JASON BOURNE

Matt Damon is back in the fourth episode of this grungy spy thriller franchise inspired by the Robert Ludlum novels. The film is decent, if not spectacular and whetted my appetite for the next phase in the series.

JASON BOURNE can be split into four parts, shot in Athens, Berlin, London and Las Vegas.  In the opening segment, ex CIA-agent Nicky Parsons (Julia Stiles) hacks the CIA and delivers the Black Ops files to Bourne under the camouflage of an anti-austerity riot in Athens. This is director Paul Greengrass' way of injecting some social relevance to the movie, although the post-Edward Snowden privacy vs security debate is far more relevant to the Bourne world than the anti-austerity debate.  Regardless, my putting the obligatory chase scene in a city torn apart by molotov cocktails we get some truly breathtaking visuals and cinematography. In fact, this may be my all-time favourite Bourne chase-scene. 

In the second part of the film we follow Bourne to Berlin where he gets a Snowden like hacker to open up the files so that he can learn the dirty secret at the heart of the Black Ops programme that recruited him. I'll resist saying more for fear of spoilers. But what we're really setting up here is the relationship between Bourne and Heather Lee - a CIA IT specialist played by Alicia Vikander. The  key point is that while CIA Chief Dewey (played by Tommy Lee Jones) just wants to have Bourne assassinated, Lee thinks she can bring him in from his life of bare-knuckle boxing (I kid you not).

LINCOLN

Steven Spielberg's LINCOLN is a masterpiece, and certainly his best film since JURASSIC PARK, and his only good film that attempts profundity and nuance rather than spectacle.  For that we have to thank a screenplay by Tony winning playwright Tony Kushner ("Angels in America") that never dumbs down the nuanced political considerations of the time; never shies away from tarnishing "Honest Abe" with the reality of political vote-getting; and deftly juggles a vast array of characters  It's a screenplay that understands the deep historical import of its material, but finds time to turn an icon into a real man, not to mention allowing for comic relief. Of course, for that transformation we also have to thank Daniel Day-Lewis, who turns in the kind of tour-de-force charismatic, many-layered performance that we have come to almost take for granted. With a little make-up, a careful study of gait and a beautifully pitched voiced, Day-Lewis clothes himself in crumpled world-weariness and a fondness for the laconic anecdote that hides an inner steel and practicality.  His Lincoln gives politicians of all colours a stern lesson is not letting pride and one's vainglorious boasting about one's moral compass blind one to the necessity of real politics - that is, working with the opposition, working the system, lobbying hard and using patronage where necessary - to get the bill passed.

In this case, the bill is the 13th amendment to the US constitution, forbidding slavery in the US and and all lands subject to its laws.  The film shows that Lincoln cares enough about this great work in its own right but also because he sees the potential legal problems with his Emancipation Proclamation. In public he argues that the bill, by crippling the Southern economy, will hasten the end of the war. But the reality is that the war is already near over, and the South willing to negotiate a peace. The key drama of the film is that Lincoln must put off that peace, as much as he desires it, because he knows that as soon as it is negotiated, he will loose support for his Bill from sections of his own party. Second, he must secure crucial swing votes from the opposition, by means fair and foul.

LINCOLN is, then, a film about politics and the raw, unpleasant reality of doing a deal. There is very little battlefield action, although the horrors of war are never far from his, or our mind.  We see the cost of delaying the Southern delegation of peacemakers (led by Jackie Earle Haley) and the lawyer's equivocation that ultimately gets the bill passed. We also see Lincoln's secretary of state, Seward (David Strathairn) hire three lobbyists cum vote buyers played by John Hawkes, Tim Blake Nelson and most memorably, a rotund and roguish James Spader.  Spader's down and dirty politics is surpassed only for style by Tommy Lee Jones Republican leader and abolitionist Thaddeus Jones.  He is portrayed as a kind of 19th century Malcolm Tucker, full of colourful insults and sneering bullying of callow young politicians. He provides both light relief and real insight into the art of political compromise, and deserves an Oscar nomination as much as Day-Lewis.

Politics aside, the movie shows us Lincoln as a man who connects with people - who is truly beloved and respected - with his personal touch and colourful stories.  It also shows us Lincoln as the doting father, and frustrated but loving husband.  Sally Field as the grieving, angry, stubborn Mary Todd Lincoln gives a stunning and screen-stealing performance - again Award-worthy.  It is fortuitous for Spielberg that his consistent and typically ill-cast obsession with father-son relationships actually works in LINCOLN.  Our grief at his assassination is not just because a great man has been killed, but because a good father has died. Which brings me to the only weakness of the film.  The movie has a natural and elegant final scene about five minutes before it actually ends, with Lincoln walking away from us and into history.  To my mind, we didn't need to actually see the assassination at all.

