One Chance Review - OR - Puppy Punching

“Plot”

Paul Potts (James Cordon) is an overweight opera fanatic, bullied from birth by a father (the appropriately named Colm Meaney), then schoolmates then strangers for a passion alien to the steel-working community of Port Talbot. Paul however has dreams outside of his dreary job for Carphone Warehouse and, with the support of his mother (Julie Walters) and girlfriend Jules (Alexandra Roach), fights to become the world’s next opera star.

Is it okay to caption bullying?

Review

Why, just…why now? In what realm – from creative, to business to simple goddamn logic – does it make sense to spit out a biopic on Paul Potts now?

Do you remember who Paul Potts is? Probably. Like how you overhear a song on the radio and remember when you listened to the same track in the park on your Walkman 12 years ago. He’s an opera singer and won the first series of Britain’s Got Talent. He fought publically against the terrors of bullying. He was a genuinely quite inspiring person.

6 years ago.

His life was your quintessential underdog story shtick - a favourite in cinema - and One Chance marks that inevitable development. But why, in the name of all that is holy, sacred and tasty, has it come a full six years after the man and his story was even remotely publically relevant?

True, 6 years isn’t a long gap between event and then film of that event. If you’re Ghandi. That sucker had to wait nearly 40 years before being immortalized on the big screen.

Paul Potts isn’t Ghandi. And James Cordon isn’t Ben Kingsley.

But let’s move past questioning the film’s very existence, and look at the film itself.

Cordon serenading what he loves most.

One Chance is the twee-est film of the year. Hands down. About Time can get down from its pedestal. If uber-chirpy, self-deprecatingly British, desperately feel-good stories are what you look for in cinema, One Chance will keep you going for the rest of the year. If not the decade. You’d be well advised to pick up some salted popcorn, as adding any more sweet on this saccharine pile is a one-stop trip to diabetes. Window kissing, a truckload of lofty proclamation, spontaneous expressions of love (and, well…everything) through song: it’s all here.

Outside of that central damaging question – ‘what’s the point?’ – One Chance does little wrong. It also does little right. It is, in fact, almost fascinatingly ordinary. Much like it’s main man once was.

As a native Welshman, it would be criminal of me to not comment on one of my homeland’s rare excursions to the big screen. And to be fair, One Chance is a pleasant cinematographic exercise. The town of Port Talbot (and it’s very famous steel works) is almost hauntingly captured, reservedly beautiful…though that may be due to the general murky rain-soaked grimness of the valleys.

Accents wise however, it’s like watching a troupe of lobotomized impersonators crawl over each other for the world’s shittest prize: the Facecramp. That sentence doesn’t make any sense, neither does Julie Walter’s character, who will happily jump from Welsh to West Country (by way of Queen’s English) with little explanation and less grace.

Will Mackenzie Crook ever not look like he belongs on a register?

Paul is annoying, there’s no doubting that. Or is that James Cordon? It’s hard to tell, but put together they’re a potent duo. Cordon also isn’t the greatest actor, working on an emotional range of blank to irked. Not that a film like One Chance needs a potential Oscar winner at its helm, but considering Paul’s general lack of character (he’s just, well, a guy) a little bit more charisma would not have felt amiss.

Talking about watery, dimensionless characters, Paul’s girlfriend Jules apparently lurks in a world comprising exclusively of dark rooms and tea. So…Wales. Their relationship is clumsily handled, broken up by sudden, unexplained narrative jumps; climaxing with a sudden ‘6 Months Later’ subtitle which, if it’s self-aware, is comedy genius. The developments and pitfalls of their relationship are ceaselessly hackneyed, they have an argument (not that you’ll ever understand why) and in literally the next scene there are wedding bells.

