Category: REVIEWS

By Naseem Ally. ‘Public Enemy Number One’ is a documentary feature film from director Robert Pippberger with executive producer, recording artist and actor Ice-T that tackles the United States war on drugs.

Weaved into this documentary are interviews from policymakers, former U.S drug czars, authors and activists that forensically analyse and pinpoint, all the major and minute shifts of the drug phenomena. It has a particular focus on the Federal Drug Policy introduced in 1968 and the moral panic around marijuana, all the way until the present day.

To paint the picture we’re first taken back to 1968, under President Nixon where he first introduced the idea of the ‘war on drugs’ which gave birth to the DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration) described as ‘half law enforcement, half Hollywood’.

Many people felt that this was a way for him to divert attention away from the protests condemning the Vietnam War.

With the United States not being a stranger to controversy, there was speculation on whether there had been an underlying motive around the sudden crackdown of drugs.

Much of the social commentary made after this period was of the belief that there were some racial biases, particularly for the choices of drugs promoted to black and white people, as a way to cause a great deal of dysfunctionality within their respective communities. With the boom of hippie culture and the glamour of blaxploitation films displaying the economic perks of trafficking narcotics, it was inevitable that there’d be a wave of drugs that would flood the suburbs and inner cities of America.

Protesting against the Vietnam war and fighting for racial equality in the late ’60s would soon become the last thing on anybody’s mind during this drug-induced nirvana.

Honestly at times, watching this felt like it was ‘too real for tv’.

‘Public Enemy Number One’ covers subjects from the 80’s crack epidemic to the American penal system. It’s some very eye-opening content, and for me at least, it led my mind deep down into the conspiracy rabbit hole, but I digress. There were so many layers to this documentary that it could have gone into even further territory, that it probably needs a sequel.

I’m torn between thinking if I’m satisfied with what I’ve seen in Public Enemy Number One, or if it may have just fallen short of the mark.

Having put in this much effort into presenting the information, and then glossing over some of the best points in the documentary, left me feeling as if Pippberger was attempting to rush to a ‘commercial break’. The case could be made that this should have been produced as a series, without the time constraints you have to consider when making a film.

With that being said, it did make its debut at the DOC LA Film Festival and it could end up being distributed by one of the many streaming platforms.

The running time is just over 70 minutes which flys by and would be sufficient for most audiences, but for some, like me, it could leave you walking away feeling there’s a lot more they left out on the cutting room floor. Parts of Public Enemy Number One felt incomplete, which is a shame.

However, I’ll give credit where credits due. The great camera angles of the interviews and eerie score used in here work tremendously well. Visually, it’s very crisp and beautifully shot and ticks most, if not all the ‘documentary’ boxes. This is the real deal.

My eyes kept drawing to the top right corner, expecting the yellow national geographic icon to appear, stating ‘Shark Week – Up Next’. That’s how good this documentary looked. Hats off to the cinematography team who worked on Public Enemy Number One.

I loved the haunting score used, especially during scenes of grainy footage from the late ’60s, ’70s and ’80s, showcasing the after-effects of the crack cocaine era and the sweeping shots of America’s vast prison cells. Referring to my earlier point of the film not having dived deeper into certain topics, and somewhat skimming them, is evident when ‘three-strikes rule’ is brought up.

During a transition where the camera pans over to a photo article of Freeway Rick Ross, (not the rapper), the three strikes rule is defined and narrated by Ice-T, but then abruptly fast forwards onto the next scene, just as I was leaning forward in anticipation of seeing what direction they’d take on that subject. The best way I can describe it is when you’re really absorbed in a film, about to take another swig of popcorn waiting for the next scene to roll, only for the screen to turn to black and roll the end credits – ‘ahh man…’. I’m sure many can relate.

This was disappointing as at this point in the documentary, this should have been the peak of really examining the ‘war on drugs’ as Freeway Rick Ross was a major player at the height of the U.S’s drug war and it’s policies. Freeway Rick Ross was falsely struck with the infamous three-strike rule and got himself out of it by teaching himself to read about the justice system, but prior to it found himself stuck in the U.S, Nicaragua and Iran fiasco that involved close to a billion dollars worth of crack cocaine sold in the ’80s.

Originally a tennis player in Compton, California, Rick soon became tempted by the large sums of money being made in the drug trade at the time. Ice-T reflects on those affected and caught up in the vicious drug cycle stating ‘It all starts off with no hope, lack of education, not being able to actually enter the system’. ‘I want to make a living wage, but over here is another way, and now you try to do that, but you end up in prison or you end up with your life devastated.’

With Ice-T being an executive producer on the project, I thought he would have had more of an influence on the score. It was predominantly made up of ’60s and ’70s counter culture rock. I thought a nice sprinkling of hip hop would have fitted well, especially during scenes that showed footage of the police raids and outright chaos that plagued areas like South Central L.A, as a result of the 80’s crack epidemic.

