Author: BRWC

Matthew McConaughey is an easy punchline. Coming off like a walking, talking stoner caricature, doing ludicrous things like getting caught playing the Bongos naked or being shirtless 99.9999% of the time, he may as well be a lazily written movie star parody in Californication. After establishing credibility in Indie movies like Dazed and Confused, and even mainstream fare like A Time To Kill, he had  the world at his feet, he had the natural charisma and effortlessly magnatizing screen presence that comes about once every ten years. Oscars and superstardom were probably his if he wanted them. Instead, McConaughey did what most movies stars wish they had the balls to do, which is spend a decade taking the highest pay-cheque offered him at any point, no matter how terrible the movie, or how clearly disinterested he was in the project. McConaughey is such a natural movie star that he could give about 30% and still be the best thing about The Wedding Planner, How to Lose a Guy In 10 days, Failure To Launch, Fool’s Gold or Ghosts Of Girlfriends past.

B movie romantic comedies were where he lived, so surely this guy should have gone by now. But he didn’t go. And in the last couple of years, he has shown that for him, it was essentially a matter of deciding he could be arsed to become one of the most interesting actors on the planet. Last year he could have been nominated for two Oscars, either his scene-stealing, movie saving turn in Killer Joe, or his barnstorming supporting performance in the otherwise quite leaden Magic Mike. He is rumored to be the male lead in the new Christopher Nolan movie, and may well again be in Oscar contention this year for his Role in Scorcese’s The Wolf on Wall Street. Mud, a small, intimate, southern Gothic indie, is probably the lowest profile release of what was a remarkable 2012 for McConuaghey, but it itself a reminder of his range and capabilities.

Mud is the story of two kids, Ellis (Tye Sheridan) and Neckbone (Jacob Lofland), who live in the deep south, in an isolated river community. One fateful day ,the two boys go exploring on a small uninhabited island and discover a boat lodged in a tree canopy. Before they can celebrate their find however they discover that ‘Mud’ (McConaughey) is living in it. The boys, particularly Ellis, form a friendship with the rough looking stranger, but he is not all he seems and soon they find themselves roped into his desperate situation, which without giving too much away all revolves around Mud’s one and only Juniper (Reese Witherspoon).

Mud is an intriguing movie, but it’s also a deeply uneven one. There’s a meandering tone and the slight feeling like another draft of the script to get to the root of what the film is really about wouldn’t have gone a miss. Its got a lot of characters it wants to serve, stories it wants to tell within what is, on the face of it, quite a simple set-up. Not all of them get due service enough to make them compelling, and in turn it means a couple of elements of the story become dead ends and time sucks. For example, the story about Ellis’s relationship with his parents as they are set divorce and lose their home works very well. Ray McKinnon gives a very good performance as his Dad and that carries a decent emotional impact. The noir storyline with Juniper however, is scripted in very broad terms with both the plot and the relationship between Mud and Juniper given very little detail or specificity. And that means it becomes a fairly bland space-filler in a film clearly more interested in other things. It leaves Witherspoon on an island in a role that she really can’t do anything with, and to be honest the whole thing seems to just exist as an excuse for a climactic shootout.  The villains of the story are equally two dimensional and don’t really feel like a threat or even a presence.

The film is better when McConaughey is on screen and he forms a good rapport with Sheridan and Lofland, and invests his character with enough colour and humanity that it covers over the broad strokes and overly gimmicky things occasionally done with Mud. It’s a very quiet performance, but it gives the movie a beating heart and that serves it well. Sheridan and Lofland give solid performances, Sheridan in the bigger role is a little creaky in the more emotional moments, but for the most part hold their own. The film certainly creates its world very well, and rather than overplaying it’s southern Gothic hand, creates a fairly realistic picture of what a fishing community like this would look like. Of course this relative realism hurts the the more heightened elements of the film, as they feel out of place, but while it is a throw shit at the wall and see what sticks kind of movie, I’d say enough of it lands for the film to be an enjoyable experience.

Mud is a flawed film, I don’t think there can be much question of that. It feels like a patchwork quilt of ideas that don’t quite fit together neatly enough to make you see past the stitching but I’d say those who enjoy meditative looks at a community and its place in the modern world will get more out of this than those after a creepy, slow-building Sotuhern Gothic thriller. The movie aspires to be both, which is both commendable and the reason for its failures, but there’s a candour, an honesty about the movie that together with a good performance or two that make it worth putting up with the occasional lack of focus. And it’s certainly another noteworthy chapter in the redemption of Matthew McConaughey,  an actor that finally is leaving up to his potential. Thank god for mid life crises, am I right?

6/10

Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn is an American sci-fi action movie that was directed by Stewart Hendler and originally broadcast via the internet in five weekly episodes from October 2012 but is released on DVD here combined into a single feature.  It stars Tom Green, Anna Popplewell, Enisha Brewster and Daniel Cudmore.  It follows the fortunes of a group of young cadets at the Corbulo Academy of Military Science, a training facility designed to produce elite soldiers for an on-going war.

