film reviews, interviews, features | BRWC

Author: Joel Fisher

  • Jakob’s Wife: Review

    Jakob’s Wife: Review

    Anne Fedder (Barbara Crampton) is the wife of Pastor Jakob Fedder (Larry Fessenden) and that’s all that she feels she’ll ever be. She used to have dreams and aspirations, but life had other plans and she finds herself stuck in a rut where her husband takes her for granted. Then one day she meets up with an old flame and finds that there’s still an attraction between them.

    However, after a horrific accident, Anne finds herself under the control of a vampire who’s closing in on her location at home. Anne was longing for a change in her life, something that made her feel more alive, but this was hardly what she was expecting.

    Jakob’s Wife is a horror comedy from director and co-writer Travis Stevens. Starring one of the queens of horror, this seems like the perfect vehicle for fans of Crampton’s work and her legacy in horror. Starting out slowly, the audience gets to see Anne’s life and what she has to contend with.

    Whereas Jakob isn’t an abusive or uncaring man, it’s easy to see how they’ve come this far in their marriage and how Anne feels like second best to Jakob’s work. This lays the groundwork for what could have been an interesting marital drama, but this being a horror movie, after Anne has her illicit meeting the tone of the films shifts radically.

    Another direction that the film could have gone in was a full-on comedy about a woman who thinks she’s losing herself in her marriage only to be bitten by a vampire and see life in a totally different way. Jakob’s Wife does indeed do this and there are some funny moments, but it seems like the movie doesn’t want to stay there for that long.

    After a while it shifts in tone yet again and where it seems like the script has run out of jokes on an original premise, it goes back to the standard and predictable hunt to bring down the master vampire. The trouble is that the tone is so inconsistent throughout.

    There are some good jokes and the metaphor is clear although it’s not subtle, there are even some nice moments between Anne and Jakob as they rekindle their marriage, but it feels like the movie should have picked one theme and stuck with it. There are some ambitious ideas behind the concept and some great visual effects for those horror fans who like buckets of blood, but Jakob’s Wife could have been more streamlined to tell a more satisfying story.

  • Free Guy: The BRWC Review

    Free Guy: The BRWC Review

    Guy (Ryan Reynolds) is an ordinary, every-day bank teller. He wakes up every morning, says hello to his goldfish and heads to work where the bank is routinely robbed by the people in sunglasses. Guy is also unlucky in love and is just waiting to find that one person that will completely change his life.

    That person is Millie, otherwise known as Molotovgirl (Jodie Comer), a kickass hero who wears sunglasses just like all the best people in Free City. Without the sunglasses people, life would be so boring, but when Guy decides to stand up for himself and to take somebody’s sunglasses, that’s when his world changes.

    Free Guy is a movie that delves into the video game world and puts it on the big screen. Directed by Shawn Levy who has directed such family movies as Night at The Museum and Real Steel, Free Guy is Levy’s same brand of crowd-pleasing blockbuster, but with a heart and some surprisingly existential moments. A mixture of Groundhog Day, The Truman Show and The Matrix; Free Guy gives its audience a great feeling that will surely make them forget about the real world for a couple of hours.

    However, outside of Free City in the real world where Millie is playing Free City so that she can uncover proof that the code that she wrote is being used by Antwan (Taika Watiti), a maniacal creative director working on Free City. However, when she meets Guy, she gets distracted by fantasy meeting reality.

    Although a heart-warming, feel good story about the little guy triumphing against the odds and defeating an evil corporation, there are a few problems with Free Guy. The movie does indeed manage to successfully integrate gaming culture, but at times it does feel like it may lose its wider audience with its terminology.

    Also, as a gamer myself, it feels like some of the solutions could have been solved in different ways whilst still being accessible to the mainstream. Its base story is also not all that original either considering the wide success of The Lego Movie. So, after a while, a certain song may pop into people’s heads when Guy says in a round about way that ‘everything is awesome’. Also, it does feel through Taika Watiti’s performance that perhaps he feels a little uncomfortable playing a villain as his portrayal fails to become truly unlikeable.

    Saying all that though, Free Guy is a bright and colourful, action-packed family movie with great laughs and even a couple of surprise cameos which will surely raise a smile.

  • Ma Belle, My Beauty: Review

    Ma Belle, My Beauty: Review

    Bertie (Idella Johnson) and Fred (Lucien Guignard) are happily married, they’re both in a band together and after some time getting very close, they got married and are now living in the south of France. Then one day Lane (Hannah Pepper) arrives unannounced and it starts to cause tensions, not only between the married couple, but between Bertie and Lane especially.

    This is because Bertie, Lane and Fred were once in a polyamorous relationship and there are still strong feelings between the women. It’s not long before passions reignite between them either, but Bertie is happy with her life and although they once had something strong between them, she wants to move on. However, with Lane being there, it’s a constant reminder of what she had and how things could have been different.