It was hard-hitting stuff to watch, and I think adding in a few hip hop songs from that time capsule, would have really helped to further capture and emphasise the harsh realities of the effects of drugs during those infamous years. Whilst watching these scenes in Public Enemy Number One, a number of relevant songs came to mind; ‘Fight The Power’ by Public Enemy, of course, ‘Straight Outta Compton’ – N.W.A, ‘Sound Of Da Police‘ – KRS One and ‘The Message’ by Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five.

It’s interesting how the ‘war on drugs’ coincided with the birth of hip hop, which was regularly attacked by mainstream media and scrutinised as the main focal point for this issue. Even Ice-T and his peers would later find themselves being called out on national television by members of congress.

A point that Ice-T has touched on before regarding the infancy stages of the art form which is applicable to the war on drugs, is where he stated ‘when you listen to hip hop from that era, it’s chaotic because that’s crack, crack is chaotic and it makes the music sound like that’.

I have to admit, as someone not from the United States Of America, it’s a fascinating country to observe. The accumulation of injustices across the country created a domino effect that would eventually lead up to a huge wake-up call for them, one being the 1992 L.A ‘Rodney King’ riots.

For years, rappers who were essentially social commentators or news reporters in their own right had been warning middle America of what was to come. How could they not see this coming?

From the outside looking in, the ‘war on drugs’ and angst around the rise of rap music seemed to be the backdrop for avoiding the fact that America had, and arguably still has a number of social issues to address. The penal system is one of them, as highlighted in Public Enemy Number One.

A particular interview that I watched after the documentary, from 2pac at the Clinton Correctional Facility Prison comes to mind, where he gave his take on the matter.

‘You’ve never seen in no time in history where they’ve put so much attention on some music and made it like we are the cause of all these problems.’ ‘You could look at it with the three-strikes law, you could look at it where there building more jails, they’re starting to sell jail space, you know jail is big business, believe me, I’m in jail, I see the big business.’

‘You could feed a whole town off of one jail, this jail is in the middle of a town that feeds everybody.’ ‘Everybody works here, this is the main income, so if there was no criminals, nobody would work.’

‘I think this country was built on gangs, I think this country still is run on gangs; Republicans, Democrats, the Police Department, the Correctional Officers – I had a correctional officer tell me straight up, we the biggest gang in New York state’

In Public Enemy Number One, it’s clear to see that the war on drugs caused so much turmoil since it’s beginning under President Nixon through to the Ronald Reagan era, Bush and beyond, that the after-effects are still being felt in America today.

Due to the sheer scale of the country, who knows how many lifetimes it would take to resolve all those problems. The UK is not exempt to a crackdown on drugs as we can see with recent phenomena of ‘county lines’, but in comparison to the states, it is very fortunate. To put in perspective the state of Texas is almost three times the size of the UK. THREE TIMES.

It’s a much-needed conversation and in this documentary, its talked about with so much honesty that one of the interviewees, Dan Baum, mentioned he hopes America can talk about the war on terror with the same candidness, as they did on the war on drugs in many years to come.

The thing I appreciated the most about this documentary is that it doesn’t follow the ‘woke’ narrative, but it’s done in a way where it doesn’t feel preachy – you can either take it or leave it.

With the year coming to a close, I sincerely hope this documentary picks up some traction in 2020 and really gets the conversation going, considering the U.S elections taking place. It would be very interesting to see what policies are brought to the table, moving forward.

Public Enemy Number One. Fascinating stuff.

The eternally talented Conleth Hill delivers a line in Gavin Hood’s Official Secrets that sums up exactly how I feel about the film. He, as his character Roger Alton, the head of The Observer newspaper, labels the government leak at the heart of the film, “One hell of a story”. And I wholeheartedly agree, which is what makes Official Secrets such a powerful and important film. The telling of the tale may struggle to unravel at times, yet still, the sheer weight and shock of everything occurring is always apparent and impactful. 

Official Secrets is aptly titled after the UK’s government act designed to ensure that government secrets don’t make their way into the hands of the public, and we follow the most high-profile breaker of the laws contained within the act. Katherine Gun (Keira Knightley) worked at Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) and, despite the term sounding rather superficial when based in reality, she was a spy.

Her job was to translate messages intercepted by GCHQ, and she did just that until the danger of impending war began to amount in 2003 as the UN pondered a vote to legalise an invasion of Iraq. It was then that GCHQ forwarded her an email that would change her life forever. The email, initially sent by a member of the US National Security Agency, contained clear orders to spy on nations of the UN who weren’t dedicated to legalising the war for them to be blackmailed into doing so. 