One Chance may not be the sort of film to take too seriously, but giving it enough credit to treat it as a film, it’s a woeful narrative failure. In an effort to jazz up the largely uninteresting Tales of Paul Potts, it simply loses any semblance of direction and purpose. Oh wait, he’s in Venice now and then…he’s depressed at home? Eh? When the hell is the Britain’s Got Talent bit coming on? (Spoilers: at the end. Obviously.)

The relationship between Paul’s mother and father is far riper for legitimate dramatic urgency and conflict, which even a film as fluffy and pointless as One Chance needs a dose of. But it’s dismissed with a casual cock joke late in the game. Presumably so we can have some more scenes of Paul being sad and/or singing because of reasons.

But then again, Once Chance isn’t necessarily bad. It’s far too airy and empty to have the capacity for bad-ness. It’s also good for a laugh here and there – Mackenzie Crook’s boss (a Rhod Gilbert impersonator by way of Captain Jack Sparrow) is a particular highlight – so that’s a thing.

Here it is: at the end.

Verdict

Critiquing One Chance is like critiquing a puppy’s face: cruel and ultimately pointless. One Chance is merry fluff, best just to…leave it be.

2/5

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Captain Phillips Review - OR - Saving Private Woody

Plot

Captain Richard Phillips (Tom Hanks) is sailing the MV Maersk Alabama – an American cargo ship – from Yemen to Mombasa when, off the coast of Somalia, his ship is boarded by pirates. Led by a man called Muse (Barkhad Abdi), the pirates seek to take control of the ship and its treasures but, when circumstances change, opt to take Phillips hostage. So ensues a desperate race to save an innocent man’s life.

Ever the fan of pantomime, Tom just wouldn't look behind him.

Review

Based on a true story of a pirate hijacking in 2009, Captain Phillips marks a barnstorming return to form both for director Paul Greengrass and lead man Tom Hanks. By their lofty standards, both men have had a tough couple of years – Hanks in particular has struggled with most things starring his actual fleshy face (as opposed to, say, the animated face of everyone’s favourite cartoon cowboy) – but Captain Phillips is first and foremost remarkable in its steadfast dedication to the thrills and spills of its own genre and beyond.

Creating a nail-biting thriller based on an event where the ending is already common knowledge – or at the very least easily deductible – is no simple task. And in less talented and experienced hands than Paul Greengrass – who tested his mettle with the similar United 93 – Captain Phillips’ at times languorous pace and overlong runtime might threaten to sink the boat. Fortunately, with peerless technical proficiency, a ceaseless enthusiasm for tension, a refusal to steer to phony convention and, of course, the strength of its cast, Captain Phillips rides proudly on the crest of the wave of success.

He was never a 'got ya nose' kind of guy,

So, awful metaphors aside, what are we actually looking at with Captain Phillips? ‘Group of dudes squatting in a tiny boat for an hour’ doesn’t naturally scream AAA thriller shtick, and indeed it’s not for good chunks of time. Yeah the tension is there, and the excitement – in a bout of hyperbolic majesty, not one but three US Navy ships are milling about the place come the credits – but this is a character examination if there ever was one.

Hanks is outstanding, an emotional powerhouse and one man roller-coaster, hitting marks as diverse as a somewhat douchey boss to a broken man clinging desperately to survival. It’s not all about Hanks however. All of the Somali pirate crew mark their screen debuts in remarkable fashion – Barkhad Abdirahaman’s Bilal can seriously pull of the ‘wide-eyed and terrifying’ thang – but the plaudits are all Barkhad Abdi’s for the taking as Muse. Equal parts sinister and weirdly charming, he helps Captain Phillips transcend the boundaries of simplistic thriller into something far more wide-reaching, profound and affecting.

Dogging: the next generation.

There are two states of play here: a human (singular) story, of survival in the face of adversity; and a human (species) story, where the globalization and commodification of society has forced one-time fishermen into piracy. It’s a remarkable and ostensibly conflicting balance and one which, through intelligent narrative sequencing, Captain Phillips just about manages to keep in hand. The MV Maersk Alabama is an aid ship, transporting food/ water/ medicine to war-torn poverty-stricken Africa, so is it not the most delicious sort of dramatic irony that it’s this boat the pirates of war-torn poverty-stricken Somalia decide to hijak? Eyes on the prize, as the old saying goes, and there’s no physically bigger prize than the Alabama. But as the pirates find out, what does size matter?

