STRETCH

STRETCH is a super-low budget film shot in fast gonzo style and, despite an all-star cast, has gone to straight to video. This is a shame because it's really quite funny and works well under its own momentum.  It's directed by Joe Carnahan who directed the awesome Liam Neeson drama, THE GREY, as well as that awful A-TEAM reboot. I'm pleased to say that this movie definitely belongs with THE GREY as one of Carnahan's better movies.   

Patrick Wilson stars as a failed actor turned limo driver and recovering addict called Stretch who's still paying off the debts he incurred in his former life.  This day in the life starts when his creditors demand that he repay his $6k debt that night, he blows his first pick-up (a hilarious David Hasselhof playing himself) and tries to jack another high-paying client from his limo company's big rival, The Jovi.  This involves some convoluted events including Ray Liotta giving him a gun and a badge and a heavily disguised and hilariously gonzo Chris Pine playing a ultra-rich playboy who promises to pay off Stretch's debt if he in turn goes to pick up a suitcase full of money and some drugs.  Meanwhile, Stretch encounters his ex-girlfriend and sets up a blind date. Oh yes, and did I tell you that Stretch has a heavy voice-over throughout the movie and sees visions of his dead ex-colleague played by Ed Helms?

If all this sounds ridiculous it is.  But the movie does what all ridiculous movies needs to do - it has utter conviction in what it's doing and never winks at the camera, even when Hasselhof is on screen.  The result is a film that may  not be credible but which, against all odds, has us rooting for the protagonist and carries us along on a wave of fast dialogue, outlandish characters and crazy situations.

STRETCH has a running time of 94 minutes and is rated R. STRETCH is a straight to video movie that is available on streaming services. 

The Best of 2012 - GENRE MOVIES

Critics drawing up lists of the best films of any particular year tend to focus on the arthouse wonders and avant-garde. You know what I mean - the latest subtle deeply affecting Iranian agit-drama in which the death of a tree symbolises the ruling neo-fascist kleptocracy. And there'll be more of that to follow. But in this post I want to give mad props to all those film-makers who took the hackneyed genre tropes that make up the vast majority of theatrical releases and reinvigorated them.

First up, CHILDREN'S movies, and PIRATES! IN AN ADVENTURE WITH SCIENTISTS!  This is an absolutely hilarious, beautifully created, intelligent kids claymation picture that casts Hugh Grant as a hapless but well-meaning pirate going up against the nefarious Charles Darwin.  This movie has heart, but not in that schmaltzy manipulative Pixar way (controversial!)  It has wit, style, irreverence, a very British sense of humour, and a kickass Queen Victoria.  Why don't we see more of Hugh Grant in roles like this? 

I don't really watch HORROR movies, as I'm totally gutless, so in this category, I'll have to nominate FRANKENWEENIE, Tim Burton's return to form with this poignant horror homage featuring a little boy who re-animates his beloved dog, Sparkie. This is a kids movie that's really for cineastes, with wonderful in-jokes and references, and a genuine love of cinema-history.  Again, no false schmaltz here, but a genuinely tearful experience.  Just goes to show you can make a great film that clocks in at under 90 minutes. Not sure you really needed the 3D though. 

Next, DRAMA. For me the best was J C Chandor's MARGIN CALL. I have an on-going beef with how Hollywood represents my day job, and this is the first (and probably last) time that I've seen the reality of life in an investment bank depicted accurately on screen. If you want to know what really happened in the Global Financial Crisis, watch this film, and realise that we were all drinking the cool-aid.  Also memorable for a genius slippery cameo from Jeremy Irons as a thinly veiled version of Lehman Brothers' chief, Dick Fuld. This is the movie WALL STREET 2 should have been.

