THE WEDDING GUEST

The title might suggest mawkish rom-com, but indie British director Michael Winterbottom's latest film is an imperfect but still compelling road-trip thriller set in Pakistan and India. It stars Dev Patel (HOTEL MUMBAI) as a British psycho-killer paid to abduct the British-Pakistani bride at her wedding.  The twist is that she's in on the heist, not wanting to be married off to a suitable boy.  In fact, the whole thing has been concocted by her and her unsuitable Indian boyfriend, whose family handily run a jewellery store. The joy of a film like this should be in the double-crosses and power-plays, and while we get some of that, it's never cleanly enough delineated or carried out with enough conviction. Radhika Apte - so fantastic in the Netflix series SACRED GAMES - is once again the scene stealer in this film, playing the victim who's actually far more capable and wily than she might at first appear.  This is quite an achievement given that so much of her character is slippery - and her motivations unclear. In fact, I am quite sure that my version of what happens is squarely prejudiced by my view that no sensible woman could fall for someone as monstrously psychotic as Dev Patel's character. Sadly, his character is far less well drawn.  How is it that this boy who can't speak any Asian languages and doesn't seem that competent with a gun, is nonetheless very comfortable wheeling and dealing cars, fake IDs, and ruthlessly killing people?  It just doesn't really hang together, and I didn't buy Patel as an assassin. This isn't because he can't act - it's because the script doesn't give him enough.  

Other than the performances I really enjoyed the cinematography and production choice of being in the midst of real Indian locales, with real Indian extras. For example, the sheer authenticity of having an actual Rajasthani jeweller in his shop - or the mobile phone seller - adds up to a film that really takes the time to situate us in a reality despite the high concept plot.

THE WEDDING GUEST is rated R and has a running time of 96 minutes. The movie played Toronto 2019 and opened earlier this year in the USA. It is now on release in the UK in cinemas and on streaming services. 

THE WORLD'S FASTEST INDIAN - great story, great film

THE WORLD’S FASTEST INDIAN is a charming film about a guy called Burt Munro. Burt was a stubborn, mechanically-minded New Zealander who drove a modified “Indian” motorcycle. Even as an old man, this eccentric old duffer was dreaming of breaking the land-speed record for bikes of his class, but didn’t have the requisite cash to make it to the Salt Lake test track. Spurred on by his lover and his mates from the local motorcycle club, Burt eventually made it to Salt Lake in the late ‘60s. The first half of the movie shows his road-trip from LA to Salt Lake – and his encounters with similarly eccentric and charming people. The second half of the movie focuses on his struggle to persuade the powers that be to allow him race. After all, his cycle is so old it’s a joke, and it hardly passes safety regulations. Throughout his travels and trials, Burt comes across as a stubborn but disarmingly honest and open individual. And I defy anyone watching this movie not to get caught up in Burt’s attempt to break the land-speed record. Sir Anthony Hopkins delivers another stand-out performance, although I’d love to hear from any Kiwis as to whether he nails the accent. And the movie is all the better because the director, Roger Donaldson, pulls back from any Ron-Howard-style schmaltz at the end. He lets the story – and what a story! – do the talking.

THE WORLD’S FASTEST INDIAN premiered at Toronto 2005 and has been on releases in most countries since. It is available on Region 1 and 2 DVD. It opens in Poland on July 28th, Hungary on September 7th and Germany on October 5th 2006.

RV: RUNAWAY VACATION saddens the heart

RV: RUNAWAY VACATION is the latest in a long line of lacklustre family movies starring ageing Hollywood funny-men on auto-pilot. I am thinking of hack-repetitive movies like CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN and YOURS, MINE & OURS or even FUN WITH DICK AND JANE. In this latest offering, we have Robin Williams doing his tired act. He decides to pack his bickering family into a giant RV (that's a posh camper van to us Brits) and take them on a road-trip across America. Naturally, they come up against lots of obstacles, whence derives the obligatory slapstick comedy. They also pick up a stalker family led by Jeff Daniels. The whole exercise is well-produced and runs as clockwork. Too well. It's like Hollywood has a factory for family movies that produces this soul-less mediocre bilge. Indeed, I spent much of my time in the theatre musing on the career arc that took director, Barry Sonnenfeld, from photographing art-house classics like BLOOD SIMPLE to directing this stuff. Anyways, it's no longer half-term, so there's no real need for a movie like RV. If in doubt, take your kids to see THE THIEF LORD.

RV is on release in the US and UK and hits Germany on June 29th 2006, France on July 19th and Austria on September 22nd.