It’s a rare enough thing for a predominately action/ thriller type affair, but Captain Phillips is a seriously layered sonofabitch.

Let’s get this straight: we’re not looking at a perfect homerun here. Some scenes are clunky – like the intro that may as well be subtitled ‘Exposition’ – and it’s definitely overlong for the sort of story it offers. But it’s hard to care too much.

Captain Phillips has the global perspective in hand, so it’s not surprising that it mark’s one the world’s best films of the year.

'Yar, me hearties! Thar be some doubloons and loot and...stuff!'

Verdict

A director prowling at the very top of his private food-chain pulls off two magic tricks: yanking the best performance for years from one of the industry's finest leading men and finding an unknown talented enough to hold his own against him.

5/5

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The Fifth Estate Review - OR - Sheila's Gone Wild

Plot

Julian Assange (Benedict Cumberbatch) has spent his life hunting for the truth. A master hacker and programmer, he creates the website Wikileaks where whistleblowers can safely and anonymously post delicate information. After enlisting the help of Daniel Berg (Daniel Brühl), Assange embarks on a quest to turn his site from a shoestring small-scale irk, to worldwide fire starter.

Sherlock and Niki Lauda (and the other dude) chill with Melisandre in her down time.

Review

Let’s just get this out of the way: The Fifth Estate is likely biased. It’s based on 2 books written by people who aren’t exactly Assange-inclined, so…yeah. That’s that, we all good? Let’s move on.

The Fifth Estate (noun) is, unsurprisingly, anything that exists outside of the other four estates: the clergy, the nobility, the commoners and the press. It’s most commonly used to refer to the digital world. And The Fifth Estate (film) doesn’t half like banging on about it. Not explicitly mind you, more in the vein of The Social Network and other films populated with tech-savvy young men gushing well articulated reams of jargon to the tune of breathless keyboard clacking.

So there you go. If image after image of computer screens filled with matrix-like torrents of tiny tiny writing are your thing, The Fifth Estate is all you’ll need and then some. And if not…well, at least they try to jazz it up with fancy lightshows, visual metaphors galore and funky tunes.

Try however, is the key word here. As in “I tried to bake a cake, but stopped paying attention so here are your lovely coal balls.” There’s a snazzy credits sequence, a whole lot of graphical fanciness, pointless text-message projection and general superfluous neon subtitling. It’s all just a tad self-indulgent, like the film was aware of how dull it might be and made a minimal effort to be ‘cool’. Unfortunately, it’s all simply too disingenuous, not to mention terribly integrated, to even begin working.

FEEL THE ENERGYYYY

Bottom line, regardless of the source material, a film based on the relentlessly dreary and boringly unpleasant character of Assange was never going to be an easy sell. To his credit, Cumberbatch does a decent job (grating accent aside) though not even his bountiful talent can mask that fact that Assange simply isn’t an endearing or particularly interesting screen presence. Assange is generally – needlessly – childish and ultimately irritating. He feels far too constructed, like Cumberbatch was all too painfully aware that he was acting; the ‘discreet’ wanker signal sequence is baffling in its unnecessary and awkward lameness.

The screenplay is no less clunky either. Or maybe ‘simply inadequate’ would make a fairer assessment. Dialogue wise, we’ve got vacuous platitudes galore and possibly the worst simile ever committed to paper: ‘Pacing backwards and forwards like a demented bee?’ Seriously? That’s the best a (presumably) well-paid Hollywood professional can cough up? Can you even imagine a bee pacing? Oh dear.