The London Film Festival brought us the best THRILLER of the year.  ARGO came with the fanfare of the Hollywood machine, cueing itself up for Best Picture. It's basically just a very well put together political thriller, but there's  no harm in being just that. Even though I knew the outcome of the US diplomats trying to escape from Iran, I was on the edge of my seat for the whole film.  And, let's face it, we and the Academy love a movie in which Hollywood saves the day!  With ARGO and THE TOWN, Ben Affleck becomes the best actor turned director since Clint Eastwood, and given the latter's recent poor form, perhaps the best currently working. It's just a shame the phrase "Argo fuck yourself" never caught on. 

Perhaps the most unexpectedly brilliant film of the year was debut director Barnaby Southcombe's City-set NOIR, I, ANNA starring Charlotte Rampling as an enigmatic murder suspect pursued by Gabriel Byrne's rumpled cop.  Beautifully acted and shot, satisfyingly slippery and stylish - a movie whose confidence belies its low budget.

When it came to DISASTER movies, Joe Carnahan's THE GREY blew me out of the water. Taut, spare, tense, emotional.  Who knew Liam Neeson would emerge as an action hero with actual klout, flying in the face of the buff, waxed, pumped up muscle-hounds that fill the pages of Men's Health. Don't go gentle, motherfuckers.

When it comes to BUDDY COP movies, especially those set in LA, you can assume that you're going to get 2 hours of profanity, macho bullshit and corruption.  The genius of David Ayer's END OF WATCH is that it turned that assumption on its head, with a portrait of true, real friendship and integrity.  Sad to say that we live in such a cynical world, seeing two good guys just going about their business is enough to be considered genre-redefining. 

My penultimate choice is a movie from a genre that I think is typically ill served by mainstream Hollywood: the ROMCOM.  I'm not sure why  modern rom-coms are so banal and assinine, when the golden era of precode Hollywood produced such wonderfully acerbic, pugnacious and magnetic relationships. What kind of a world takes us from HIS GIRL FRIDAY to the latest Katherine Heigl vehicle?  Anyways, it was refreshing to see David O Russell give us an off-beat odd-couple in SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK.  Perhaps the cutest moment in this year's cinema is when Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence unconsciously hold hands as they walk into the pivotal dance comp at the end of the flick and each denies they did it first. 

Finally, hands down the best genre film of the year belongs to the franchise that has become a genre in its own right, the BOND movies.  SKYFALL was, to my mind, the best Bond of the modern era.  Psychologically realistic, beautifully shot and superlatively cast.  And yet it had enough irreverence and good humour to understand that just as we don't want stupid gadgets ("What were you expecting, an exploding pen?") we still do want to see a glimpse of the Astin Martin.  Truly, this was a post-modern Bond and worth every second of its three-hour running time. And remember, my dear readers, if you need any advice on mixing martinis, don't listen to that nucklehead Ian Fleming, but head over to our sister site, CYBERMARTINI.

THE GREY

Joe Carnahan (THE A-TEAM, SMOKIN' ACES, NARC) delivers a raw, pure, man versus nature thriller that delivers on every level - empathetic, tense, emotionally affecting, beautiful, brutal. Based on a short story by Ian Mackenzie Jeffers, the movie follows a group of workers in the arse-end of Alaska. Their plane home crashes into the snowbound wildnerness, leaving the handful of "survivors" to battle against extreme cold and some hard-core mean wolves. Against such extreme stakes, we learn a little about their past lives, and a lot about their characters. We start to care about them just as it becomes clear that the Joe Carnahan is not going to pull any punches. A lot has been said about how this is a classic "man versus nature" epic, wrestling back Hollywood from the pretty boys. But to me, it played more like a character study set against some awesome landscapes and with a lot of genuine scares. Particular kudos to the cast of "B-listers" who add real pathos to the film - Joe Anderson, Dermot Mulroney, Frank Grillo, Nonso Anozie, and in particular Dallas Roberts (Alicia's brother in THE GOOD WIFE.) But no-one's going to deny that this is really Liam Neeson's film. His transformation from Irish character actor to Hollywood action hero is surprising until you see him in action. There is no actor who drips more integrity, competence, and - in a stunning final scene that drips into a post-credit shot - more bad-assery. I loved every minute of it. 

