THE LIFE OF CHUCK**

I don't get the Toronto film festival audience hype for the latest Stephen King adaptation, THE LIFE OF CHUCK. It barely feels like a film at all, but two short films that do not cohere.  I wasn't moved: I didn't get it.  To be fair, I really liked part one.  It's a dystopian future where the world has been overtaken by climate change.  In affluent America, a divorced but friendly husband and wife (Chiwetel Ejiofor and Karen Gillan) potter about their everyday lives, navigating the rising suicide rates and the intermittent loss of the internet.  The quiet, calm observation of how the end of the world might intrude upon our everyday lives is well observed and an interesting thought experiment. The only weird note is that they keep seeing billboards thanking an accountant called Chuck for his great life - "the last internet meme".  We never learn what was behind the billboards, but we do then flip into Chuck's backstory. He's an orphaned kid raised by his charismatic grandparents - Mark Hamill as the sardonic, weary but fun grandpa has his best role in years.  Chuck learns to dance with his grandma and has two dance set pieces - one with the young Chuck at a school dance and another with the adult Chuck and a busker.  Adult Chuck is played by Tom Hiddleston, who is himself an internet meme with his love of dance. So it doesn't feel like a character is dancing but Tom is on another instagram reel. The social media notoriety actually took me out of the story, insofar as I was ever in it, and the dance scene had none of the loose breaking free of Mads Mikkelsen in ANOTHER ROUND.  What's the message of this strange film? That we all contain multitudes because we contain memories of all the people that we have ever loved? I can get behind that. That we are so narcissistic we think the whole world existed so we could dance? Er...okay.  Strange film. Doesn't work. 

THE LIFE OF CHUCK is rated R and has a running time of 111 minutes. It was released in the USA in June and will be released in the UK on August 22nd.

BRIDGET JONES: MAD ABOUT THE BOY****

First the irritating stuff.  Why oh why must London-set dramadies always be set among the 1 percent? Because let's be clear, most newly widowed mothers don't go back to work for a rebrand. They go back to work because they are financially insecure.  Most of them don't live in lavish picture-perfect Hampstead houses and have two kids in private school.  Most can't afford a full-time nanny. And most can't just waltz back into the same job they had a decade prior.

Second irritating point.  Renee Zellwegger.  The whole awkward tampon up the arse walk. The gurning.  The ditziness that is impervious to ageing and wisdom. The fact that she seems to have an endless stream of handsome men declare their underlying love for her.

Okay so that's two pretty major problems with this film.  BUT I still enjoyed it!  Why? Because author and screenwriter Helen Fielding has something moving and hopeful to say about grieving a loved one and about emotional growth.  We see Bridget as a widow navigate grief with her two small children, have a passionate summer fling with a hot younger man (The White Lotus' Leo Woodall) and then form a more mature attachment with her son's teacher (Chiwetel Ejiofor).  I believed in her grief, her joy, her contentment. Because Renee Zellwegger is actually a good actress when given something meaningful to do.  

And what of the emotional growth? Well that's all on the part of Hugh Grant's delicious rake Daniel, who comes to the realisation that he ought to forge a relationship with his teenage son. He has all the best lines and provides all of the film's comedy. Oh, except for a really superb cameo from Isla Fisher. Renee's prat falling does NOT count. (Shirley Henderson and the other best mates are all sadly underused.)

BRIDGET JONES: MAD ABOUT THE BOY has a running time of 124 minutes and is rated R. It is in cinemas in the UK and on Peacock in the USA.

MARY MAGDALENE

MARY MAGDALENE is a truly beautiful, nuanced, finely acted and imagined film that genuinely does something new with a hackneyed story. It stars Rooney Mara as Mary Magdalene - not a reformed whore and temptress of popular myth, but a thoughtful, caring woman who has the fortitude to escape an arranged marriage to follow an inspirational leader.  She becomes his companion and befriends the apostles - but there are no leering gazes or temptations. Rather a quieter tension about interpreting Christ's message and legacy.  To Peter (Chiwetel Ejiofor), she is a distraction. His aim is worldly power in Jerusalem. For Mary, the meaning of Christianity is compassion and personal kindness. Somewhere in this miscommunication is a tragic and awful misunderstanding on the part of Judas.