The random excursions in to Assange’s past are poorly handed as well. Clumsy at best, comically pointless at worst. Like Assange’s character, there’s nothing organic to them, it’s like some hidden egg-timer has gone off and the film suddenly remembers ‘oh yeah, let’s have another crack at making Assange sympathisable because of reasons.’

It's like...a projection of his mind or something. Deep, dude.

Fortunately, Brühl’s Berg cuts a far more appealing figure, even if the role is as substantial as day-old dish water. What little drama there is simply doesn’t work because the characters feel like they barely exist, as though they’re still just amalgamated constructions of letters and words and not anything more substantial or human. Breakups and relationship drama will never be convincing if said relationship is weightless (Ref: Berg and his mystery girlfriend) and nowhere is this better demonstrated than with the central pairing of Assange and Berg. There’s no history presented, no effort to show why or how they’re friends and so there’s simply no motivation to care. It’s just a thing that happens. The early rooftop scene between them is forced and constipated with shabby emotional impetus, the crowning glory of a uniformly inept film.

Again, this isn’t to say The Fifth Estate is poorly performed; in fact its sturdy cast is its best element. That they managed to wrangle the performances they did out of such shoddy material is remarkable. Outside of the chief duo, there’s a fantastic supporting cast to behold – including acting heavyweights like Laura Linney, Peter Capaldi and Stanley Tucci – but…where the hell are they? It’s a blink and you’ll miss it sort of deal, roles ripe with real dramatic allure bastardized by an amateurish script.

Ultimately, the problem when everything of note – all of the ‘action’ and the greater chunk of the drama – takes place on a computer screen is that it all feels as lank and lifeless as Assange’s hair. There’s quite literally no agency. The most exciting things get is watching two men clack at each other on keyboards with increasing limp ferocity. It’d be like watching two elderly ducks squabbling over a piece of bread in the pond, neither of them actually want it, they just don’t want to the other one to have it, and all the while they’re wondering where their life went.

Now there’s a f*****g simile.

The face that launched a thousand ships.

Verdict

The Fifth Estate is a film defined by its sturdy cast and watery narrative. Broadly tracking the relationship between Assange and Berg, it never gives enough to make you to truly care. The bafflingly edited ending sums it up nicely: confusing in its clumsiness, self-aggrandising in its execution.

2/5

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Filth Review - OR - F**kbuggery

Plot

Detective Sergeant Bruce Robertson (James McAvoy) has his eyes set on promotion to detective inspector. Thing is, he’s a corrupt, drug-taking, binge-drinking, sociopath, as likely to ruin a passing child’s day as he is to catch a criminal. He’s willing to do whatever it takes to get his promotion, but after a disastrous divorce his already fragile mind is set to go into overdrive.

Pictured: Not giving a f**k.

Review

British cinema is famous for that most nebulous of filmy things: realism.  Ken Loach, Shane Meadows, Paddy Considine; the British industry’s obsession with the gritty depressing nature of reality is grim in its omnipresence. If it doesn’t involve powdered dandies from back in the day then it’s likely set in some form of working class misery. Then there’s hyperrealism, or surrealism...or barmy, blow-your-brains-against-the-wall insanity in the vein of Trainspotting. It’s realistic but, y’know…there may be toilet spelunking.

Filth is resolutely in the Trainspottingcamp of British cinema. And it’s not surprising, mad Scotsman Irvine Welsh authored them both.

First things first: Filth is gloriously, relentlessly depraved. It’s the sort of film that’s going to upset a lot of people. And it couldn’t give a smaller f**k about it. So far as attitudes go, you’ll either find it utterly addictive or indescribably disgusting. Go watch Trainspottingfirst – maybe by way of Event Horizon– to get a taste.

As a narrative exercise, Filth is unremarkable. It's a simple enough story with a limited arc: nutter wants a promotion but his inherent psychotic frailty gets in the way. And while it by and large tells its story with a disturbing commitment to its own brainblasting madness, there are definite slumps in pace on occasion, where there seems to be a conflict between pushing things along and squeezing in some extra gooey disturbance.

