... and North of the Border- THE AMERICAN Review

It takes a special kind of actor to carry a film that's primarily a character study rather than a great story, and it seems from mainstream reviews that the jury's out on whether or not George Clooney manages it in The American. While most are highly complimentary of his performace, it's everything around him that seems more questionable.

Clooney plays Jack, an accomplished hitman who's about to retire because of a job that goes wrong in Sweden. Surprise surprise, his last assignment is not going to go exactly as planned. He holes up in the picturesque village of Castel del Monte and poses as a photographer as he gets on with the job- constructing a compact murder weapon for a fellow assassin. More prominently, Jack ends up having existential chats with the local priest and a passionate tryst with a prostitute. Told you it was more about him than about anything in particular...

You know how people say the Jason Bourne series is like James Bond with the fun excised? Or even that Daniel Craig's Bond movies are like James Bond with the fun excised? Well what The American presents is a much closer approximation of what would happen if the 007 series was character-based. Even the opening credits, set after an extended beginning sequence, deal in silhouettes and backlighting. What would happen if Bond was seriously haunted every time one of his conquests was killed by a man with metal teeth?

Here, the men with metal teeth are replaced by mere ordinary hitmen, just like Jack, and the manner of his lady friend's murder early on in the film paints him as much less righteous than your typical hitman protagonist. Jack is a cold-hearted bastard in the way that none of the screen Bonds have ever been, so there's no fun to be had here. It's not a negative comparison. The American is not aiming for the audience of the James Bond films, no matter what the misleading trailers suggest, and just because it's not fun, doesn't mean it's not interesting.

As I said, Clooney has been well appraised for his performance, which is something like a more twitchy and subdued version of his Oscar nominated performance in Up In The Air. Jack is a loner, who travels light and denounces emotional attachment to commit to his line of work. It just happens that he's more in the business of killing people rather than firing them as in Jason Reitman's considerably more breezy romcom. There's also ample support from Violante Placido and Paolo Bonacelli.

Perhaps the maddeningly inspecific title, in the year that we also saw titles like The Road and The Town, is there to mark a contrast with the overwhelmingly European feel of the film. Placing George Clooney into the setting of a tiny Italian village in the mountains makes his nationality into his most obvious characteristic. However well served the film's version of Castel del Monte is with tavernas, churches and brothels, Jack is still a big fish in a small pond there, and the effect is to make him deeply paranoid about his pursuers' resources.

This is a feeling that pervades the whole film, making it a very intense watch at times, even in spite of the torpid pace. The consequence of so firmly wrapping the film around the character of Jack is that there's not much chance for audiences to get involved, outside of getting nervous. His existential malaise fills up so much of the screen that the jumps and jolts get you as much as they get Jack as this thriller progresses. You might expect the person sat in front of you at the cinema to get up, turn around, and shoot you in the head.

The American is so self-contained that it's more haunted than haunting. It will leave an impression, but because it's not really about anything other than the one character, it's difficult to declare where exactly we've travelled to by the time we get to the partially open ending. It all looks beautiful, with some stunning locations, a retro aesthetic and a very attractive cast, but I don't know that it's as substantial as it thinks it is.

The American is now showing in cinemas nationwide.
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If you've seen The American, why not share your comments below? If you fancy experimenting, watch this in a double-bill with Machete, as I did. Machete is like the Joker to this film's Batman. Dammit, now I'm remembering George Clooney as Batman...

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

THREE KINGS- The Best Iraq War Movie?

Last week's 1980s smorgasbord leaves the multiplex looking a little bare this week, (there's a Cats & Dogs 2 review coming on Friday, for fuck's sake), so I've been delving back in time to watch some slightly older films this week. This happens a lot more than you'd think based on the review output of this blog, and I'm silly to try and prove that by blogging on the topic of a film that only came out in 1999.

Three Kings was on ITV1, that most evil and asinine of terrestrial channels, this past weekend, and having wanted to watch it for a long time, I decided Christopher Nolan's Insomnia, showing at the same time over on BBC One, would probably turn up on iPlayer. It didn't. It's difficult to be angry about missing it though, because Three Kings is one of the best war movies I've seen in a long time.

Perhaps my memory seems short- after all, Inglourious Basterds was only out last year. But what I'm actually talking about is modern war movies. What must be remembered is that America and its allies are still embroiled in war overseas, a fact that has informed all of Hollywood's action output since the September 11th attacks almost a decade ago.

Never mind that the war is against the broad and entirely intangible concept of "terror", and the fact that you might as well declare war on fluff or rainbows, it's had a huge influence. For instance, all of Steven Spielberg's films post-9/11 (bar that Indiana Jones one) have been related in some way to America's reaction. See The Terminal or Munich or War of the Worlds, you'll see what I mean.

What makes Three Kings different? Simply that it was produced before Bush misguidedly opened fire on Iraq, and it documents the war the elder Bush waged in the same arena, some years earlier. The upshot of this is that it's really prepared to show what America was doing wrong in that war, rather than being informed by vague aspersions towards the legitimacy of the second conflict and liberal guilt as in the likes of Green Zone.

Maybe I'm overstating it with my oh-so-political reasoning and my provocative blog heading, but bear with me- I'm going to be writing about Demolition Man on Wednesday, so you know that'll be a lot more fun. And you know what? Three Kings is actually a pretty fun film too. It's just a thrilling miasma of comedy, action and drama, weighing characters with personality against the undertones of political commentary.