Director Garth Davis (LION) has created a quiet film of great passions with a studious script by Helen Edmundson and Phillippa Goslett taking back seat to imaginatively created moments. Early on we see a terrified Mary exorcised in a lake at night by her father and brother because she refuses to marry. It's a stunning imaginative invention.  Later, when Christ (Joaquin Phoenix) wrestles with a possessed man he seems himself in reflection. And is there anything as heartbreaking as Tahar Rahim's Judas on his knees begging Christ to resurrect his dead daughter? All of this carries an emotional weight because it stands in contrast to the muted dun-coloured palette of Greig Fraser's photography, the simplicity of the exterior landscapes, and the austerity of Johan Johannsson's score. But at the moments when Davis uses CGI and set pieces - he is also superb. The rendering of turn of the millennium Jerusalem from a distance is quite breath-taking - as is his evocation of a temple crowded with people, money-lenders and blood sacrifices. 

MARY MAGDALENE has a running time of 120 minutes. 

DOCTOR STRANGE

DOCTOR STRANGE is a patchwork quilt of a Marvel movie.  Pleasant enough to watch, but undeserving of a second view, in which almost every character, action sequence or funny line echoes another film, and the only originality comes not from the central character but from Tilda Swinton.  It's visually arresting but emotionally hollow mid-tier Marvel of a kind that - with a release calendar chock full of B-grade comic book characters -  I have become rather bored by. 

As with IRON MAN, Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) is a rich materialistic egotistical genius brought low by a severe accident, who supplements his physical healing process with "super powers".   As with SHERLOCK, Strange has a perfect memory and a fondness for being right.  As with StarChild, Strange has a fondness for cheesy seventies hits.  Strange was a successful but cocky surgeon who texts while driving and ends up in an horrific car crash that renders his hands unfit for surgery.  In desperation, he journeys to Nepal where he finds a mystical Jedi Master, sorry, Ancient One (Tilda Swinton), who puts him through a training regime straight out of EMPIRE STRIKES BACK.  I kid you not, there's even a "judge me by my size, do you" sequence. It turns out that, quelle surprise, Strange has a rare aptitude for astral projection and drawing energy from other dimensions of the multiverse to cast magic spells.  He even gets a cool gadget that allows his to reverse time.  (Do you think that will be significant?!) He also gets a HARRY POTTER style set of magical gadgets, including a sentient cloak that actually reminded me a bit of Terry Pratchett's luggage.  So armed, he goes off to fight the Ancient One's former pupil turned evil villain (Mads Mikkelsen) who wants to open Earth up to an eviller villain whose name sounds like Dormouse.  Oh yes, I forgot that Strange has an ex-girlfriend played by Rachel McAdams who's also a surgeon but she has nothing to do but simper.  He also has sidekicks at his zen school played by Chiwetel Ejiofor and Benedict Wong who exist to show a moral centre and comic relief respectively. 

THE MARTIAN

Alfonso Cuaron's GRAVITY starts in media res, with a small space mission going drastically wrong leaving the sole survivor to find the technical skill to make it safely home. Most importantly, she has to overcome her psychological barriers to survival in a movie that asks profound questions about forgiveness and rebirth.  By contrast, Ridley Scott's THE MARTIAN, though starting from the same premise, is a far sunnier affair, in which everyone is basically good smart people trying their hardest to get Matt Damon's astronaut home. This isn't a criticism so much as a statement about the disposition of this film. It's a clever, cheerful dramedy that relies, much like Robert Downey Junior's IRON MAN, on the essential likability of its protagonist, and jauntily-scored science-problem montage sequences to get us through the two and a half hour run-time.  There's no existential angst here, and the movie's only real flaw, no real tension as to whether the gonzo engineered rescue mission is really going to work.

And so, in the words of jovial stranded astronaut Mark Watney, we get two hours of him "sciencing the shit" out of every problem he faces - from making food and water on a barren planet, to communicating with NASA, to travelling to the site where his rescue will take place.  The science-y detail is impressive and engrossing and speaks to the research done by novelist Andrew Weir.  Damon is just fine delivering his lines but basically his performance rests in being amiable. The supporting cast is vast and high quality and appropriately racially diverse. Ultimately I get the feeling that this is a really fun, uplifting movie that will prove quite disposable, except to those kids it inspires to study engineering and maths (which is a great thing in itself). There's no grit, no heft, but it's a pleasant way to pass a few hours.