LINCOLN is on release in the USA, Canada and Chile. It opens on January 18th in Lebanon, Mexico and Spain; on January 24th in Belgium, the Czech Republic, Greece, Italy, Russia, Slovenia; on January 25th in Austria, Brazil, Bulgaria, Colombia, Ecuador, Estonia, Finland, Ireland, Lithuania, Sweden, and the UK; on January 31st in France, Denmark, Hungary, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Peru, Portugal, Guatemala, Iceland, Norway, Panama and South Africa; on February 7th in Argentina, Australia, Bolivia, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras,  Nicaragua, Turkey and Uruguay; on February 14th in the Dominican Republic; on February 21st in Hong Kong and Singapore; on April 5th in Venezuela; and on April 19th in Japan.

HOPE SPRINGS

HOPE SPRINGS is an utterly banal, highly disappointing drama about an elderly couple in a sexless marriage going to therapy. Though marketed as a slightly risqué comedy (Meryl Streep suggestively holding up a banana), the movie is actually a very, very talky drama, with most of the 100 minute run-time spent with the two leads (Streep an Tommy Lee Jones) uncomfortably discussing their marriage in front of a poker-faced therapist (Steve Carell).  There are no character-deepening revelations, no telling moments of wry humour - nothing at all to hold our interest in Vanessa Taylor's deathly straightforward script and David Frankel's workmanlike direction.  Given the high-class cast, and potentially fascinating set-up, what a desperate shame!

HOPE SPRINGS is on release in the USA, Canada, Hungary, Israel, Brazil, the Philippines, Australia New Zealand, Croatia, Portugal, Slovenia, Sweden, Argentina, the Czech Republic, Singapore, Ireland, Poland and the UK. It opens on September 21st in Norway, on September 27th in Germany, the Netherlands and Spain, on October 5th in Finland and Turkey, on October 10th in Belgium and France, on October 18th in Hong Kong, Italy, Estonia and Iceland, in Denmark on November 15th, in Greece on November 22nd, in Chile on December 6th, in Russia on December 13th, in Bulgaria on December 21st, in  Macedonia on December 27th, in Taiwan on January 4th, and in Mexico on February 22nd.

HOPE SPRINGS has a running time of 100 minutes and is rated PG-13 in the USA.

CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER

Once THE WIRE re-up was over, life seemed pretty empty. So empty that I submitted to a Buffy Re-Up, courtesy of two friends of mine who are super-fans of all things Joss Whedon. I was intially sceptical. Vampires? Teen angst? Lo-rent make-up effects? Seriously? However, I'm half way through series 2 and I have to say I'm really starting to enjoy Joss Whedon's wonderfully witty use of the English language - the energy and plasticity of it. I got that same sense of playfulness as I watched CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER. What gave it away? Characters uttering dead-pan cool witticisms rather than screaming when a big bad man blows up shit. The tone was anachronistically, inappropriately US-teen-cool for a movie supposedly set during World War Two. 

And then it all clicked! Joss Whedon had been given the script penned by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely (the NARNIA movies). According to IMDBpro he is meant to have done a light re-write to tie it in to the wider Marvel universe, and in particular THE AVENGERS movie that he's directing. But I suspect that Whedon did more than just tie up some narrative threads. Because when this movie is at its most entertaining, and its most emotionally real, it simply DRIPS Joss Whedon.  You can see the impact of Whedon on the success of the final film. It works best in the first two thirds, where it really is all about character and relationships. It works least in the final third when it descends into a pretty much super-hero-movie-by-numbers final battle scene....

But anyway, enough of my current Whedon-kick and on with the normal review. CAPTAIN AMERICA is the latest feature-length incarnation of the comic book hero created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby in the 1940s - a deliberately patriotic and wholesome character designed to boost morale during World War Two. The superhero is really Steve Rogers - a physically un-prepossessing but morally upstanding young man desperate to enlist and fight the Nazis. Dr Abraham Erskine, a German-Jewish refugee and Papa Stark use a serum and some Vita-Rays (TM) - to turn Rogers into a buff super-soldier. 

