MAN UP

MAN UP is an adorable, funny, moving, smart romantic comedy starring Simon Pegg and Lake Bell, with an impeccable British accent. The required goofy set-up is that Jack (Pegg) mistakes Nancy (Bell) for his blind date, and because she has been hectored by her sister to man up and "put herself out there",  she runs with it.  The date goes surprisingly well, taking in a pop up bar, a cantina and a bowling alley, until Nancy's high school stalker Sean (Rory Kinnear) turns up and reveals the truth. At this point we need another improbable twist to keep the date going into Act Two - the couple need to return to an earlier bar to pick up some lost property and they happen to run into Jack's ex.  Cue our couple pretending to be an actual couple and a genuine moment of emotional connection in, rather improbably, a toilet.  We then roll into a third act that understands the cliches of the romantic comedy genre and satisfies them with authentic emotion, while also winking at the audience. A clever trick to pull off.

That the movie works is down to a well-written script that deals honestly with dating in one's thirties, and the genuine likability of, and chemistry between, the lead actors.  I've long thought Lake Bell a hidden gem of Hollywood - her IN A WORLD... was one of the best films of 2013.  The added bonus is Rory Kinnear as the creepy friend Sean. He's genuinely laugh-out-loud funny and his character adds a bit of spikiness to what would other be just a gently funny, sweet film. 

MAN UP has a running time of 88 minutes and is rated 15 for strong language and sex references.   MAN UP played Tribeca 2015 and is currently on release in the UK, Ireland and Lithuania. It will be released in the Netherlands and Singapore on June 4th, in New Zealand on June 18th and in Germany on July 30th.

iPad Round-Up 4 - SEASON OF THE WITCH

Evidently, the Nic Cage crusader-slash-religious-hysteria flick SEASON OF THE WITCH is a bunch of ridonkulous hokum. The key question is whether, like SOLOMON KANE, it manages to embrace its pulpy traits to become a truly entertaining piece of work. The sad answer is, "a thousand times No". SEASON OF THE WITCH is a confused, sub-par piece of hammy genre entertainment, in which Nic Cage is disappointingly not as crazy as he was in BAD LIEUTENANT. 

The plot is pretty simple.  Nic Cage and Ron Perlman are 14th century Crusader knights who, despite battling for their Christian Kings, end up falsely accused and on trial for their lives. Thus newly sensitised to the cruelty of arbitrary justice, they journey home through a plague-infested land.  A monk charges them to deliver a Witch to an exorcism designed to rid the country of the plague, but of course Nic Cage's Knight wants her to have a fair trial. And, after all, we sort of think that the plague might be caused by a travelling salesman with infected reliquaries rather than an innocent girl attracting unwanted attentions. That said, as Roger Ebert points out in his review, the film's post-modern cultural sensitivity is somewhat undermined by the fact that the poor girl doesn't even get a name!  

The look of the film is sort of lo-rent Conan slash Coppola's highly colour-coded Dracula with battle scenes from the Ridley Scott school of loud noises and incomprehensible editing. Lots of over-wrought CGI backdrops, mud and sweat, but not much actual inspiration or imagination. DP Amir Mokri (TRANSFORMERS 3, FAST & FURIOUS) obviously long since sold his soul to Michael Bay and is probably a better candidate for  salvation-by-exorcism than the poor girl. And as for Director Dominic Sena, where's the visual wit and verbal cheekiness that enlivened SWORDFISH? 

SEASON OF THE WITCH went on global release in January through March. It is currently on release in Italy and opens in Japan on July 30th. It is also available to rent and own.

THE BANK JOB - brilliant story; workmanlike execution

True story: in 1976 a bunch of loveable idiots tunnelled into a London bank and nicked three million quid in cash and jewels. They also nicked some tasty pornographic photographs incriminating a member of the royal family and more than a few members of the government. This, naturally, caught the attention of the British secret service, policeman both straight and corrupt, not to mention the porn king of Soho. In fairness though, the rozzers were given a bit of a head start when an amateur radio enthusiast picked up the idiot robbers chatting to each other on their walkie-talkies!

