THE 15:17 TO PARIS

Remember back in 2015 when that terrorist nutter tried to cause chaos on a high speed train to Paris, but an Englishman a Frenchman and some Americans took him out?  Well, Clint Eastwood has made a film about the attack, taking the interesting angle of looking at how the three Americans grew up, in order to cast some light on why they took that courageous decision to have a go.  Eastwood is even more experimental - shockingly so - in that he casts the three real life men - Anthony Sadler, Alek Skarlatos, and Spencer Stone - to play themselves. The result is a film that is disarmingly simple, direct, authentic and surprisingly affecting. 

As the film opens we see the three men as kids, getting into scrapes at school, being split up as one leaves for school in another town.  You get the feeling that they're just normal boys, albeit boys brought up with strong mothers and for one of them at least strong faith and a strong sense of (military) service.  There's a kind of simplicity to their basic human decency and - at the same time - their almost moronic banality. They sound like most twenty something friends, when they're ordering beers and food in a Dutch bar with a raging hangover. To be sure they can't act - but that's kind of the point. That extraordinary things can happen to ordinary people.  But not all ordinary people react in the way these boys did.  Military training helps. Knowing your way around a gun probably does help, as much I hate to say it. And having strong moral values that compel you to insert yourself into the situation probably helps.

To be sure, Eastwood's brand of folksy patriotism and family values will grate on some viewers. I found myself having to detach myself for the allegory that could be made to a kind of interventionist military pro-gun policy.  But it's hard to be cynical when faced with such common decency and bravery. And as much as I was irritated by the lack of focus given to the French and British men who also fought back, I guess that's just the nature of the beast. And after all, Eastwood does give the final most emotional speech to a real life Francois Hollande. And I honestly did shed a tear when he spoke about humanity countering terror. 

THE 15:17 TO PARIS is rated PG-13 and has a running time of 94 minutes. It is available to rent and own.

Random DVD Round-Up 4 - THE BROTHERS SOLOMON

Bad taste alleged comedy in which two intelligent but infantile brothers (Wills Arnett and Forte) decide to shock their dad out of a coma by surrogate fathering a child. Yes yes. The result is as unfunny as the plot is plausible. Clunky direction, thin writing, forced humour make this straight to dustbin as opposed to straight to video.

THE BROTHERS SOLOMON was released in autumn 2007, promptly fell like a stone, and is available on DVD should you care to waste ninety minutes.

Crimes Against Cinema 2: WALK HARD: THE DEWEY COX STORY

WALK HARD: THE DEWEY COX STORY is a deeply unfunny spoof of portentious rock-star biopics like WALK THE LINE, RAY and DREAMGIRLS. Instead of intelligently ridiculing the genre, it lazily re-creates key moments and relies on audience recognition to raise a chuckle. And if all else fails, why not resort to something as crude as full frontal male nudity? The only sketch that is remotely funny is when the Beatles, here played by Jack Black, Paul Rudd, Jason Schwartzman and Justin Long, have a punch up in the Maharishi's tent. Other than that, the sketches are pretty obvious and lame. How funny is it to hear Dewey's dad say "the wrong kid died" a million times? The only thing that saves this flick from the seventh circle of hell is the music. The lyrics are spot on and John C Reilly is absolutely brilliant in his pastiches of everyone from Cash to Dylan.

WALK HARD: THE DEWEY COX STORY is currently playing in USA, South Korea and the UK. It opens in Australia later in January and in Iceland, Singapore and Germany in February. It opens in Belgium, Sweden, Spain, Turkey, Russia and Italy in March and in Norway, Argentina, Estonia and Finland in April.

BLADES OF GLORY - lament for the hillarious cameo

, ANCHORMAN, DODGEBALL....and now BLADES OF GLORY. Identikit comedies, often born of SNL sketches, featuring a couple of crazy characters with 1970s hair-dos - under-dogs, odd-ball couples, or ego-maniacs that go through a redemptive narrative arc. In general, I get a kick out of these movies, but of late I've noticed a worrying tendency toward under-written scripts, lazy visual gags and lame cameos.

BLADES OF GLORY is a case in point. The film-makers assume that Will Ferrell and Jon Heder can simply stand in front of a camera in crazy hair-dos and induce laughter in the audience. And when Ferrell's rock'n'roll thowback and Heder's camp teen-idol start ice-skating - that really is funny. But as soon as we leave the ice-rink and enter into the actual story of the film, the witty one-liners are scarce and the whole project has the damp, mouldy smell of Formula and Star-Vehicle.

Heder and Ferrell's characters are champion ice-skaters and sworn enemies. Banned from competing in the singles competition after a televised punch-up, they are foreced to enter as the first all-male pairs couple - thus prompting a lot of odd-couple comedy and some funny training montages. A sub-plot has a sinister brother-and-sister skating team send their sweet sister to spy on the new all-male pair and to break up the new "couple" by sleeping with both of them. Naturally, we have a nice redemptive narrative arc for the obnoxious Ferrell character and a sweet romantic ending for Heder's character.

So far as it goes, BLADES OF GLORY is fine. The skating routines are funny, and the intervening plot is harmless if sadly unfunny. I just feel that film-makers are getting away with sub-par scripts by relying on audiences good-will toward the stars. For instance, this movie includes a cameo by Luke Wilson. He is not given a single funny line and his presence is, frankly, unnecessary. It's as if, just by having him there, the film-makers will remind us of cooler movies like OLD SCHOOL - making BLADES OF GLORY look funny by association. Similarly, the movie has a cameo of Brian Boitano. Boitano doesn't SAY ANYTHING. But again, BLADES OF GLORY hi-jacks a little of the edginess of SOUTH PARK.

BLADES OF GLORY is on release in Canada, the US and the UK. It opens in Singapore, Argentina, Russia and Italy in April; in Belgium, the Netherlands, Slovenia, Denmark, Iceland, Mexico, Norway, Sweden and Brazil in May; in Australia in June; in Spain in July; in Finland and Turkey in August and in France on October 3rd.