THE GREY was released this weekend in the USA, UK, Canada, Ireland and Turkey. It opens on February 3rd in Lithuania; on February 16th in Australia and Poland; on February 23rd in Belgium, Denmark, Singapore, Romania and Spain; on February 29th in France; on March 8th in the Netherlands; on March 20th in Norway; and on April 12th in Argentina and Germany.

Preview - THE A-TEAM

If you grew up in the 80s watching The A-Team on TV, you can't approach this big-budget Hollywood "re-imagining" without prejudice. The basic presumption is that no actor can trump the iconic status of Mr T; no movie can re-create the gloriously lo-rent gonzo stunts; and no script-writer can re-create the camaraderie between the original gang.

The early signs from the studio gave no clarity or reassurance. Writer-director Joe Carnahan was, after all, the guy behind the brilliantly gritty cop thriller, NARC, but also the ridonkulous hi-energy guns'n'laughs flicks SMOKIN' ACES 1 and 2. Which direction would he take with THE A-TEAM? Would he go for a gritty Bourne-style grown-up re-make? Or would he make a camp spoof along the lines of the STARSKY AND HUTCH remake? I wasn't expecting a lot from his co-writers - one of whom was responsible for the deathly dull WOLVERINE flick and the other a complete unknown. Casting was likewise a mixed bag. Liam Neeson as cigar-chomping, plan-lovin' Hannibal Smith? Okay, so he cemented his hard-man act in TAKEN, but did he have the necessary charm and mischief? Quinton "The Rampage" Jackson as BA Baracus - okay Mr T was no Actors Studio guest, but seriously - a former UFC fighter? Pretty boy Bradley Cooper as the charming, ladies-man, "Face" - okay I could see that. And I was really pleased to see Sharlto Copley, fresh of out of success in District 9 tapped for the literally mad helicopter pilot Howling Mad Murdock.

After all the anticipation, what did we get? As one might've expected: a bit of a mixed bag. Where this re-imagining works best is when it shows the gang hanging out together. The casting really, truly, honestly works. You believe that these guys are good friends, and an effective stealth army unit. You believe that they would put their lives on the line for each other and to regain their honour having been framed by a nefarious bunch of mercenaries and probably the CIA. Bradley Cooper and Sharlto Copley are very funny indeed; Liam Neeson has the necessary heft; and this more than offsets "Rampage's" inability to articulate or emote. I really love the way the script gave us the back-story to BA's fear of flying; I love that Murdock isn't just a harmless nut but has a genuine element of danger to him; I love the mischevious post-modern jokes - in particular, a scene where the crew crash through a cinema screen showing a TV episode of The A-Team; and I REALLY loved the absurdist stunts.

Problem is, this post-modern, laugh-out-loud spoof movie is spliced together with an earnest, wannabe politically serious, Bourne-like action flick. And the two halves just don't go together. So alongside a stunt where a tank is literally flown through the air, we have Joe Carnahan trying to make a serious point about the insidious use of unaccountable mercenaries in Iraq and the counter-veiling power of the CIA. And the gonzo stylings of the original are replaced with very glossy, very loud CGI set-pieces and a lot of Bourne-style "gritty" camera-work. Worst of all, crime-of-all-crimes, they give the Faceman emotional heft. I mean, nice try, and Bradley Cooper plays it for all it's worth, but if you want to go down that route, at least give him someone to play opposite with more acting chops than Jessica Biel.

Additional tags: Roger Barton, Jim May, Mauro Fiore, Alan Silvestri, Quinton "Rampage" Jackson, Skip Woods, Brian Bloom.