THE MARTIAN has a running time of 144 minutes and is rated PG-13.  THE MARTIAN played Toronto 2015 and is on global release.

12 YEARS A SLAVE - LFF 2013 - Day Ten

You can listen to a podcast review of this film below, or subscribe to Bina007 Movie Reviews in iTunes.

Steve McQueen is a young British artist turned director whose previous two movies - HUNGER & SHAME - both gave us an unflinching portrait of dark and complex issues - the IRA hunger strikes and sex addiction. Both combined strong central performances from Michael Fassbender with stunning visuals and painfully held tableaux.  Both were the stand out movies of their year at the London Film Festival.

Accordingly, 12 YEARS A SLAVE came to the London Film Festival on a sea of hype - so much so that twitter had been filled with unblemished praise from critics who had seen the film that morning.  And even Festival Director Clare Stewart seemed speechless in her introduction to the film.  After the screening, the BFI tweeted pictures of standing ovations at the cinema. Everyone agrees the movie is moving, important and destined for Oscar glory.

I'm sad to say that I don't agree.  Yes, the film in important and unflinching. It's beautifully shot - all the more horrible to contrast the beauty of the Southern landscape with the cruelty of slavery. And yes, the movie hinges on a powerful central performance from Fassbender.  But too much of the rest of it seemed to me to be redundant, and a worse crime, to descend into emotional manipulation.

But let's start at the beginning. The film is based on the true life story of Solomon Northup, a successful free black man in Saratoga, married with children.  He was tricked into a business trip, captured and sold into slavery, first to a relatively benign slaveowner called Ford and then to a more complex sadistic coupled called the Epps.  Finally, he is freed when he manages to get a message out through a liberal white Canadian, although that reunion is tinged with bitterness at leaving his fellow slaves behind. 

Chiwetel Ejiofor is said to have given the performance of his career as Solomon, and to be sure he has grace and power, but I personally prefer him in DIRTY PRETTY THINGS.  I do, however, hope that he wins awards for this because let's be honest, as a black actor, how many other starring roles of this gravitas is he likely to get?  In minor roles, I really liked American Horror Story's Sarah Paulson as the sadistic, jealous Mistress Epps, erging on her deeply troubled husband to whipping the slave, Patsey, that he seems to be sexually obsessed with.  I also rather liked Paul Dano as the classic nigger-hating plantation overseer Tibeats whose jealousy at the favour Ford shows Solomon leads to Solomon being chased off the estate. He brings real insecurity and violence to that role.  It's truly sinister.  But perhaps surprisingly, the one mis-step is perhaps the usually note perfect Benedict Cumberbatch as the nice plantation owner Ford. Admittedly, Cumberbatch has little to do in this rather thinly drawn part, but his Southern accent doesn't seem convincing.

For me, this film belongs to two actors - Michael Fassbender as the tortured Epps and Lupita Nyong'o's slave Patsey.  Fassbender brings layers of menace, vulnerability and borderline madness to his portrayal of the almost superstitiously religious man who has a bizarrely close tortuous relationship with his slaves that culminates in one of the most horrendous scenes of the film. Goaded by his wife, he cannot bring himself to whip Patsey so he forces Solomon to do it instead. This is psychosexual terror at its most devastating. As Patsey, Lupita Nyong'o is more than a match for Fassbender, bringing layers of pride and then terrorised desperation to her character.  It's a fine performance.

Behind the camera, Steve McQueen's usual austere framing is somewhat diluted here, in what is undoubtedly his most mainstream movie. The exception are two pivotal scenes of great power. The first is one when Tibeats has Solomon strung up, and the overseer leaves him there.  The camera stays on him in his suffering then pulls back showing us slaves, so fearful, that they have to continue their work around him. Then we pan round to show how close this hanging is to the main house, and to see the mistress of the house looking on almost lackadaisically.  It's a beautifully pointed scene.  The second is the forced whipping of Patsey that I referred to before, and then Epps taking the whip himself.  The detail is rightfully brutal.

