BLITZ- Review

Ali Plumb wrote a blog entry last week on Empire Online, praising Jason Statham. The point that really stuck with me, from that entry, was that "he is his own genre". People know what to expect from a Jason Statham movie, and unless that movie is Gnomeo & Juliet, they're certainly going to get it. Blitz is what happens when the satisfaction of those expectations collides with an adaptation of a Ken Bruen novel.

Statham plays DS Brant, a bullish copper who treats South East London like his very own china shop. His station is currently under scrutiny from the press as a result of Brant's very public displays of police brutality towards criminals. While trying to lay low, a murderer calling himself Blitz begins a killing spree, picking off police officers methodically. Teamed with a strait-laced inspector, Brant seeks to bring Blitz to justice, through fair means or foul.

If regular readers of my reviews are wondering why the name of novelist Ken Bruen sounds so familiar. He's the guy who wrote the novel London Boulevard was based upon, and also serves as executive producer on Blitz. Nathan Parker, who wrote Moon, follows William Monahan in writing a rubbish script that happens to come from one of Bruen's novels, and that's a coincidence I shan't ignore. While I haven't read any of Bruen's work, these two recent films based on his books both have the most threadbare stories, reinforced only by the misplaced talents of the cast and crew.

Here's a Thing, that's happened in superhero movies of late. Back in the days when it was Adam West or even George Clooney playing Batman, it was all very frothy stuff. But now, we have Christian Bale as the Dark Knight. Robert Downey Jr. is Iron Man, Edward Norton was the Hulk, Andrew Garfield is going to be Spider-Man- all properly great actors who up the philosophical quotient of these comic book adventures and open them up as more acceptable guilty pleasures to more snobby audiences. And with the arrival of Blitz, I can't help but wonder if London Boulevard marked the start of a similar trend in low-rent British crime movies.

Not that this is unfamiliar territory for Aidan Gillen, whose character is pretty much represented as a poor man's Batman villain, alias and methodology and all. Gillen acquits himself best, having always quite easily crossed between roles in films like this and 12 Rounds, and lauded television like Queer as Folk and The Wire. His character may be written as a cod-Heath Ledger’s Joker, but his performance is much more. Given the calibre of the rest of the cast, their performances are lesser.

Paddy Considine manfully manages the marginalised role of a homosexual policeman who apparently comes to see Brant's way as the correct way- think “the right way, the wrong way, and the Max Power way” again. Ridiculously named "Porter Nash", it's a waste of a fine actor in a role that effectively stops developing once the film's buddy cop movie strand aborts, to make way for more gritty and violent stuff. The particular talents of the always watchable Statham are put to good use, even if it’s in a pretty unlikeable role.

The idea of the archaic cop who gets the right results isn’t exactly untested, having been refined to a high art form by Phillip Glenister’s portrayal of DCI Gene Hunt, but it’s really old hat in films by now. Plus, everyone we meet from the force seems affably corrupt in one way or another in this film, so what is there for Brant to rebel against? As a result, Brant is such a cartoon grunt that it would be out of character for him to have anything more than grudging acceptance of Nash's sexuality and ideological differences, at a point where the film intends to appear all equal opportunities for about ten seconds. Instead, it backfires, coming across with a condescending and surprised inflection that gay men are apparently just as capable as all other men. The very idea!

So this isn't the more enjoyable vehicle for Statham that I wanted to see when I finished watching The Mechanic. The visceral nature of the violence demands that we take it entirely seriously, which makes all the one-liners and trademark Statham moments quite jarring. The plot hares off all over the place, just like London Boulevard, with many abortive plotlines that pad out the running time to where it feels long at a mere 97 minutes. It feels like a too-faithful adaptation of a book in its construction, which I can't confirm because I never, ever want to read any of Bruen's stuff.

While the idea of a Dirty Harry-style series of British cop movies with Jason Statham in the lead role is quite appealing, Blitz ain’t the start of anything. In fact, it barely ends, limping to an unsatisfying conclusion after what feels like an age. The film is also one of those British crime movies that's too much of a British crime movie, as we know them. The tropes are tired, and only the frequently unfulfilled promise of the actors involved is new. It’s violent, it’s dumb and, if you like it, it's the guiltiest of pleasures- but like the other recent Ken Bruen outing, it's far too ugly a film to really enjoy.

Blitz is now showing in cinemas nationwide.
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If you've seen Blitz, why not share your comments below?

 I'm Mark the mad prophet, and until next time, don't watch anything I wouldn't watch.

