatened with legal action from the DA for various accounts of embezzlement, but they are in the process of purchasing a large warehouse facility to greatly expand their business.

When a film is called A Most Violent Year you’re expecting a level of violence, so I spent a lot of the film waiting for something to happen, which kept me on my toes. However, the film is not about the city and the violent year, the story is more about an immigrant trying to do well in business and life, with crooked business associates, in a crooked business, in a violent city.  The nods to the violent year are achieved by radio snippets about shooting peppered throughout the film.

Jessica Chastain’s performance is standout and the highlight of the film, Anna’s moral compass slightly scewed to get the job done and to do right by the business and her family.  She skirts round questions from her husband about how legally they’ve been working with such class, very much aware that their competitors are just as crooked as they are.

One of the more interesting characters is Julian (Elyes Gabel; Interstellar, Game of Thrones), a driver who early on the film has his oil tanker stolen at gun point. He is then, after much debate, given a gun to protect himself, however he is really not emotionally ready to be back on the road. Abel is too preoccupied with financially concerns to fully sympathise with his employees state of mind, and as a result Julian handles his situation badly.  Girls fans like myself will also be pleased to see Christopher Abbott as one of the hijackers, who puts in a fine and gutsy performance.

A Most Violent Year is a subtle, suspenseful but rather slow moving at times, however an interesting portrayal of a well meaning man trying to do right in a violent and crooked world.  Though entertaining enough, I don’t think the film packs the punch which it promises.

Side Note - For old times sake I just dug out my copy of The Year I Was Born book, which tells me that on my birthday an ex-Trappist monk hijacked a Boeing 737 flying between Dublin and London.  He did this by covering himself in petrol and demanding the plane changed location to Iran, but being a short distance flight, the plane only had enough petrol to go to Paris.  When they landed in Paris, in discussions with the police the ex-monk's demands did not include any financial gain, only that Pope John Paul II make public a series of apocalyptic visions and prophecies called the Third Secret of Fatima.  I hope I’m not the only one thinking that this story would have made a far more interesting movie than A Most Violent Year.

★★★★★

Alice Hubley

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Win The Guest On DVD

The Critically Acclaimed Harry McQueen's Hinterland To Get February UK Release

Critically acclaimed directorial debut Hinterland from Award-winning Actor/Director Harry Macqueen will be released in UK cinemas and On Demand from 27th February 2015. Nominated for Best UK Feature at Raindance Film Festival 2014, the film will open at Curzon Cinemas and will be simultaneously available on Curzon Home Cinema from 27th February through Soda Pictures, before touring UK cinemas.

Shot in 13 days in February and March 2013 in London and Cornwall and set over one February weekend, Hinterland is an original and visually stunning British road-trip and a tender and honest exploration of love and change.

Hinterland follows two old friends who escape the city for a trip of nostalgia, love and new beginnings. When Harvey (Harry Macqueen) hears that his old friend Lola (musician Lori Campbell) has been forced to return home after years abroad he arranges to take her away for a weekend to the seaside cottage where they spent so much of their youth. What follows is a touching and beautiful story of an old friendship rekindled within a new context. Hinterland is a poetic journey of self-discovery and heartbreak in contemporary Britain.

Hinterland stars Harry Macqueen (Me and Orson Welles, Eastenders) as ‘Harvey’ and introduces musician Lori Campbell as ‘Lola’ in her acting debut. Lori is a fulltime musician with her first album as a singer/songwriter recently released in 2014.

Harry Macqueen said: “I am interested in telling intimate, personal stories that focus on character and relationships but that have a broader resonance be it social, moral or political. I admire filmmakers that allow their cameras to be passive observers and that give the actors the freedom to perform organically.

Perhaps due to my background as an actor I am also a great believer in the use of structured improvisation and the creation of the scripted dialogue as a collaborative process. With HINTERLAND I wanted to explore the themes of love and re-connection. How people and situations change and the impact this can have on them and those around them. The film also deals with people in a period of personal flux within the context of a country itself unsure of its direction.”

If you missed the trailer, you can check out Hinterland trailer below...

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