So what stops this from being a great film?  Too long spent in the banality of Ford's plantation.  Too long spent away from Fassbender in general.  The rather absurdly drawn character of Bass, the liberal Canadian played almost like a salvation Jesus by Brad Pitt.  And the ending.  McQueen could have ended this film on the scene where Solomon leaves the Epps plantation - a close-up on his half-unbelieving, relieved and yet guilt-ridden face, as Patsey faints in the background. That would have perfectly summed up the conflict at the heart of this story of personal liberation.  Instead, he tacks on the standard schmaltzy scene of catharsis, where Solomon is reunited with his family - martyred apologies and group hugs all round. Conventional, unnecessary, sugary and ruinous. 

12 YEARS A SLAVE has a running time of 133 minutes and is rated R in the USA.

12 YEARS A SLAVE played Telluride, London and Toronto where Steve McQueen won the People's Choice Award.  The movie will be released in the USA on October 18th, in Germany and Spain on October 31st, in Greece on December 12th, in Singapore and Sweden on December 20th, in New Zealand on December 26th, in France, Finland and the UK on January 24th, in Norway on January 31st, in the Netherlands on February 20th and in Denmark on February 27th. 

SALT - Ain't nothing wrong with thrills and spills

An  ex-KGB goon walks into a CIA building in DC and outs an alleged Soviet mole, who is planning to assassinate the Russian President in New York in 24 hours time. For the rest of the movie, that mole has to rush to New York; infiltrate the Russian renegades who are trying to trigger a nuclear war; protect the US president; and all the while avoid the clutches of CIA Counter-Intell. Is this a job for Kiefer Sutherland in 24? Or Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible? Nope, in a nice piece of counter-programming, it's a job for Angelina Jolie, as Eveline Salt.

I had a lot of fun watching SALT. It's not a particularly clever film, and certainly not memorable, but for two hours it held my attention with great action set-pieces and better than typical acting for a genre movie. Note, for example, a scene in which Salt is on a boat, surrounded by KGB goons who have apparently done something she should feel upset about. Jolie has to play woman who is deeply upset, but pretending not to be - all the while giving the audience enough ambiguity that they wander who's side she's really on. Added to that, you get a supporting cast of the calibre of Liev Schreiber as her CIA boss, and Chiwetel Ejiofor as the Counter-Intell chief. So, all in all, two enthusiastic thumbs up. Not every movie needs to be Bergman. And while we're waiting for MGM to restructure its debt and push put another Bond flick, this will do very nicely.

Additional tags: Stuart Baird, John Gilroy, Daniel Olbrychski, Daniel Pearce, Hunt Block, Andre Braugher, Olex Krupa

SALT is on global release.

REDBELT - well-acted thriller undone by schmaltzy ending and ludicrous paranoia

David Mamet specialises in this sort of movie: brilliant dialogue, solid casting, plot twists up the wazoo. The problem is that the balance is off-kilter in REDBELT. It's a thriller in which the plot twists and depth of betrayal is so complete and, at times, so seemingly random, as to defy plausibility and empathy.

All of which is a shame, because Chiwetel Ejiofor does a great job in bringing the protagonist, Mike Terry, to life. He perfectly articulates the attraction and absurdity of a man like Terry. On the one hand, this martial arts instructer is laudably honest, loyal and intelligent. He's a stand-up guy. On the other hand, you can see why his wife, Brazilian "princess" Sondra (Alice Braga), would be infuriated by her husband's lack of business sense. Idealists are admirable, but who's gonna keep the business going?

Short of cash, Terry and Sondra get a seemingly lucky break. By chance, Terry saves a Hollywood star (superb against-the-grain cameo by Tim Allen) in a bar-fight and suddenly Terry's going to be a Hollywood producer and his wife is going to be a fashion designer. Problem is, Terry's martial arts training method is ripped off to spice up a pay-per-view martial arts fight. Who's the villain? The Hollywood star? His in-laws? His wife?

Terry runs around trying to keep his head above water. Everyone is sullied by greedy capitalism but Terry. The crude contrast of idealism and greed is ludicrous, as is the schmaltzy denouement straight from THE KARATE KID. I'm not sure what Mamet is trying to say. Worse still, I'm not sure I even care.

REDBELT opened earlier this year in the USA, Brazil, Estonia, Spain, Australia, Belgium, Italy and Germany. It is currently on release in the UK.

