BABY DRIVER

With BABY DRIVER, writer-director Shaun Wright moves from British pastiche comedies to a stylish, beautifully choreographed American action movie. It's exhilarating, funny, moving and (weirdly) unique.  

The conceit of the film is that it's young protagonist "Baby" was involved in an horrific car accident as a child that left him scars and tinnitus;  a love of old-fashioned ipods stocked with great music; and a gift for both boosting and driving cars.  This leads him into debt with a local gangster who exploits his unique talents as a getaway driver, for a different crew every heist.

Naturally, this leads us into the territory of derivative genre-tropes.  Kevin Spacey's "Doc" is a cool calm business like crime boss straight out of a Tarantino movie, and the kooky collection of colourfully nick-named thieves are similarly Tarantino-esque.  Ansel Eglort's Baby is the classic good guy in a bad situation, doing that One Last Job before his debt is cleared, but like Al Pacino in Godfather 3, pulled back into a life of crime that wears him down.  And Lily James' diner waitress Debora is nothing more than a pretty vacuous heart of gold character upon which Baby can fashion his dreams of escape.

MEN, WOMEN & CHILDREN - LFF14 - Day Three

Whatever happened to Jason Reitman?  He started off with these scabrous satires like THANK YOU FOR SMOKING - that were wicked and smart and hugely enjoyable.  But last year his movie LABOR DAY - a holy overdrawn melodrama starring Kate Winslet and Josh Brolin flopped onto the screen at the London Film Festival only to be trumped by this year's banal, trite and utterly superficial attempt at social comment: MEN WOMEN AND CHILDREN.

The film is meant to be an insightful and tragic depiction of the nefarious influence of IT on modern life but it has nothing new to say. Yes we know teenage girls find it easier than ever to fall into body dysmorphia in online chatrooms, and we know porn is easily and corrosively available, and we know that some people see reality TV as a means not only to be successful but as a validation of self.  This stuff was done with FAR more credibility and subtlety and artistic integrity in Sofia Coppola's BLING RING, for example. Or indeed, the second time I'm quoting this film in two days - Gus Van Sant's TO DIE FOR.  

All we have here is a very conventionally filmed portfolio movie in which a wide cast of characters struggle with their own isolation and anomie - something, by the way, that wasn't invented with Facebook or even Durkheim.  It's a waste of a stellar ensemble cast and god forgive Reitman for the pretentious Voyager satellite metaphor and the utter embarrassment of a narrative voiceover from Emma Thompson.

MEN, WOMEN AND CHILDREN has a running time of 116 minutes. The movie played Toronto and London 2014 and opens wide in the USA on October 17th. It opens in the UK on October 24th, in France on December 10th and in Germany on December 11th.

Random DVD Round-Up - DIVERGENT

DIVERGENT. Hmmm. What to say about this film, based on a wildly successful set of Young Adult books by Veronica Roth which I have not read, and which from the look of this film are unfortunate enough to sit in the shadow of THE HUNGER GAMES. To wit, we are in an American dystopian future with people oppressed by some kind of self-elected elite.  Our plucky heroine, Tris (Shailene Woodley - THE DESCENDANTS) is much like Katniss, someone of unusual talent and resourcefulness competing in a a kind of martial game to break through into some kind of better future.  In this case, the citizens of the world are categorised by their dominant personality trait. Tris, in true Harry Potter style, sits uneasily across the thresholds and opts to leave her parents 'house' Abnegation for Dauntless, while her brother opts for the Erudites. What follows are training challenges that play out much like Games, and a good dose of romance with the enigmatic but hot "Four" (Theo James).  Naturally, Tris hooks up with a bunch of the least promising trainees, and guess what, they eventually come out on top after banding together and being nice. Ultimately there is some kind of showdown in the first strike in a civil war between the factions.  There's meant to be a hugely emotional moment but at this point I was so numb to it, it floated right by me. I just didn't care about the people, the fight, and the whole movie felt like a pale shadow of HUNGER GAMES.  Maybe that's unfair - maybe if I'd seen or read Divergent first I wouldn't have felt so turned off. But it is what it is.  Shailene Woodley is a great actress but somehow a soupy romance with Four plays far more simplistically than the complex triangle comprised by political exigency in THE HUNGER GAMES.  Or maybe it's because THE HUNGER GAMES pushes the dystopian fantasy farther and crazier - Effie Trinket, I'm looking at you - or that it's satire on modern pop culture is more biting.  Whatever the reason, DIVERGENT feels very, very thin by comparison.  