Interestingly, rather than kicking Nazi ass immediately, the lone super-soldier takes a side-turn, and is consigned to marketing war bonds - a parody of his future super-hero status, and highly reminiscent of the subtlety and post-modernity of Alan Moore's WATCHMEN. After this false start, Captain America start to fight in earnest, under the direction of Colonel Chester Phillips and his attractive protégée, Peggy Carter, not to mention Papa Stark. Captain America also has a bunch of mere mortal side-kicks, including his best friend Bucky, but rounded out with a Japanese-American, an African-American, an Irish-American, a Frenchman and a Brit. This isn't so much tub-thumping jingoism, then, as the United Nations. I would love to know from anyone who has read the comics whether this rainbow-nation of do-gooders is, as I suspect, a highly modern and politically correct re-write.

Steve Rogers' journey to becoming Captain America makes for a fascinating origins story. Chris Evans (FANTASTIC FOUR) gives a fine and convincing performance as the sensitive young man fiercely opposed to bullies, and he is ably supported by Tommy Lee Jones, Stanley Tucci, Haley Atwell and Dominic Cooper as Phillips, Erskine, Carter and Stark respectively. Stanley Tucci's Erskine has a wonderful comic interchange early on with Rogers over a bottle of schnapps that quickly and efficiently establishes a bond that pays off a few scenes later. It's a shame no comparable emotional bond was created between Rogers and best friend Bucky (Gossip Girl's Sebastian Stan). 

I loved the sepia-tinted 1940s production design, the costumes, the hair, and the sheer atmosphere of it all. And whoever CGI-morphed Chris Evans head onto a short, weedy body deserves much credit because the work is utterly seamless. I also loved the make-up that transforms Hugo Weaving's mad Nazi into the evil head of Hydra, Red Skull - intent on using the power of the Norse Gods to unleash war on the entire earth. In fact, just for the nostalgic look of the film - half Indiana Jones - half Watchmen flashback - this is probably my favourite superhero film of the summer, alongside the X-MEN movie. It turned out to be, rather to my surprise, a wonderfully well-made, beautifully-imagined, and Whedon-witty movie.

That said, the movie does have its faults. The Bucky storyline doesn't pay off in the way it should. The final third is dull. Peggy Carter has the beginnings of a great character - a feisty, bright woman. But what's she there fore apart from to look good? Stark builds shit; Phillips commands shit; everyone else fights shit; but Carter just pouts. I mean, what is this agent really meant to be doing? Is she a scientist? A military mind? What? Poor writing.  Similarly, the politically correct side-kicks are fine, but where is the moral clarity that should come with a fight against the Nazis. Oh but I forget. We're not really fighting the Nazis are we - but some weird ambiguous generally evil guy, who's harder to get a grip on, or care about. Speaking of which, I really do wonder at director Joe Johnston's (THE WOLFMAN, JURASSIC PARK III) indulgence in allowing Hugo Weabing to do the entire film with a German accent that sounds uncannily like Werner Herzog. It was so pitch perfect that is seriously took me out of the movie in every scene - undercutting the serious subject-matter and high emotional stakes.

CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER is on release in Canada, Italy, Poland, the US, Iceland, the Philippines, Argentina, Australia, Malaysia, the Netherlands, Peru, Russia, Singapore, Slovenia, Thailand, Armenia, Brazil, Colombia, Estonia, India, Ireland, Lithuania, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Taiwan and the UK. It opens next weekend in Hong Kong, Hungary, Israel, Portugal and Spain. It opens on August 12th in Denmark, Norway and Sweden. It opens on August 17th in Belgium, France, Germany and Finland. It opens on September 1st in Greece, the UAE and Turkey. It opens in Japan on October 15th.

Overlooked DVD of the month - THE SUNSET LIMITED - Fides et Ratio

THE SUNSET LIMITED is a philosophical drama based upon the stage-play by Cormac McCarthy (THE ROAD, NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN). As both stage-play and film, it is rather an odd fish - dispensing with the conventional requirements of plot and character development for a straightforward dialogue between two characters, "Black" and "White". Tommy Lee Jones (who also directs) plays "White", a dessicated college professor and atheist who wants desperately to commit suicide. Samuel L Jackson plays "Black", an intelligent but poorly educated former convict and Christian convert, who stopped "White" killing himself before the movie begins. The movie is, then, simply a debate between these two men, the atheist and the believer. Both are articulate, passionate and sympathetic and the stakes are the very highest. Thankfully, we are spared any pat answers. 

Why is the film worth watching? Why wouldn't you just read the stage-play? Given the suitably restrained direction, photography and score, the real answer is for the brilliant central performances by Tommy Lee Jones and Samuel L. Jackson. Jones has, I think, the easier task, as the clever man, convinced he is right, and essentially unchanged by his experience. Jackson, on the other hand, has to portray a man whose faith is challenged by a brilliant defence of nihilism - by a superficial failure - and yet emerge triumphant. 