AMERICAN GANGSTER - handsome but heartless

AMERICAN GANGSTER is a handsomely produced, engrossing police procedural. But it fails to create characters, dialogue and emotional story arcs that draw you in and capture the collective consciousness.

Ridley Scott and Harry Savides have created a movie that oozes authenticity with it's detailed rendering of 1970s Harlem projects. Real-life heroin dealer Frank Lucas, played by Denzel Washington, slips through these rough streets with a cool confidence that is magnetic. He eschews the super-fly pimp stylings of lesser black criminals such as Nicky Black (Cuba Gooding Junior) or his own younger brother (Chiwetel Ejiofor). This is because Lucas is smart, and less a gangster than a businessman. He supplies a product that is twice as potent than the competition for less than half the price, because he goes straight to the supplier and cuts out the middle-man. Naturally, this puts the traditional Italian mobsters out of business so he cuts them in. But they work for him. He controls the mob.

Lucas gets away with it because of his restraint, his self-control and the endemic corruption of the New York DEA, epitomised in Josh Brolin's sleazy rozzer, Detective Trupo. But he slips up when he wears a flashy chinchilla coat to a a boxing match and is seen to have better seats than mob bosses. This brings Lucas into the sights of New Jersey's one honest cop, Richie Roberts, played by Russell Crowe in a middling performance. Roberts is in many ways a more interesting character than Lucas. Lucas comes to us fully formed - fully in control - fully unquestioning. He is a family man. A business man. But also a ruthless killer. Roberts is more complicated. He clings to his honesty in police matters but is an adulterer going through a messy divorce. He is flawed, but driven, and yet, somehow, Crowe never really made him live for me.

AMERICAN GANGSTER is a long film but never drags. I was hooked on seeing the net close in on Lucas, and thrilled to see the good cop and smart dope dealer unite in the final frame to sit on the real scum - the rozzers. The production design and cinematography is excellent. But this is not an epic movie as the portentious title might suggest. The movie has no heart. There is no family treachery, no conflicted love story, no crisis of conscience, at the movie's heart. In fact, I think this film is slick but ultimately disposable.

AMERICAN GANGSTER is on release in the US, UK, the Netherlands, Bulgaria, Canada, Estonia, Lithuania, Belgiu, France, Germany, Portugal and Iceland. It opens on November 23rd in Norway and Sweden. It opens in December in Russia, Greece, Slovenia, South Korea, Spain and the Czech Republic. It opens in January 2008 in Denmark, Argentina, Australia, Hungary, Singapore, Italy, Mexico, Egypt, Brazil, Finland and Turkey. It opens in Japan in February.

CHILDREN OF MEN - dystopia is now

There's a road about five minutes walk from where I live in Central London. I worked there for around four years and I still walk down it most days. In the opening scene of CHILDREN OF MEN, a crumpled, aggrieved Clive Owen walks out onto that street with a cup of coffee in his hand. A bomb goes off shattering the shop front. Clive Owen ducks for cover and then continues on his journey, haltingly. Because in the London of 2027 our fears (and memories, those of us who remember the IRA) are realised: terrorist attacks are commonplace. It is a world where humans have become infertile and the youngest person alive is eighteen. Civil order has broken down around the world and Britain is the last nation still standing. Or rather crouching with its hands over its face as a fascist policeman brings down the boot.

It's amazing just how easy it is to make contemporary London on a wet November afternoon look like P.D. James dystopian future. The crumbling Victorian infrastructure, the half-light and perpetual drizzle, the uncollected rubbish and weary indifference to increasing numbers of armed rozzers. The genius of this movie is not to over-do the differences but insist on the similarities. The incidental cultural references are the same as now - the 2012 Olympics is an icon of the past not the future, but the music, dress and language are the same. When the world's youngest boy is killed, people still have lunatic outpouring of grief, Diana-stylee, and the English sense of humour is still alive and kicking. In fact, this movie, while intelligent and frightening, is also really rather funny. Reassuringly, "Britishly" funny. Now and then though, we are caught off guard by an image that is horrifying because it comes straight from our tele-visual memory. From news footage and documentaries of the Holocaust or the Bosnian war.