It's a great story. The resulting film, however, is worth a watch but probably not the price of a cinema ticket. It's more the kind of film you watch by chance on Freeview on a boring Tuesday night. Roger Donaldson's direction is competent but unimaginative. The cast are all fine but there are no stand-out performances. (Although I have to say that David Suchet did look eerily like Ronnie Barker.) The production design is fine, but I've seen the seventies re-created more thoroughly on screen. The biggest problem is that the heist takes too long to crank up and grind out. The viewer has more fun watching the bunglers wriggle out of the mess they've made. Frankly, we could've lost twenty minutes off the run-time and it would've been a much snappier, much more exciting film.

THE BANK JOB is on release in the UK. It opens in the USA on March 7th; in Russia on April 3rd; in Finland on July 11th; in the Netherlands on July 31st; and in Belgium on August 6th.

AMAZING GRACE - workmanlike but worthwhile biopic

In AMAZING GRACE, director Michael Apted (HBO's Rome) and writer Steven Knight (DIRTY PRETTY THINGS) deliver a workmanlike but worthwhile biopic of anti-slavery campaigner, William Wilberforce (Ioan Gruffud). The film covers his early life as an MP, fired up by an ex-slave-ship captain turned preacher (Albert Finney) and his best friend, Prime Minister William Pitt (Benedict Cumberbatch). Despite the evidence of an escaped slave (Youssou N'Dour) and some popular support, every year Wilberforce's bills are beaten by vested interests in the form of Lord Tartleton (Ciaran Hinds) and The Duke of Clarence (Toby Jones.) Worse still, when the new French Republic declares war on Britain, Wilberforce and his radical friends (not least Rufus Sewell's Thomas Clarke) are seen as seditious. Despondent, and increasingly dependent on laudanum, Wilberforce contemplates defeat, before a fiery young woman played by Romola Garai prompts a renewed attack in a more helpful political climate and victory, via a cunning Fox is achieved.

The movie is not without its flaws. It will not win prizes for visual flair and feels the need to dress up its earnest history lesson with a little love story (Wilberforce and wife) and a little emotional manipulation (the blind preacher's final speech). History is teased into a palatable form: lords sit with commoners in parliament, for example. However, there is no doubt that this is a very well acted film, with a scene stealing cameo from Michael Gambon as Charles Fox and a finely nuanced performance by Cumberbatch as Pitt. And as someone with little prior knowledge of this issue I found the movie engrossing - an effective primer on the social and political backdrop to the anti-slavery movement in Britain. But, in fairness, I should warn viewers looking for the African viewpoint on slavery, that that lies beyond the scope of this particular project.

AMAZING GRACE is on release in the US and UK and opens in Australia in June.

A GOOD WOMAN - just when I had given up all hope, a romantic comedy that is a) romantic and b) funny

A GOOD WOMAN is a well-made, beautfully shot, superbly acted, rip-roaring romantic comedy. And not before time. Still, we would hardly expect less from a movie based on Oscar Wilde's "Lady Windermere's Fan" and starring actors such as Helen Hunt, Tom Wilkinson and eye-candy in the form of Scarlett Johanson. The plot has Scarlett and her new husband honeymooning on the sun-drenched Amalfi coast in the 1930s. They stumble upon Mrs. Erlynne, a woman of "a certain age" who makes a living spongeing off rich lovers. The husband befriends Mrs. Erlynne, much to the young wife's consternation. She is almost tempted to run off with handsome young Lord Darlington. Meanwhile, Mrs Erlynne has a new admirer in the shape of another aristo, played by Tom Wilkinson. In case this sounds a little contrived and pretentious, let me reassure you that the director and screenwriter handle it all with a light touch. This may be a costume drama, but it moves along quickly and with charm and wit. The dialogue is fantastic and beneath the dazzling wit, we see a deep understanding of the vulnerabilities and frailties of a happy and enduring marriage.

A GOOD WOMAN premiered at Toronto in 2004 and went in Europe in Spring 2005. It went on limited release in the US on the 3rd February 2006 and is available on Region 2 DVD.