DIVERGENT has a running time of 139 minutes and is rated PG-13. It is available to rent and own in most countries. It opens in China on September 8th.

THE FAULT IN OUR STARS

Apparently THE FAULT IN OUR STARS is based on a wildly successful novel by a chap called John Green about a couple of cancer-ridden teens who fall in love before tragedy inevitably befalls them.  So I entered the cinema expecting a kind of LOVE STORY movie in which wise-cracking, beautiful kids suffered and I cried and in that bizarre and slightly morally questionable way, felt better for it.  Well, I was only half right.  This is a handsome film. Handsomely cast, handsomely shot, and earnest even in its dry wit.  The star-crossed lovers are suitably pretty and witty and their portentous/pretentious names signal just how seriously this movie takes itself. The kids might be post-modern about their disease, but this movie isn't. We're never for a minute allowed to forget how tragic and wonderful it all is.  I could talk at length about how kids don't really talk like that, and teenage love, especially under extreme stress isn't really like that - how it's all just a fairytale of suffering.  But then I'd sound like the anti-hero of the piece - the deliciously spiky author Peter Van Houten, as played by Willem Defoe - a man so bitter and twisted that even the angelically patient kids tell him to go fuck himself. (It should, of course, not surprise you that the spiky novelist is also softened by the kids gorgeous loveliness.)  

I guess I can some up my gripes as follows. First, from a cerebral perspective, there's a cognitive dissonance.  The whole point motivating narrative of the story is that Hazel Grace  (Shailene Woodley - THE DESCENDENTS) gives Augustus Waters (Ansel Eglort) her favourite book by the aforementioned author - a book that she describes as being the only one that ever described how she felt as a cancer sufferer - the book that they travel to Amsterdam to hear explained.  But  I found myself asking whether this movie, if seen by a teenage cancer sufferer, would provide the same service? Would it live up to the ideal of being authentic and uplifting and empathetic?  Does it describe something real and admirable and truly tragic?  For me the answer is no. Because nothing about how these kids look, feel and are whisked on a magical journey felt real - and because of that, using cancer felt exploitative.  My second gripe comes from the heart.  The movie just didn't make me cry - maybe because of the artifice I mentioned before and in spite of the genuine chemistry between it's two lead characters. In fact, the character who moved me most - who's anger and frustration seemed more real, was Augustus' friend Isaac (Nat Wolff).

So basically, it's a thumbs down for THE FAULT IN OUR STARS because I disagree with the very contradiction at its heart - the authentic book that is embraced by the in-authentically perfect suffering couple.  I guess what that means is that I wanted to see a movie based on the fictional novel by Peter van Houten rather than THIS movie based on THIS book by John Green.  Can I really criticise this movie for not being another movie? It's well enough made, after all?  Perhaps I am being unfair. All the same, it's just not for me.

THE FAULT IN OUR STARS has a running time of 126 minutes and is rated PG-13.  The film is currently on release in the USA, Egypt, Jamaica, Trinidad, Australia, Brazil, Belarus, the Czech Republic, Croatia, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Lebanon, New Zealand, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, Russia, Slovakia, Austria, Canada, Estonia, Iceland, Latvia, Mexico, Poland, South Africa, the UAE, Bahrain, Switzerland, Chile, Germany, Denmark, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Montenegro, Macedonia, Oman, Qatar, Serbia, Bulgaria, Norway, Romania, Belgium, Israel, Dominican Republic, the UK, Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Singapore, Cyprus, Lithuania and Sweden.  It opens in Cambodia on June 25th, in Argentina and Uruguay on June 26th, in Ecuador and Turkey on June 27th, in Spain, India and Venezuela on July 4th, in the Netherlands and the Ukraine on July 10th, in Finland on July 11th, in Thailand on July 24th, in Malaysia on July 31st, in Hong Kong on August 14th, in France on August 20th,  in Indonesia and Taiwan on August 22nd, in Slovenia on August 28th, in Azerbaijan and Italy on September 4th.