In a movie like CHILDREN OF MEN the key task for the film-maker is to create a world which is at once alien and believable. Director, Alfonso Cuarón and cinematographer, Emmanuel Lubezki succeed by a long chalk. But the movie really works because it creates a series of memorable and believable characters thanks to some brilliant writing and top-notch performances from all the cast. The plot hinges on Clive Owen's character - Theo. He is kidnapped by his ex-wife, Julian, played by Julianne Moore, and asked to help take a miraculously pregnant woman (Claire Hope-Ashitey) out of England and to safety. In this, he is aided by two ageing hippies, played by Michael Caine and Pam Ferris - arguably their best performances on film. The supporting cast is also first class, featuring the ubiquitous Chiwetel Ejiofor as a terrorist and an intense cameo performance from an unrecognisable Charlie Hunnam (that's the blonde teen from QUEER AS FOLK to you and me.) Danny Huston is absolutely chilling as the pragmatic aesthete who sits among his art drinking fine wine while England burns. Among such an accomplished cast it is hard to single out the scene stealer, but it is probably Peter Mullan who takes the biscuit with his darkly comic portrayal of the weed-dealing bent copper, Syd.

I could go on about how superb I think this film is - visually, intellectually, comedically (of all things!) Of course, there are some quibbles. The religious imagery is laid on sporadically thick - especially with the naming of characters and one rather cloying scene near the end. But I think this is a small price to pay for a rare piece of film-making that gets the brain whirring and the pulse racing.

CHILDREN OF MEN is on release in Ireland and the UK. It opens in Japan, Belgium, France, Australia, New Zealand, Russia, Iceland, Latvia, Norway, Spain, the Netherlands, Portugal and Finland in October. It opens in Switzerland, the Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Slovakia, Austria, Brazil, Estonia, Chile, Croatia, Italy, Romania, Turkey, Singapore and Mexico in November. It finally rolls into Sweden and the US in December.

KINKY BOOTS - ho-hum

By contrast with THE BALLAD OF JACK AND ROSE, this week's new Region 1 DVD release KINKY BOOTS is entirely avoidable. It's just another in a long line of movies that uses people with mildly transgressive jobs or sexual preferences as a unique selling point. So where we had amateur porn stars in THE MOGULS, we know have a transvestite cabaret singer, played by the ubiquitous Chiwetel Ejiofor. The transvestite comes to the aid of a failing British shoe factory that's losing trade to cheaper factories in China and Eastern Europe. The solution: to make high-heeled boots that can bear the weight of a man. It's the usual sappy feel-good formulaic nonsense. A decent cast (not least Joel Edgerton as the owner of the factory) but less humour and less depth than THE FULL MONTY. One to avoid.

KINKY BOOTS was released in the UK in October 2005. It is now available on Region 1 and 2 DVD.

INSIDE MAN - a solid thriller

This review is posted by guest reviewer, Professor007: Who would have thought that yet another flick about a bank robbery can come up with so many new turns and twists? After a hard day’s work, I went there with the mindset of addicting myself to a well-done but 100% predictable story. But already Clive Owen's cool introductory monologue indicates this it ain’t gonna be as obvious as one might have thought. And indeed, quickly a funky story unfurls, with everybody running around in Phantom-of-the-Opera-esque masks, and the police being led up the garden path repeatedly. In a nutshell: solid entertainment for a good two hours. Only downside is the lack of hot chicks. You can’t have it all.


INSIDE MAN is on global release.

Just for Flint - a late review of FOUR BROTHERS

Let it never be said that I am not all about consumer rights. I must admit to having used my usual short-hand for mediocre flicks in describing FOUR BROTHERS as a "p*ss-poor seventies remake". It really isn't that bad. On the other hand, it really isn't that good. Let me break it down for you. Once upon a time, there was a talented black director called John Singleton who made movies that went beyond gangsta-rap stereotypes and were as emotionally engaging as they were slick. But it has been a long time since flicks like Boyz'n'the hood. Every time I see a Singleton movie lined up I get all hopeful, only to have my optimisim dashed on the rocks of tired cliche.

FOUR BROTHERS is another lazy film that aspires to break beyond the stereotype of the standard gangsta revenge flick but fails miserably. It tells the superficially politically correct tale of four adopted brothers - two black, two white - whose mother is shot down in a robery gone wrong. After her death, they set out to avenge her. The script was written by two guys who grew up watching spaghetti westerns and have supposedly ripped on the genre but what we really get is the standard buddy movie crossed with a very thinly plotted thriller. When a beloved cast member dies, you know his best friend is shouting "Breathe! Just breathe!" When one of the good guys goes of to war, you know his wife will tell the best friend, "Just bring him back to me in one piece". You can probably buy these pages by the yard at WalMart. And believe me, you'll have figured out who the patsy is, and who the real villain is, by around 30 minutes in.