The first forty minutes or so are pretty standard ‘grunts in training’ type stuff that you’ve probably seen many times before, albeit not with such an alarmingly adolescent cast.  For the benefit of those who have been living in a monastery for the last twenty years, and / or haven’t seen Starship Troopers, what this means is that you get stock characters in stock situations.  For instance, there’s the loose cannon cadet who gets his squad into trouble by not following the rules; there’s the shouty black Corporal; there’s the gruff General, and so on.  We see them mucking up their training exercises, fighting in the mess hall, and taking baby steps into the deep water of Meaningful Personal Relationships.

So far, so crud.  But then a strange thing happens.  At the precise moment that a siren goes off and someone barks “This is not a drill!” the film becomes fantastically tense, gripping and thrilling thereby providing possibly the most exciting forty minutes of movie action I’ve seen this year.  The reason for this?  Well, frankly it’s because at this point that the director unleashes Master Chief – the central hero of the Halo video game series.  I must be one of the few people on the planet yet to play any of the games so this character was completely new to me but he’s pure cinema, being a cross between Robocop, Clint Eastwood and Michael Biehn.

The film now takes you through the kinds of things you might reasonably expect to do if, as it wants you to, you decide to buy the game: shooting, shooting while running, shooting while driving, chucking grenades while spinning through the air attached to the back of a giant armoured lizard.  As with most descriptions of video games, it’s much more fun than it sounds in print.

The cynic in me wanted to hate this movie, being as how it’s essentially just a gigantic advert for a product that is designed to make insanely wealthy people even wealthier while promoting war into the bargain.  But I wasn’t prepared for the skill with which it’s put together.  Its origins as a web-based series are cunningly disguised to the point that you’d be hard pressed to tell that it wasn’t a genuine cinema release.  Okay there is the odd moment, particularly in the first half, when it looks as if the budget only stretched so far but on the whole it’s a very impressive-looking piece of work.  The special effects and sound are terrific; I was obliged to turn the sound down at one point, lest the other residents in my block think judgement day had arrived.

Generally speaking, films based on games are rubbish and I’m sure we can all reel off a list of the worst offenders: Streetfighter, Tomb Raider, Doom, Super Mario Brothers.  This movie is better than all of those and the reason it works so well is that once the initial set up is over and done with it takes what made the games so successful and single-mindedly concentrates on getting exactly that up on the screen.

Well, Peter Jackson this ain’t.

Not that I was a particularly big fan of his overly long and bombastic King Kong “reboot” (as the cool kids call it nowadays), but I have to admit it did, technically, soar head and hairy shoulders above this 1961 Kong edition. Still, although Jackson wins out in terms of minor details like acting, special effects, plot and dialogue, I can’t help but think Konga trumps him in terms of laughably camp charm.

Konga opens as it means to go on, with a ridiculous shot of a plane suddenly exploding in mid-air, the blurry orange flames appearing like a sticker being thrown at the screen by a drunken child. We learn that the plane contained Doctor Decker (Michael Gough), a famous botanist who, having been presumed dead in the crash, suddenly arrives in London a year later with an adorable baby chimpanzee clutched to his chest. This chimp – as you may have guessed – is Konga.

Dr Decker has spent the year in the Ugandan jungle learning the ways of a witch doctor and is now ready to bring his pseudo science to London. Apparently “merging plant and animal DNA” can bring about a sudden growth spurt (err, ok). Cue the cute chimp transforming (via some squiggly lines across the screen) into a man in a twenty quid gorilla suit, destined to do the bidding of the egomaniacal and psychopathic Dr Decker, who begins disposing of his enemies through ape asphyxiation.

I’ll be blunt: this movie is generally terrible. The special effects are appalling, the acting is wooden, plot holes are covered with overly deliberate dialogue (“incidentally, I was lucky enough to save my camera from the plane crash, which is how I got this footage”), and the finale is dull. Whoever is inside Konga’s gorilla costume has apparently never seen either an angry gorilla or any preceding King Kong movies, as his supposedly dramatic rampage through London looks more like a gentle, lumbering stroll.

In fact, I’d say that Konga has but two redeeming features. Firstly, Michael Gough (Alfred in the 1980″s Batman movies) is actually pretty believable as the deceitful, sleazy, egotistical Dr Decker, switching with ease between the character’s suave public persona and private psychopath. Secondly, there are quite a few so-bad-it’s-good moments – I snorted with disbelief when Decker shoots his cat in the head for lapping up some of the growth serum, and guffawed at the stilted dialogue between Decker’s college students (including the hilariously pathetic Bob, played by Jess Conrad, who introduces this DVD). Not to mention the NSFW carnivorous plants that fill Decker’s greenhouse.