THE MECHANIC- Review

Do we have a nickname for Jason Statham yet? I know there's "the Stath", but Van Damme was "the muscles from Brussels" and Schwarzenegger was "the Austrian Oak"- there has to be a better name out there. He's probably done enough to deserve a proper action hardman nickname by now, so someone assign Guy Ritchie, or else send your answers on a postcard.

Statham's latest is The Mechanic, a remake of a 1972 action thriller starring Charles Bronson, and he takes on the title role, as Arthur Bishop. Arthur is a hitman, or "mechanic", who fixes assassinations to look like accidents, and better still, to look like he was never even there. When his mentor is named as his next assignment, he carries out the job, only to feel guilt and responsibility for the guy's slacker son, Steve. Arthur takes on Steve as a protege of his own, trying to give him a direction in life by teaching him how to follow in his father's footsteps.

As with any remake, the first question to ask is why it needs to be remade. Is there anything new to add? Certainly not in The Mechanic, unless you count the presence of the Stath (I'm using that nickname as a placeholder) and a severe dumbing down of the main themes and plot turns of the original film. The result is a film that goes halfway towards existential musings about the stereotypical hitman before plunging off the edge into some diluted version of the stuff with which we normally associate Jason Statham.

I'm a fan of the first instalments in both the Transporter series and the Crank series (haven't seen the other sequels and didn't like High Voltage that much), and so I have a healthy appreciation for Statham's usual OTT action-packed antics. The fun of those films is what The Mechanic lacks in its duplication of that formula. It never goes far enough in one direction or the other to distinguish it as an action-packed character study or as a noisy and enjoyable romp of a thriller.

I seem to remember a time when Ben Foster was touted as the Next Big Thing, but looking at his filmography, I wonder if I might actually have imagined that. He's a good actor, and it's not that good actors are above the likes of Pandorum or 30 Days of Night, but they're the films that Next Big Things do in between the films in which they really, properly get a chance to shine. He's fine in this, but his effectiveness is dulled considerably by playing second fiddle to a meaner, balder and stubblier leading man.

The difficulty with this remake is that it's really difficult to tell why Arthur would carry on teaching Steve what to do after certain mistakes that he makes. After playing Frank Martin and Chev Chelios in separate franchises, Statham's Arthur crystallises somewhere between those roles; between organisation and meticulous attention to detail, and outright fucking insane recklessness. It's also a departure from the cool and disaffected way in which Bronson portrayed the character.

It reminds me of Tony Scott's version of The Taking of Pelham 123, in how that it disassembles its source and puts it back together with automatic deference to every movie cliche that has come into being since the time it was made. This is where much of the story is dumbed down. While the original was hardly what you'd call a women's picture, this new version seems rooted in misogyny, hiding behind the time in which the original was made as an excuse to avoid having to reconstruct female representation as most other films in the last 40 years have. Women are either bargaining chips in testosterone-fuelled stand-offs, or subservient to the men whenever they appear, and that's kind of depressing to see in 2011.

The Mechanic goes by the appearance of having reconstructed the original, but it doesn't actually change enough of what we've seen, and the changes that are made only weaken its standing. A laughable diversion from the original ending just caps off a film that's just not fun enough on the whole to get away with all of its gaping mistakes. The last 12 months or so are what I would call a disappointing year for the Stath, and I hope to see him reaffirm his action hero status with something more enjoyable soon.

The Mechanic is now playing in cinemas nationwide.
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If you've seen The Mechanic, why not share your comments and Jason Statham nickname suggestions below? It's been a bit of a downer week, this week- I promise tomorrow's review is a positive one.

I'm Mark the mad prophet, and until next time, don't watch anything I wouldn't watch.

Rambo 5 (And Friends!)- THE EXPENDABLES Review

As something of a regular disclaimer, it's only my opinion here- others are available. As ever, mild spoilers may occur in the process of reviewing, but never so far as to spoil any major plot developments.
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Action fans can scarcely have missed this, because the most anticipated throwback in cinemas this summer is The Expendables. The titular mercenaries are played by Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, Terry Crews and Randy Couture, so it's a big old clusterfuck of a team-up. They're dispatched to a somewhat fictional South American island to overthrow a dictatorship. No, really, that's it.

If you've been paying attention to the trailers for this film, you'll have noticed the advertising hasn't been heavy on plot. That could mean that it's not giving anything away, which would be good, or it actually means that there isn't much of a plot. I'm sure you'll tell me if I'm wrong, but I thought this should be to action fans what The Five Doctors is to Doctor Who fans, or what the highly anticipated film version of The Avengers will be to Marvel fans. A plot with a central threat and motivation that no single one of these action heroes could have solved on their own, even in their prime, hence the massive collaboration.