From here, we see the incredibly brave Katherine put the lives of so many before her own as she leaks the document to the press in an effort to prevent the war. The consequences of this are what the film is about; however, we do split into what feels like two distinctly different stories. We follow the men responsible for publishing the leak, most importantly the man who wrote the article, Martin Bright (Matt Smith).

The sequences inside The Observer office debating whether to support the pro-war Tony Blair or to publish the document they have come to obtain illegally are some of the films best, but all the chaos and unique intensity of these scenes is not combined particularly well. Director Gavin Hood fails to find a balance between the two sides of the story he tells, and it does the film an unfortunate disservice.

This leads into what saves the film from becoming a mess, the masterful work from Keira Knightly, Matt Smith and the man who plays Katherine’s lawyer Ben Emmerson, Ralph Fiennes. Each of them forms the beating heart of Official Secrets and display all the talents that made them enduring and endearing performers for as long as they have been. Matt Smith is especially brilliant, not because he betters his counterparts, but due to his role being so unlike his work in The Crown and Doctor Who.

Here Smith makes for a journalist genuinely worth rooting for as he fights for a story his paper didn’t want to tell. Knightly stirs as her character faces imprisonment, her ability to convincingly display the concoction of courage and despair is put on display throughout and is moving at every turn. And Fiennes finds the perfect pitch to be a consummate professional who still has it in him to do what he can to uphold justice. Even when confronted with a woman who had admitted her guilt, he never backs down and eloquently does everything he can. 

Official Secrets knows how important telling Katherine’s story is which leads to plenty of monologues of from individuals taking a stand. Yet, here they do the actors justice and actually manage to make an impact. Indeed, there is only one detracting flaw in the script, the sheer amount of times the words “official secrets” are spoken. It happens so often it becomes comically jarring, which simply shouldn’t be happening. Otherwise, the script shines a kind light on the incredibly suspicious actions in the lead up to the Iraq war, and makes clear the importance of those who did all they could to bring those actions to light. 

Official Secrets plays like two movies that eventually meet, and while it may not work how intended, the three stars are so good it doesn’t matter, and everything begins to click.

Parasite Review. By Nick Boyd.

“Parasite,” a meticulously crafted Korean film, is a savvy study on the contrast between rich and poor.  A teenager named Ki-woo lives with his father Ki-taek, his mother Chung-sook, and his sister Ki-jeong in a small semi-basement apartment in Seoul.  The family struggles to make ends meet by folding pizza boxes.  

One day, a friend of Ki-woo approaches him and says that he will be leaving to study abroad and wants Ki-woo to take over his English tutoring duties of a wealthy family’s teenage daughter.

Realising this could be a good money making opportunity, Ki-woo gladly accepts the offer.

Upon arriving at the premises of the new family’s (the Parks) mansion designed by a famous architect, Ki-woo is in awe of the luxury which surrounds him.  Soon he gets the clever idea of using his family members, unbeknownst to the rich yet gullible homeowners, to also work there when a need arises. 

His sister steps in as an art therapist teacher for the Parks’ rambunctious young son.  Then his father becomes the Parks’ family driver and his mother takes over housekeeper duties.  Both families come to rely on each other – one for the money and the other for labour.  

The movie, very well-directed, does a skillful job for the most part, maintaining a darkly comedic tone and immersing us in a unique predicament.  It is continually surprising us and keeping us off-balance.  The fascination in the picture grows out of how the poor family has to walk a delicate balancing act in making sure that they are always keenly aware of how they are behaving, as one slip up could expose their scheme. 

The look and the feel of things also impresses, creating a realistic, detailed atmosphere.  We really feel the cramped, lack of ventilated space that the poor family resides in, while the rich family’s residence, although immaculately designed and kept up, is lacking in any warmth.

Later in the film, when secrets are revealed, things ramp up in their intensity from darkly comedic satire to gruesomeness and violence.  Even though what takes place makes sense, the explicitness works against the film and takes it into horror territory.

While the off-beat nature of the narrative surely will not appeal to everyone, those with a desire to be taken on a thrilling ride of many twists and turns will be rewarded with an unpredictable and unsettling sharp class dissection.

A screenwriter named Joe Link (Mason Heidger) known for ripoff “mockbusters” asks his successful former colleague Melanie Banks (KateLynn E. Newberry) for feedback on his first serious script.

When it comes to short films, they can be tough to criticize mainly because they do not have nearly as much screen time as feature films, and in feature films, a story can be deeply fleshed out with a lot of time to develop its characters, explore its themes, and tell a compelling story overall.

Shorts can be a bit of a mixed bag. Some that are five to ten minutes long can either be surprisingly effective that contains an exceptionally good story with characters that I can get invested in by the end. On the other hand, some shorts can feel relatively empty and flat, due to its lesser running time. At the end of the day, every filmmaker wants to make something that they are proud of, and they want to create something that everybody can enjoy.