THE SUNSET LIMITED was released in the US in February 2011 and in Spain in April. It is available to rent and own.

Outstanding drama marred by mis-judged ending - No! Not NO COUNTRY but IN THE VALLEY OF ELAH!

IN THE VALLEY OF ELAH is an obscure title for a deeply impressive and relevant film. It is about the impact of the Iraqi war on the boys fighting there and the families they leave behind. To that end, it covers similar ground to Brian de Palma's brutal, gonzo movie REDACTED and James C Strouse's delicate, mournful GRACE IS GONE. I think it's interesting that all of these films try to diffuse accusations of liberal bias by featuring characters who would call themselves conservative and pro-war. They are all forced to re-assess their attitudes to the Iraqi war by being pushed up close to it.

In IN THE VALLEY OF ELAH, a retired military officer called Hank Deerfield investigates the disappearance and then death of his younger son near a military base. He guilt-trips a local police officer called Emily into helping him. The movie has the superficial appearance of a police procedural but writer-director Paul Haggis isn't particularly interested in crafting a thriller. The investigation is a means for Hank and Emily to see first-hand how young men are transformed by their participation in a war being fought with only the trappings of traditional rules of engagement. They return home brutalised, their moral boundaries blurred. Formerly clean-cut young men become drug users; women are commodities. Despite self-medication, violence is only ever just beneath the surface.

Haggis' script is patient, well-observed and discreet. He never over-plays the situation. Charlize Theron's police officer deals quietly with sexual discrimation. Susan Sarandon's grieving mother is angry but not hysterical. Tommy Lee Jones' grieving father starts to crack with infinitesimal movements. It's a devestating performance.

The only problem with the film - but a fatal one - is the final set-piece. Haggis can't resist forcing a simplistic message onto his audience. It's a message that throws the careful balance of the rest of the film off kilter. And it's a gesture that seems quite out of keeping with the buttoned-down character of Hank Deerfield, despite the journey he's been on.

IN THE VALLEY OF ELAH played Venice and Toronto 2007 and was released in the US, Greece, Taiwan, Israel, France, Turkey, Italy, Romania and Singapore in 2007. It is currently on release in Latvia, Estonia, Mexico, Lebanon, Fiji, Finland, Spain, Portugal and the UK. It opens next week in the Netherlands and Russia. It opens later in February in Belgium, Denmark and Norway and ppens in Argentina and Germany on March 6th. It opens in Japan on April 12th.

The Coen Bros. return to form with NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN

NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN is a beautifully crafted, darkly comic thriller adapted by the Coen Brothers from an acerbic novel by Cormac McCarthy. A hick Texan called Llewelyn Moss stumbles on the aftermath of a drug deal gone horribly wrong and in a moment of weakness abandons a dying Mexican and absconds with a suitcase full of money. Problem is, a psychopathic murderer called Anton Chigurh is tracking the money and Moss, via a transponder stuck in the briefcase. Meanwhile, a decent old-fashioned copper, Ed Tom Bell, is trying to reach out to Moss via his wife Carla Jean. So the film is essentially about two men - a murderer and a thief - stalking each other through motels in small towns - and the impact of this gruesome hunt on a mild-mannered Sherriff. The violence is graphically depicted as is its aftermath. We feel every bullet wound and see every attempt to repair the human body. Watching blood ooze from Moss' body, or Chigurh jabbing lidocaine into his punctured leg - the impact on the audience is visceral. The tension is constant and intense. I can't remember a recent thriller where so much attention was paid to the shadows cast by madmen hiding behind doors. But what makes this such a unique film is the fact that the dialogue is so darkly funny. It's really impressive the way in which Cormac McCarhy and the Coen Brothers manage to bring out the quirkiness of Texan idiom without under-mining the general air of menace. Moreover, despite the fact that a lot of the characters speak and dress like the kind of stereotypes mocked in the Coen Bros.' O BROTHER WHERE ART THOU?, they are fully developed, magnetic characters. Tommy Lee Jones, who has so often played these Texan law officer parts, is particuarly sympathetic as the world-weary Sherriff, who simply cannot comprehend modern, random violence and prefers not to carry a gun. In an era of CSI, it's also refreshing to see an old-fashioned copper check out a scene and use good old-fashioned logic to work out what went wrong. Josh Brolin is a revelation as Llewelyn Moss. He's far more than just a dumb hick who got lucky - he's loyal, honest (after a fashion), resourceful and ballsy. Faced with a psychopath, he doesn't back down. He's a tremendously likeable character. However, I suspect the character that will become an icon is Javier Bardem's ultimate bad-ass, Anton Chigurh, with his laughable bowl-hair-cut; sinister, deadpan use of idiom; and quirky method of despatching locks and people alike.