Instead, there's a screenplay that bears more than a passing likeness to Rambo, territory we entered just two years ago. Even with a character we knew very well, that film wasn't all that good. And this new one that reminded me as much of Son of Rambow as of Stallone's last outing- the story is the kind of adolescent flight of fancy played so well in that film, but taken much more seriously and done without a flying dog or evil scarecrow.

The difficulty of reviewing The Expendables is in the fact that I'm not going to use the word "awesome" throughout, and that will already get this film's target audience shaking its head and asking what the hell I know anyway. Yeah, it's pretty much review-proof, but hey- I wanted to like this a lot more, so I'll just explain the parts that brought it down for me, and see how that sounds to you.

The violence, which this 15 certificate film was apparently destined to bring back to cinemas in a big way, is pretty routine. I can't deny that the last half hour is a hardcore head-sploding orgasm for action fans, but that's more in choreography than in the actual gore. The gore is cartoonish and, much to my chagrin, CGI. Certain things are done to hundreds of nameless bad guys that you obviously can't do to an actor just to make the film look cool. When have you ever seen CGI fluid dynamics- particularly when blood is involved- done well in live-action? Don't expect The Expendables to be a game-changer on that score.

As you'd suspect from the under-powered plot, it's better in concept than in execution. The promise of bringing a bunch of big action stars together isn't entirely delivered upon, and in any case, there isn't a villain to match up to their combined might. What this needed was a Vernon Wells in Commando or some other over-the-top crazy bad guy right out of the films this is supposed to homage. Crucially, if this had been made in the 1980s or 1990s, it wouldn't be remembered in much higher regard than say, Nighthawks or The Specialist.

And the list of stars who declined to appear is greater than those who consented- bet you miss Jean Claude Van Damme, Steven Seagal and Kurt Russell here, for starters. The arguable highlight is the union of the three properly important action stars of the 1980s- Stallone, Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger. I'm going to tell you in advance, so you're not disappointed- you've seen the most part of Arnie's cameo in the trailer. What remains isn't special. Never fear though, there's still plenty of Randy Couture! No, me neither. There's  already a sequel mooted, potentially with more action stars along for the ride, but Stallone should really think about utilising them better than he did here before he puts pen to paper.

If you're still shaking your head, you can stop now, because it's really not all bad. Jason Statham is relentlessly watchable in any action film he turns his hand to, and regularly upstages the supposed legends, while Jet Li excels in the position of Stallone's old favourite- the underdog. Any fight scene either of these guys appear in is pretty superb, with Li busting out the martial arts and Statham flinging knives like a man possessed. It's also nice to see Eric Roberts. Not that I want to see him in a film next month, or even next year, but it's good that we get him in small doses, in films like this and The Dark Knight.

Mickey Rourke is the real underused talent in this one too, getting the dialogue that's closest to defining any actual character in this thing. It doesn't help that he shot this at the same time as Iron Man 2 and thus still looks like Whiplash, because it only makes it more obvious that Stallone now looks like someone left Tony Stark out in the sun for too long.

We've seen Stallone act better than this, and he's also written better scripts than this one. Just see how many of the excruciatingly unfunny scenes of camaraderie you can withstand. His direction has its faults, as shaky-cam sits entirely uncomfortably with his brand of action cinema, but I can't fault certain parts of the action choreography. Watch out for the scene that's already being acclaimed as Jason Statham's R2D2 scene.

It's a film where Dolph Lundgren is fourth-billed, showing in cinemas, so to many fans of its stars, the flaws will be the minor part of a gory, hyper-masculine flashback to the films they grew up with. Fewer will notice that Lundgren's character has a patently ridiculous character arc that reaches the absolute apex of stupidity that an action film can reach, with Stallone wanting to feed that character his cake as well as just giving it to him.

For me, The Expendables could have been better. Maybe I just need to quit bitching about a film that's actually pretty substantial and entertaining, but it's a film that I think will suffer from repeat viewings, and which will find a backlash on DVD, once people get over the thrill of seeing violence of this pedigree on the big screen. Especially once they realise there's CG-gore in it.

Then again, the inverse will be true for me. In around three or four years, I'll come in from a night out drinking, complete with takeaway pizza, and this will be on TV. And I bet when that night comes, I'll enjoy the shit out of it.

The Expendables is showing at cinemas nationwide from 18th August.
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If and when you see The Expendables, why not leave a comment on the film and/or my review? Why was I so disappointed? Well, because this trailer gets me more excited than the actual film did!



I'm Mark the mad prophet, and until next time, don't watch anything I wouldn't watch.