Gotta love a smudge of symbolism.

Having said that however, it really doesn't matter thanks to the strength of McAvoy's performance. Bruce is disgusting. He's a monster, a brute, a drug-addict, an alcoholic, a rampant masturbator, a potential rapist and an all round nasty manipulative bastard. He's utterly reprehensible, broken beyond comprehension. And McAvoy plays it all with genuinely unsettling skill.

While ostensibly an unrepentant beastman, there's a depth of character to Bruce that’s difficult to watch in all the right ways. He’s a character who in less capable hands could quite easily be labeled a felony. But McAvoy pitches it perfectly, swinging erratically from total schizophrenic psychosis to devastatingly dramatic clusterfuck of disturbance in a heartbeat. If there was a little less dinkus-tugging and underage-sex-baiting the role would surely be fighting for prizes.

You never really like Bruce - and to do so would dig up some serious questions about your emotional stability and general societal understanding of the world – but that doesn’t stop you rooting for him. Yeah, he’s plotting to single-handedly destroy his and everyone else’s lives for little more reason than greed, but… you go, sir. In that sense, Bruce is the quintessential anti-hero, though there’s far too little hero in him so perhaps ‘anti-villain’ would be better suited here.

2013 has been a year of change for McAvoy and Bruce gives him the chance to sever any and all remaining ties to the romantic dreamboat roles that characterised his early career. So far this year we’ve had Welcome to the Punch and Trance, both of which put McAvoy in growly action mode. But in Filth the Scotsman truly shines; an endearingly anarchic, majestically messed-up skid mark on society.

A face only a mother - and all women and (honest) men - could love.

McAvoy as Bruce is the nucleus around which Filthrevolves, its impossible to think or comment on any other aspect of the film without first passing through that central globule that keeps everything ticking. Fortunately however, the supporting cast sports some truly remarkable turns without which Filth would feel considerably less lively. Not to mention less filthy. Chiefly, Eddie Marsan is outstanding as the moronic Bladesey, another character almost bereft of redeemable qualities – his niceness is derived from a lack of sense more than anything else – but one easily (guiltlessly) likeable. You want him to do well, support the underdog and all that…but you also kinda want Bruce to keeping f*****g with him for a laugh. It’s that kind of moral knife-edge that Filth cultivates so well.

It’s not all perfect character-wise. The villain of the piece - provided you don’t ascribe to the belief that it’s Bruce’s own psyche - is terribly handled. The film kicks off with a nasty murder of a Japanese school-kid, and it can’t decide if the perpetrators are a throwaway gag, a means to an end, or a legitimate plot point. It makes for a shaky hand that serves only to destabilize a film that otherwise finds a logical sense of cohesion and reality amongst the cesspit of anarchic deprivation it calls a home. Until the end that is, which just kind of happens. There's a decent twist granted, but the aforementioned flat antagonists and general eclectic pacing make for a sloppy conclusion to a manically entertaining film.

Ultimately, Filth’s humour is blacker than the dead of night, it’s characters are monstrous, it’s moral underpinnings beyond questionable. As a technical product it’s perplexing, cutting jarringly from scene-to-scene, flashback to dream-sequence to hallucination. It’s score is discomforting in its familiarity (outside of one repeated motif almost everything is classic pop) and Jim Broadbent’s Gilliam-esque Dr. Rossi is a thing of the most hellish of nightmares. It is, in essence, a trip. A great big mind-bending trip that isn’t likely to better anybody any time soon.

And it is glorious.

Oh yeah...NSFW, guys.

Verdict

Racist, sexist, homophobic and prejudiced against just about everything and everyone: Filth shocks not for shock’s sake, but because that’s what is. Don’t go calling it a self-righteous mirror held up to the face of society; it’s a depraved exploration of one disturbingly real man’s descent into madness.

4/5

For a taste of insanity:

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