    Ma Belle, My Beauty is a romantic drama written and directed by Marion Hill in her feature debut. Set in the south of France, the tone of the film is light and breezy, like a Sunday afternoon movie over a glass of wine, however there are still issues with the script which may make it hard to follow which forces the audience to sit up straighter.

    Firstly, the set up for the film is intriguing, but despite a few encounters between Bertie and Lane, there’s not really anything else for the audience to go on. There’s an obvious rift between Bertie and Fred, but the audience doesn’t really understand the tensions until quite late into the film.

    Whereas when these are revealed, it turns out to be an understandable grievance, it perhaps could have been introduced a lot earlier. This also means that there is very little plot.

    As mentioned earlier this is a light and breezy Sunday afternoon film, but it seems that director Hill has been overcome by the beauty of the French landscape and there may be a little too much sightseeing which slows down the pacing. All the cast do a great job with their characters and there’s a good chemistry between Idella Johnson and Hannah Pepper, but it still feels a little like a showcase for their talents rather than anything substantial.

    Ma Belle, My Beauty may show an unconventional relationship in a different light, but it never really goes much deeper beneath the surface.

  • Kandisha: Review

    Kandisha: Review

    Amélie (Mathilde Lamusse), Bintou (Suzy Bemba) and Morjana (Samarcandi Saadi) are all friends that live in a council estate in France. They’re just like any other teenage girls and like to have fun with drugs, alcohol and men, but they have a real talent for art and graffiti and use their talents whenever they can. However, their world turns upside down when Amelie comes across a name on a wall ‘Kandisha’.

    They learn that Aicha Kandisha is a Moroccan urban legend about a woman betrayed and tortured by six men who comes back from the dead when summoned in order to kill six more men for her sacrifice. Although intrigued by the idea of a female vengeful ghost, the girls laugh it off, never thinking that such a thing could really happen.

    Then while on her way home one night, Amélie is accosted by her ex-boyfriend who is finding it hard to move on, they get into a fight and Amélie bites him. Covered in blood, she goes home and as if possessed by a spirit, starts drawing a symbol on her bathroom wall and chants Kandisha’s name over and over.

    Then the next day Amélie gets the news that her ex-boyfriend has died in a tragic accident and despite her denial that Kandisha is real, she can’t shake off that she may be responsible.

    Kandisha is a French horror film which evokes Candyman in the way of a new urban legend that’s seemingly created in order to spawn a franchise. While Kandisha may be an original idea for a vengeful spirit which may sit alongside the Nineties horror classic, it’s unfortunate that so many of the finer details are left out.

    Whilst Amélie does unleash the demon by painting the symbol in her ex’s blood and despite the detailed exposition about where Kandisha came from, there really isn’t anything else to go on. There’s little to no explanation as to why Kandisha attacks her victims other than that they’re connected to the main characters and no reason for the solution to banish Kandisha other than ‘it is written’.

    Despite some interesting visuals and creature design, this makes Kandisha a formulaic and somewhat disappointing slasher movie.

  • Whelm: Review

    Whelm: Review

    August (Ronan Colfer) and Reed (Dylan Grunn) are brothers, estranged after the events of World War One, they try to reconnect, but it seems that they can only find something to work on together when they get involved in finding the true identity of a man called Alexander Aleksy.

    This leads to trouble though and soon the brothers find themselves caught up in a feud between a bank robber with a legendary reputation and a young, eccentric criminal determined to take him down.

    Whelm is the directorial debut of writer/director Skyler Lawson which feels like it should be the tentpole feature of a seasoned director rather than the first attempt at something so grandiose. Everything from Lawson’s intricate script, accomplished direction, cinematography and production value screams something that took millions to make.

    However, Lawson has managed to put together a cast and crew so accomplished that it’s hard to believe that they had so little to work with.

    A Louisiana story that takes place during the prohibition era, Whelm feels like anything but the kinds of films like The Untouchables and One Upon a Time in America. Instead, it has the feeling of a western alongside the likes of The Assassination of Jesse James and it’s this mixture of genres and styles that makes it so compelling. Told at a leisurely pace, Whelm wants to draw in its audience and force them to listen to the dialogue while they’re taking in the scenery and the beauty of what Lawson has crafted.

    Whelm feels like something an audience may have stumbled across, a hidden gem by somebody who went on to make a series of films which were much better known and surely Lawson will be able to do just that. Colfer and Grunn are the central focus of the film and so therefore their chemistry and believability are crucial, so thankfully they both play their parts well.

    However, Whelm may not be for those who are expecting a quick witted, gun totting action drama, although there are moments of immense tension, it pays off best for those willing to pay attention to the details. Lawson may have done the impossible and will surely be a director to watch.