THE A-TEAM is on release in the US, Egypt, Canada, Sweden, Australia, Denmark, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Malaysia, the Netherlands, the Philippines, Russia, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Brazil, Colombia, Estonia, Finland, Indonesia, Mexico, New Zealand, Panama, Poland, Romania, Belgium, France, Iceland, the Czech Republic, Greece, Italy, Norway, Argentina, India and Syria. It opens on July 29th in Portugal, Spain and the UK. It opens on August 5th in Hungary; August 12th in Germany; August 20th in Japan and South Africa.

PRIDE AND GLORY - tragically uninvolving dirty cop thriller

PRIDE AND GLORY is a dirty-cop thriller that brings nothing new to the genre at all. This is a great disappointment, given that it's written by Joe Carnahan - who wrote NARC - and it stars two great actors - Colin Farrell and Ed Norton. Norton plays a New York cop investigating the death of four rozzers at the hands of a missing drug-dealer. Unsurprisingly, the trail leads to his brother-in-law (Farrell), who's been shooting gangsters for pay. The whole thing is bone dry, over-wrought, boring and entirely uninvolving - and culminates in an entirely under-powered denouement in a bar. All this for a bout of fisticuffs. Do yourself a favour and chuck LA CONFIDENTIAL on the DVD player instead. 

PRIDE AND GLORY played Toronto 2008 and is currently on release in the US, GReece, Israel, Italy, Panama, Peru and the UK. It goes on release in Iceland on November 21st; in Belgium, France and the Netherlands on December 3rd; in Argentina on December 18th; in Germany on January 22nd; and in Norway on January 30th.

SMOKIN' ACES - cheap thrills, yay!

I was expecting cheap thrills: mindless violence, smart-talkin' wise-guys and 70s-style handle-bar moustaches that would make the Village People weep. And I got all of that, sort of. The kitsch wasn't quite as stylised as in LUCKY NUMBER SLEVIN; the eccentric characters weren't quite as cartoon-funny as in SNATCH; the twisty plot was half guessable but not as irritating as, say, OCEAN'S TWELVE.

Still, in terms of bullets fired and curses uttered, SMOKIN' ACES delivered. You mix a bunch of FBI agents, a double-cross mafia hit and a handful of international assassins and there's just going to be tears before bedtime. And even if the humour wasn't quite up to scratch there were two scenes that made it all worth while: first off, an absolutely hysterical cameo from Jason Bateman as a sleazy burnt-out lawyer; second, Ben Affleck, sporting the aforementioned handlebar moustache, giving his greatest comedic performance while playing dead. There's a mean joke in that.

So, on the level of pure popcorn entertainment, SMOKIN' ACES does what it says on the tin. The Brucey Bonus is that - and I can't believe I'm writing this - SMOKIN' ACES has surprising depth. To wit, the central performance by Jeremy Piven as a Sinatra-style lounge act turned mafia snitch, Buddy "Aces" Israel. In any other movie, Piven would just've been a MacGuffin. The anonymous commodity that the assassins are trying to kill and the Feds are trying to protect. After all, all Buddy does for the flick is pace around his fortified penthouse suite in Taho waiting for the shit to hit the fan. But Piven actually gives a fairly sympathetic depiction of a guy selling out his friends and cracking up. I was surprisingly moved by it. Similarly, director Joe Carnahan (NARC) shows his quality in getting an emotional scene out of Ryan Reynolds.

Is SMOKIN' ACES as slick as it should be? No. Do a lot of people get brutally murdered? Yes. Is it worth checking out? Yes. But perhaps it'll work best for DVD and pizza night with the lads.

SMOKIN' ACES is on release in the UK. It opens in Russia on the 25th and in the US on the 26th. It opens in the Netherlands, Spain and Sweden on Feb 2nd and in Australia, Iceland and Norway on the 9th. It opens in Denmark on Feb 23rd and in Germany and Estonia on March 2nd. It opens in Belgium on March 7th Turkey on March 17th, France on March 28th and in Argentina on March 29th. It opens in Italy on June 15th.