Essentially, this is cult, ridiculous nonsense. It will never reach the peaks of a classic Kong movie, but it might just win you over with its nostalgic 60’s cheek.

Konga (1961) is released on DVD today by Network.

For as long as Britain has been represented on celluloid and the silver screen, the Gangster genre has become synonymous with British film. Make no bones about it, they are common. Fairly cheap to make, automatically stylish and seemingly in tune with a certain British identity, it has become something of a staple of cinema in Blighty, and consistently been the go to genre for many aspiring film makers from these tea-loving shores. With no exception to the rule comes The Liability, the latest from Cameraman turned Director Craig Viveiros.

Jack O’Connell is Adam, a 19 year old mouthy scally with no job, living with his Mother (Kierston Wareing) and her wealthy but seedy boyfriend Peter (Peter Mullen). When Adam takes Peter’s pricey motor for a joyride and does a George Michael, a furious Peter orders him to work to pay for the damage. Playing chauffeur for a day, Adam’s first job is to escort ageing hit man Roy (Tim Roth) around the countryside while he picks off a list of targets. What first appears as an exciting romp into the rebellious lifestyle he craves, Adam quickly becomes embroiled in a 24 hour ride of deceit, revenge and half naked eastern European women.

Simple in its story, but elegant and occasionally gorgeous in its portrayal, The Liability is a bit of a mixed bag of nuts. Often it’s great to look at. The locations are frequently fantastic (they used an OK Diner!), that provide an interestingly original and sometimes industrial backdrop to something of an unoriginal tale. It’s by no means a bad story, but with Viveiros seemingly running down a checklist of what makes a modern gangster movie, it kind of feels like a 95 minute homage to Quentin Tarantino with a bit of Luc Besson thrown in. A quirkily excellent soundtrack, idle and amusing chit chat and a strong, ballsy female character are all there with bells on, but that’s the main problem with it; we’ve seen it all countless times before. Even some of the cast itself is something of an admission that it’s more of a by the numbers gangster flick rather than throwing any curve balls in an already saturated genre. Viveiros more or less picks from the most recent catalogue of generic crime character actors from domestic film & television. A gobby yet charismatic teenager? Who else but Jack O’Connell (see Skins, Eden Lake). A promiscuous Mother and kept woman oblivious to the dodgy bloke she’s porking? Well that’ll be Kierston Wareting of course (see Luther, The Take and pretty much every single crime drama set in London). And for the ageing hit man exhausted from the criminal life? Take a vintage member of the Tarantino alumni in Tim Roth (who incidentally, also produced the film). There’s nothing wrong with any of the performances per se, but the casting just seems a little too safe.

With the exception of Talulah Riley, the acting is actually very strong throughout. As expected, O’Connell is brilliant in the lead role. Adam is cocky of course, and if you met him in the street, chances are you would want to punch him in his smug face. But what we are so used to seeing from O’Connell is exuberant confidence, and his turn as Adam is no exception. He oozes as much charismatic charm as anyone in British cinema these days, and is genuinely charming and amusing throughout. The relationship that develops between himself and Roy plays out wonderfully well, even if there’s a touch of abruptness in their acceptance of one another. Tim Roth is equally as good, and his performance reflects his own career as an actor. He plays Roy with such a passive ease, that it might be fair to think Roth is as equally exhausted with the cold blooded killer role as his character is at being a hit man. Seeing this dismissive, almost cruise control like performance opposite the bubbling excitement of O’Connell, works exceptionally well on screen though, and this is easily one of the film’s major draws. The same can’t be said for Riley however, who plays an Eastern European like she’s in a Roger Moore era Bond movie with an accent that’s almost entirely comical. And like the Bond girls of yesteryear, her presence is to be the attractive but dangerous foil for our ‘heroes‘. Despite the character being vital to the story itself, it’s a bit baffling to see her half naked for no reason other than being pleasing on the eye. Throw in a forced and contrived romance with O’Connell that ultimately seems a bit needless, you can’t help but feel it was just another box Viveiros felt he needed to tick.

The Liability is certainly a decent addition the canon of recent British films, but sometimes the inspiration for a Director’s vision needn’t be so blatant. It’s inevitable that such a hugely successful auteur such as Tarantino will inspire a generation, but when his footprints are stamped all over the film, it’s difficult to accept it as anything other than a love letter to the eccentric Director. Nevertheless, it often looks great, and the sharpness of the writing and dialogue is both frequent and funny. The on screen partnership between Roth and O’Connell is fantastic, and despite the intended “twist” that can be figured out from the opening sequence, there’s more than enough here to thrill anyone with a penchant for style over substance. The ending is a bit daft, and there’s no explanation to why Talulah Riley is first introduced in just her smalls, but half naked nitpicking aside, it’s actually pretty good.

The Liability is in select cinemas nationwide on the 17th of May.