Chris Stuckmann’s Notes from Melanie, his second short film following the success of his 2017 festival hit Auditorium 6, is a remarkably effective picture that manages to get you invested in its characters, make you laugh, and maybe even get a bit emotional.

When it comes to the positives here, the acting is definitely one of the strongest aspects. Mason Heidger portrays Joe Link, a screenwriter who is infamous for writing “mockbusters” – films that parody big budget films with a similar title. He makes a ton of films that nobody truly appreciates such as “Alien Stalker”, “Jurassic Universe”, and “Mission: Possibly – Really Hard”.

Although others do not appreciate his work, he views them as movies he is proud of. He is happy that he made these movies, and he shows it by hanging up a framed screenshot of one of his films receiving a perfect 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, which he surely photoshopped, and is a great easter egg for eagle eyed viewers.

But my favorite performance here comes from KateLynn E. Newberry, who portrays the titular Melanie. Even though I have never seen any of Newberry’s work in the past, from the moment she came on screen, it felt as if I were watching a legendary actress at work. The way she delivers her dialogue and the emotion and power she puts into every scene is amazing, and it becomes entertaining to just watch her act on screen because she is just so good.

It is also an impressively written and directed film as well. In fact, the writing is one of the best elements on display here. The movie can be extremely self-aware of film tropes at times and when Stuckmann pokes fun at this, it always makes for a good laugh, but never takes away from the film’s story as a whole. As I touched upon at the beginning, Notes from Melanie does not shy away from having a couple emotional beats as well, and they were quite effective.

In terms of negatives, it would have been nice to get to know more about the characters and to have just a little bit more character development. We get to know a bit about them, but it is only through the use of dialogue, and I wish we had seen a bit more visual storytelling.

Also, some sequences use computer-generated imagery and some shots just did not look quite right. It is not necessarily bad, it just looks a bit jarring and it is noticeable. Finally,  the cinematography, while mostly good, does have a few missteps. Some frames have the tops of the actors heads cut off for a few seconds, and the lighting in some of these scenes could have been a bit better, as there were a few moments where the details in the actors’ faces did not quite pop.

But overall, this is an incredibly well-done short film that has a highly hilarious story to tell and proves that Stuckmann is an up and coming filmmaker to take notice of.

Notes from Melanie is a highly effective short film that boasts great acting, a clever and witty script, and is a great display of Chris Stuckmann’s writing/directing talent.

Jenny (Elissa Dowling) is overworked, underappreciated and underpaid. The only bit of joy she gets from being at work is getting to talk to Auto (Jeff J. Knight) her only friend in her boring nine to five. Auto is always there for her when she needs a friend, is interested in her true passion of becoming a singer and gives good back rubs.

Auto is also the only robot working with Jenny and when his creator, Alan (Parry Shen) pays a visit to the workplace, it seems that Auto’s usefulness may not be required by the company any more. Plainly put, Alan is looking to terminate Auto’s employment and his life and due to a dark past that Auto has never really got over, he feels that now is the right time to fight back.

Automation is the feature debut from director Garo Setian. Starting out as a light hearted, unconventional Christmas movie, Automation turns into something quite different about half way through and it isn’t entirely clear which type of movie it wants to be.

Once Auto’s programming malfunctions, the movie turns into horror which may put off or delight its audience as the tonal shift is quite heavy and despite the dark humour that has come before, with the way Auto is treated and the observations about workplace relations, some people may not be expecting how dark the film actually gets.

Starting out with themes reminiscent of Robocop and Short Circuit, the second half of the film ends up paying more of a debt to Terminator and Predator which shows just how drastically the film changes. Where the film may pick up another kind of audience, it loses another as the heart of the movie is all but forgotten and that is a problem as it makes it unclear which audience it is really targeting. Dowling does her best when working against what is basically a faceless actor in a low budget robot costume, but like most of the cast her characterisation is never really fleshed out enough to feel either hope for her survival or for the audience to want to see her gone.

There are other characters that make up Jenny’s colleagues in the workplace, but again their backstories are skimmed over so that when Auto does eventually go on a rampage, the audience is never given the chance to feel anything for them either and that’s a shame.

It could at least have given the script a chance to say something about working in an office or make them feel something for when they die, but it just seems like they were set up just to be cannon fodder. Although this may be best suited for a horror movie, as I said earlier, it’s not entirely clear that this is what the audience would have been getting.

I will say though that I liked the kitchy, low budget look of Auto and the clear indication that it is merely an actor in a suit does take the edge of a little when the audience needs to empathise towards the robot fighting for his life.

Also, for all its faults Knight does a pretty good job going from kind hearted robot with a soul to a murderous killbot. It’s just a shame that the final product doesn’t go from dramatic, unusual romantic drama to slasher horror just as seamlessly.