OUTLAW KING

David Mackenzie (HELL OR HIGH WATER) shifts gears to medieval Scotland for his Netflix film, OUTLAW KING. It stars Chris Pine with a dubious Scottish accent as Scottish clan leader and aspirant king, Robert Bruce.  As the movie opens his dad is bending the knee to evil imperialist King Edward I of England (Stephen Dillane, the first of many GoT alum) - this is not a film that traffics in nuance. We are asked to believe that a newly head of the family Robert can  anachronistically resist schtupping his new bride (feisty Florence Pugh) while also letting him get away with murdering his rival for the crown. This film REALLY wants us to like its protagonist! So Robert raises a rebel army and takes on the English, helped mightily by the fact that the legendary king dies leaving his moron son in charge.  The film therefore culminates in a very cool battle scene that more than compensates for its dodgy accents, two-dimensional characterisations, and stilted opening twenty minutes. In fact, it's so well done, and so similar in concept to a key moment at Waterloo, that I basically now want Mackenzie to direct a film about that. Rare praise indeed from the woman who runs the @relivewaterloo twitter account and pretty much worships the Sergei Bondarchuk version!

OUTLAW KING is rated R and has a running time of 121 minutes.  The film played both Toronto and London 2018 and was released on Netflix last week. 

Overlooked DVD of the month - ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE MIDLANDS

We all know that ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE MIDLANDS is neither as powerful nor as original as Shane Meadows' other movies - notably A ROOM FOR ROMEO BRASS, DEAD MAN'S SHOES and THIS IS ENGLAND. In his third feature, the Midlands-born director had a bigger budget, bigger stars and a less tight and focused script. Shirley Henderson plays a single mother called...well...Shirley. She has an uncertain accent, a plucky daughter, a sappy but kind-hearted boyfriend (Rhys Ifans) and a loser ex- (Robert Carlyle). A crisis is provoked when she refuses the sappy boyfriend's marriage proposal, prompting the ex to see if he still has a chance. Matters are complicated by the fact that Shirley is good friends with the ex's sister (Kathy Burke) and her flaky husband (Ricky Tomlinson.)

All the actors do a fine job, though the accents are pretty patchy. The Sergio Leone references stop at the title and the comic-strip sound-track. And there is less social commentary than we've come to expect from a Meadows film. Still, this film shouldn't be overlooked. It has a lot more heart than your average twee Brit rom-com and captures some of the messiness of real life. And you'll never see a better comic use of the reclining sofa.

ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE MIDLANDS played Cannes 2002 and is now available on DVD.

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS - three chavs and a baby

Maybe, just maybe, with an experienced and talented cast and crew, something as bonkers as THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS might have come off. But this low-budget British flick is badly acted, badly photographed, badly edited, badly scripted and lacking in coherent vision. The camerawork is replete with little tricks that destract from the tale and the editing (sound and visuals) is so rough it calls attention to itself.

Half the time, it's a low-rent Guy Ritchie-style East-End gangster flick. The other half of the time it's a sort of magic realist spiritual movie about a spooky little kid who can see into the future and makes everyone's dreams come true, sort of. Neither half comes off convincingly although the gangster theme plays better than the spiritual. That's thanks to an outrageous piece of acting from an unrecognisable James Cosmo as local boss Mr Karva. He makes bold choices and 90% of the time you're laughing with him rather than at him. The supernatural side of the film just had me praying for the end-credits. Gillian Kearney in particular has to sell a very difficult plot strand which sees a religious woman believe that a drunken adult is the reincarnation of her son. Her accent is uneven but not as cracked as the dialogue she is asked to deliver.

What a mess! And a great disappointment given that it was penned by man who gave us the screenplays for BROTHERS OF THE HEAD and TIDELAND. Still, there's a lot to be said for Chris Cottam and Rankin having the balls to bring something this ambitious, if flawed, to the screen as a first feature.

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS played London 2006 and opens in the UK on Friday.

THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE - "Welcome to the SUCK"

When I went to the first instalment of The Chronicles of Narnia last night, one of the trailers was for the Gulf War flick, Jarhead. In the trailer, a character said to a new recruit, "Welcome to the suck." It's not a particularly witty line, but it worked all too well as a prelude to one of the most disappointing blockbusters of the year. However, before I go on with my review let me, in fairness, point out that I seem to be in the minority. All the famous critics have given it two enthusiastic thumbs up. 

THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE is based upon the famous novel by C.S. Lewis. It tells the story of four children who are evacuated from London during the Second World War. While playing a game of hide and seek in their new country home, they stumble through the back of a wardrobe into another world called Narnia. Narnia is governed by the evil White Witch who has made it permanently winter, but never Christmas. The children go into battle against her aided by the rightful king of Narnia, the aforementioned lion, Aslan. 

So what's there to like? The child actors are all decent and the youngest is almost winning. Their English middle-class reaction to the bizarre events is very funny. When told he must lead an army into battle, the eldest child, Peter, points out that they "aren't heroes." His sister Susan follows up, "we're from Finchley". Similarly, the children are helped out by a very funny married couple who happen to be beavers. (I kid you not.) Mr. Beaver is a perfectly rendered Cockney cab driver. Superbly funny, but one wonders how far this humour will travel outside of England. 

Unfortunately, the Suckfest begins where the intentional humour ends. Where to begin? The set design looks clunky and has none of the depth of design as those used in THE LORD OF THE RINGS. Everything is rendered in simplistic primary colours and looks like drawings out of a colouring book. This serves to undermine the emotions we are meant to feel in the battle scenes. How can I take seriously the possibility that the kids might die in battle when they are walking around in ten-dollar rented knight costumes? In the final scene where we see the kids grown-up, the costume designer has seen fit to give the lads bouffant 1970s Bee-Gee hair-dos and droopy moustaches. This, as well as the surfer-dude Californians accents used by the talking horses, raised a mocking titter from the London audience.

The special effects are also distinctly poor, not least when you consider that Disney spent $150m on the film. At one point, as the kids stand against a background of a country scene, you can see them outlined in black where the foreground images have been "cut and pasted" onto the background. The score is also mis-judged. Instead of a traditional orchestra-based score we get some new-fangled semi-Enya semi-club music score that jars horribly. The costumes are also pretty crappy. 

The more well-known actors are are mishandled. The usually brilliant Jim Broadbent as Professor Kirke (kirke=church, geddit?!) has little scope to impress given the script-limitations and largely sleep-walks through his part. Worst of all, Tilda Swinton is not at all awe-inpiring as the White Witch. She is neither fearsome in battle nor charming in seduction. What a waste. The only vaguely interesting portrayal is given by James McAvoy as Mr Tumnus. 

However, the biggest problem with this movie has nothing to do with errors in the cinematic process but derives from the source material. The kicker to the Narnia stories is that much of this boys-own adventure material is a clunky allegory for the New Testament story. To be sure, Disney has played this aspect up for all it's worth in its effort to target the American fundamentalist segment of the market, but the fault lies squarely in the source material. Don't get me wrong. I have no objection to religious themes and concepts in film, but in this film the blindingly obvious symbolism suffocates any enjoyment one might have taken from the whimsical fantasy world. The cinema audience wants to feel out the story for itself, not have the Giant Director in the Sky join the dots for them.

The more I think about this movie the more angry I get at Hollywood's seeming inability to move off-formula and finance some interesting cinema. This flick is nothing more than a shameless attempt to cash in on the religious market in the wake of the huge success of Mel Gibson's THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST and the fantasy market on the back of THE LORD OF THE RINGS. The fact that such a formulaic, derivative piece of crap was directed by the guy who made SHREK is even more lamentable. The sad part is that the studio will no doubt be proved right. The reviews are fantastic and we await the opening weekend gross with interest. Is this the movie that saves Disney from a year of flops? You, the cash-paying cinema-goer can decide.

THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE goes on general release in the US, UK, Germany and Austria today. It opens in France on the 21st December 2005.