All three actors are worthy of Best (Supporting) Actor nods. Indeed, it's a measure of how finely balanced this movie is that the movie seems to belong to all three actors equally. In genuinely supporting roles, Kelly Macdonald puts on a fine Texan ccent as Carla Moss and Woody Harrelson has a funny turn as a bounty hunter. Garret Dillahunt is also hysterically funny as the Sherriff's sidekick. In the end, though, it's the talent behind the camera that makes NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN the masterpiece that it is: in particular, Roger Deakins' attention to the framing and lighting of every shot and the Coen Bros. perfect marriage to the source material.

NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN could knock off every film on my Best of 2007 list bar 4 MONTHS, 3 WEEKS, 2 DAYS. Roger Deakins would certainly make the Best DP list and the Coen Bros. would make the Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Director lists. This is a tremendous return to form for film-makers who stunned us with FARGO but slipped into mediocrity, ill-judgement and self-parody with INTOLERABLE CRUELTY and THE LADYKILLERS. And to those critics who hold back a little - and criticise the denouement of this film - I simply can't understand what they object to.

NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN played Cannes, Toronto and Vienna 2007 and was released in the USA in November 2007. It opens in the UK on January 18th in Belgium, France and Australia on January 23rd and in Argentina on January 31st. It opens in Brazil, Russia, Estonia, Mexico, Iceland, Portugal, Slovakia, Norway and Sweden in February 2008. It opens in Greece, Denmark, Finland, Spain, Turkey, Singapore, Japan and Italy in March and in Germany on April 10th.

THE THREE BURIALS OF MELQUIADES ESTRADA - Don Quixote in Mexico

To my mind, THE THREE BURIALS OF MELQUIADES ESTRADA is the most compelling and extreme film that I have seen since HIDDEN. Not extreme in terms of violence, alhough there is plenty of that, but in the way in which a Park Chan-Wook film is extreme. There is an absurd internal logic that is carried out to its demented conclusion, and because of the surreality of the events, the film is often extremely blackly funny.

The first half of the movie is set in a Texan border town inhabitated by the kind of washed-up, hopeless individuals that we found in Steven Soderbergh's BUBBLE, but treated with a lot less condescension. Tommy Lee Jones plays a rugged but warm-hearted rancher called Pete, who is mourning his good friend, an illegal Mexican immigrant called Melquiades Estrada. The story of Melquiades' death is told in flash-back, in an award-winning script by Gulliermo Arriaga. Arriaga used the same non-linear narrative structure in 21 GRAMS but I feel he does so to greater effect in THREE BURIALS, partly because the inter-cutting is less extreme and so feels less like an exercise in technique. We see layers of their personalities peeled away as we become more and more engrossed in the plot.

Around half way through the movie, it takes a right turn into altogether starker, more philosophically absurd territory that will be familiar to fans of Sam Peckinpah. Tommy Lee Jones' character, Pete, and Barry Pepper's character, Mike Norton, take a journey into Mexico. For Tommy/Pete, it is a journey to the logical conclusion of his personal code of honour and friendship.. Flashes of madness mingle with flashes of absolute clarity and humanity. For Barry/Mike, it is a journey that involves gaining empathy with the Mexican illegal immigrants that he once treated with such cruel indifference. Both actors turn in absolutely compelling performances and Tommy Lee Jones fully deserves his Best Actor award at Cannes.

If I had to find a flaw with this film - and I am struggling - it perhaps lies in a single scene where Barry Pepper's character casually forces himself onto his wife. She is not so much raped as too bored to object. I couldn't help but think of those lines from The Waste Land: "Exploring hands encounter no defence; His vanity requires no response, And makes a welcome of indifference." It is not that the scene is done badly, but that it is done at all. I feel that we would perfectly understand the character of Mike Norton, and the choices Luanne Norton goes on to make, without it. Moreover, in the wake of MONSTER'S BALL and the visceral scene starring Choi Min-Sik in LADY VENGEANCE, it seems like so much cinematic shorthand.

Like I said, THREE BURIALS is not for everyone, and not for every occasion. We all have times when we want fast cars and guns, or something a bit more obvious with a clear beginning, middle and end. But I really do think this is a great film, if you catch it in the right mood and just go with it.

THE THREE BURIALS OF MELQUIADES ESTRADA premiered at Cannes 2005, where Tommy Lee Jones won the Best Actor award and Gulliermo Arriaga won the Best Screenplay award. It has since been on release in the US and France and opens in the UK on March 31st 2006. You can read a fascinating interview with Arriago here.