WOLF CREEK - horror that is actually horrifying

I watch a lot of horror movies that do not scare me. This is not because I am hard as nails. I am one of the most easily freaked out people on the planet. One of my friends said he was tired of seeing me describe new horror releases as 'another piss-poor 70s remake'. Well, if it walks like a duck and sounds like a duck. Anyways, the point is that there are deeply nasty movies out there. If you like gore and torture you can check out a Japanese flick called AUDITION. If you like psychological eeriness you can check out CALVAIRE. And seriously, you can rent all those fantastic 70s classics. However, the movie I most recommend right now is a low-budget Aussie horror called WOLF CREEK. The strength of the movie is that it ticks all the right genre-specific boxes without feeling tired and formulaic. Three teenagers are taking a road-trip through the Australian countryside. It's classic horror fare. They listen to bad rock music, get drunk, jump in swimming pools Spring-Break-style, and end up in the middle of nowhere with nothing but a busted car and a Backwoodsman. Newbie writer-director Greg McLean seems to understand that what is scary about horror is the slow build-up to the inevitable nastiness. Don't get me wrong, there is plenty of gut-wrenching violence in this film, but it is the slow build that gets to you. The cinematographer manages to take some fantastic footage (moreso considering it is shot on hi-def video) of the countryside that emphasises how isolated the kids are. Moreover, I have always thought it necessary for a good horror movie to be elevated by a sick sense of humour, and we get that here, with a now cult-ishly famous re-take on the Crocodile Dundee, "Call that a knife" joke, not to mention the "hero" doing a nice Darth Vader impression with a flashlight. Class. Of course, well over half way into the film, we realise that the stereotypical jovial farmer who has offered to help the kids out is two screws loose. From then on we get forty minutes of well-acted, imaginative, nasty, menacingly-lit horror. Which means, in simple terms, JOB DONE. Go see it, but don't say I didn't warn you.

WOLF CREEK premiered at Sundance 2005 and was released in the UK, US and Australia last year. It will be released in Germany on July 13th and in France on August 9th. It is also available on DVD.

FAMILIA RODANTE - Are we there yet?

FAMILIA RODANTE tells the tale of an eccentric old granny who takes her extended family 1500km across country in a decrepit camper van to attend a family wedding. I know I was meant to find this bunch of eccentrics charming and their little family arguments and flirtations endearing but I just found it dull, and vaguely depressing. When I was a kid my family would take long trips to visit relations in London. This was back before the M25 or climate control existed, and we'd spending hours crawling along the M1 in an over-heated Vauxhall. You know how it is. The slightest comment on dad's map-reading abilities flares into an irritable argument. You crawl through channels on the radio but only find crappy country music. Half the passengers are asleep, their sweaty foreheads stuck to the hot polyester seat covers. Perhaps the only chance of excitement is when your idiot kid-brother sticks his head out of the window as a lorry passes. Other than that it's just monotonous countryside and the odd petrol station. Well, having suffered enough of these journeys as a kid, I feel no need to suffer through anyone else's, even if they are from Argentina.

FAMILIA RODANTE premiered at Venice 2004 and went on limited release in the UK in November 2005. It goes on limited release in the US in August 2006 but is already available on Region 2 DVD.

TRANSAMERICA - like CAPOTE and TSOTSI - a great central performance in a mediocre movie

There's not a whole lot I want to say about TRANSAMERICA. By now, with the Oscar hoopla over with, pretty much everyone knows that the movie contains a fantastic central performance from Felicity Huffman. Huffman plays a pre-operative trans-sexual who, on the eve of "her" gender re-assignment, discovers that she fathered a child. Posing as a religious worker, she picks up her son in New York and drives him cross country. Felicity Huffman's performance is one of subtlety and authenticity. I took a person who has never seen Desperate Housewives(!) to see this flick, and he did not twig that the trans-sexual, "Bree", was being played by a woman. However, I found the rest of the film chock-full of road-movie cliches, and something of a paint-by-numbers Indie film. It's all here: junkie, hustler teenage drifter son; wise Native American; mean and nasty middle-American mother....Perhaps the director felt that with such challenging core material, he had to situate Bree's story is a conventional genre movie. Alls I know is that while Huffman's on-screen persona is an act of award-worthy transformation, the movie itself was pretty mediocre and left me unimpressed and largely unmoved.

TRANSAMERICA premiered at Berlin 2005 and is currently on release in the US and UK. It hits France on April 26th 2006.