The performances are fairly indifferent. In particular, Chiwetel Ejiofor, the wonderful lead actor in DIRTY PRETTY THINGS, is completely mis-cast as the gangster, Sweets. Wahlberg is on auto-pilot as big brother Mercer, and the other three brothers are largely forgettable. Terrence Howard - the tremendous actor from HUSTLE AND FLOW - has a small and powerful cameo as a copper, but for some inexplicable reason Singleton cast sometime-teen-idol Josh Charles as his sidekick. Another case of an actor being either horribly mis-cast or just not terribly good.

On a technical level there is nothing wrong with the flick. The photography is in typical "Western" style - lots of master shots with the good guys on one side of the frame and the bad guys on the other. However, I have serious issues with the soundtrack. The songs are all soul and funk classics from the late 1960s and 1970s. The songs evoke a certain era of film-making, namely blaxploitation flicks. This just adds another layer to the "genre confusion" within FOUR BROTHERS. Is it a thriller? A blaxploitation flick? An urban western? In the end, I think it falls through the cracks into the wide chasm of mediocrity below.

FOUR BROTHERS was on cinematic release in autumn 2005. It is now available on DVD.

SERENITY - sub-standard derivative sci-fi nonsense

My abiding impression of SERENITY is that it feels like a pilot for a TV show. It’s hard to say whether I was subconsciously influenced by the knowledge that the movie does indeed have its roots in a cancelled TV show, Firefly. I don’t think so. In fact, it is hard to think of a movie I have seen with fewer preconceptions. SERENITY was written and directed by Joss Whedon who also came up with Buff the Vampire Slayer. I’ve never seen an episode of Buffy or Firefly, and I didn’t recognise anyone in the cast-list of Serenity other than Chiwetel Ejiofor. As to the subject matter, I had a vague idea that it was set on a space-ship. Well, here’s the skinny for all non-fans of the TV show. SERENITY is set in a dystopian future where humans have colonised other planets. They are ruled by a benevolent dictatorship called The Alliance – the outcome of a civil war that is hinted at. Now, somewhat predictably, absolute power is corrupting The Alliance and the powers-that-be have messed with the mind of a 17-year old girl called River. She is psychic, traumatised and can turn into a lethal killing machine at the drop of a hat. Her brother, a mild-mannered doctor, sacrifices his career and cash to break her out and most of the movie is a series of chases as the authorities try to catch her again.

I have to say that pretty much the only thing I liked about this movie was the ever-brilliant Chiwetel Ejiofor’s performance as The Alliance’s assassin. Wielding a sword, some hard-core martial arts moves and a self-awareness that is chilling – Ejiofor made sub-standard schlock sci-fi material look credible. As for the rest, well, it’s best summed up with the word “sub-standard”. The world that Whedon has created is insufficiently detailed and lacks the instant authenticity of, say, Star Wars. Whedon’s cause isn’t helped by the obviously low-budget special effects or the clear rip-offs of Star Wars. The crew aboard Serenity seem to me to be a lazy conflation of the chaps in the Millennium Falcon, The Matrix movies and even more bizarrely, Young Guns. The crew-members all speak in an unconvincing pastiche of Wild West slang – itself a horrible pastiche! Worse still, I got the feeling that the actors, bar Ejiofor, were also sub-standard. The kind of people who get cast in day-time TV shows because they aren’t quite talented or pretty enough to make it in the movies. To cap it all off the use of the camera, editing and sound is entirely pedestrian. The movie is shot as if for TV, and every so often you hear an actor utter a line of dialogue against a crescendo of sound followed by a fade to black and you think, “This is where they should insert the ad break!”

To sum up, not only did I find this movie puerile, derivative and poorly made, it convinced me that I need never check out the TV series Firefly. I am, however, curious to check out Buffy, if only out of curiosity. Surely such a popular show cannot be as bad as this?

SERENITY is on release in the US and UK. It rolls into France on October 19th 2005 and into France & Austria on November 24th.