It essentially combines heist movie tropes with the fallout of Desert Storm by sending a group of soldiers- a young father, his fratboy buddy, an undervalued chief sergeant and a cynical major due for retirement- off on a quest for gold bullion. The trouble is, it's all bullion that Saddam Hussein stole from Kuwait, and the four end up violating the ceasefire and bringing the Iraqi Republican Guard down on their heads when it all goes wrong.

There are scenes like those in latter Iraq war films, where characters sit about discussing what's wrong with them as human beings and what's wrong with America as a country, but it never seems preachy. With George Clooney's Major Archie Gates, wondering what was achieved in this minor set-to with Iraq seems a matter of course for him, and far less conspicuous than Clooney's latter visits to the same area in Syriana (which is obviously without humour) or The Men Who Stare At Goats (which is entirely humorous).

Elsewhere, the inevitable diatribe about America's arrogance is delivered fittingly by a more unconventional torturer than we normally get in American cinema. Amir, played by Cliff Curtis, is not some hulking mute or pantomime evil character while torturing our protagonist, he's a man who's genuinely been wronged by his own country and by America itself. Antagonists with proper dimensions are sorely missed in most other Iraq movies.

People will cite Sam Mendes' Jarhead as a great Iraq war movie, but I remember being distinctly underwhelmed by that when I first saw it. I should probably revisit it, but I can only remember it doing things that David O. Russell does better in Three Kings, with Mendes only really being reinforced by the "This really happened" mantra.

The one that does stand out as better is obviously The Hurt Locker, but as I said, you can have a lot more fun with Three Kings. The Hurt Locker is a damn fine film, but it's not one I like to see again too often. Three Kings tempers its social and political conscience with a plot that goes beyond the foreign policy implications and just outright entertains its audience.

There are the same stark visuals and washed out colours, but what you're looking at is still enjoyable on many levels. Can America produce another war movie like this, as long as they're tooling around in the Middle East?

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

The Twin Dilemma

January is traditionally a dreary month in the cinematic calendar, and you could say it's been a bit one note, falling back on the traditional tropes of vampire films, music biopics and post-apocalypse films. Right at the end of the month, we have two romantic comedies, Up in the Air and All About Steve. 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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Up in the Air is obviously not to be confused with Pixar's Up, in a title-related oversight that's only surpassed by last year giving us post-apocalyptic animation 9 and musical luvvie-fest Nine. Semantics aside, Up in the Air is all about Ryan Bingham, a specialist contracted by companies to fly around America firing their employees for them. This jet-setting lifestyle is without strings or attachments, and that's just the way Ryan likes it. His life is disrupted by the arrival of Natalie, who threatens to ground him with her more cost-effective proposal for Ryan's company. Ryan aims to prove that a personal touch is needed by taking Natalie with him as he works, despite lacking anything close to a personal connection himself.

Jason Reitman's latest is closer to Thank You For Smoking than to Juno, covering similar ground with George Clooney's Ryan being a middle-aged man who has problems relating to his relatives because of his job. Up in the Air is a considerably lighter film, veering towards romantic comedy rather than delivering harsh satire. Although my previous exasperation with the worst shortcuts of the genre have been well-documented, I found there was a lot to enjoy in this.

Clooney isn't really straying outside of his comfort zone as an actor to play Ryan, but then he's played enough oddballs and idiots in recent films to warrant a return to his tried and tested formula. The last time he was playing "typical Clooney", he was an animated fox, so I'll cut the guy a break. He is the only cast-member of Batman & Robin I've forgiven to date. Besides which, it's the script that makes Ryan such a sympathetic character rather than the performance.

In fairness, I can't go without mentioning Anna Kendrick's excellent performance as Natalie for one major reason. It was bugging me all the way through because I recognised Kendrick from something else. I gave her IMDB a look, and it turns out she's been slumming it as a supporting character in the Twilight films! One of the really superfluous characters who exists to praise Bella! And yet she can give performances like this!


My incredulity at this really knows no bounds, but suffice it to say that she's one of the few performers in Twilight who I actually rate, and she's brilliant in this. Her chemistry with Clooney is totally platonic, and really complements the sparkling and witty script.

Vera Farmiga and Jason Bateman are on fine form too, and the film enjoys the traditional 20% extra quotient of awesomeness that I award any film for featuring Sam Elliot. The man's a legend, and I have no problem with the fact that he seems to be channel that scene he had with Jeff Bridges in The Big Lebowski in this.

On top of the central character study of Ryan though, there's a motif around what it is to lose your job. Ryan goes from place to place firing people, with Reitman casting people who had actually lost their jobs as the unfortunate victims of Ryan's schtick. And then of course Ryan is in danger of becoming obsolete himself if Natalie's proposal is accepted by his bosses.

In this economy, it's a particularly timely subject for a film. Although it's just not practical to do what Clooney does and embark on an affair with Vera Farmiga, the underlying message is that your job shouldn't define who you are as a person. It's not just grasping at the heartstrings like your bog-standard romcom- it's actually really profound. Maybe my personal enjoyment of the film is down to having lost two jobs during the recession, which they're now saying is over, but it's like Vietnam or a particularly timely joke- you had to be there. That aside, it is still a very well-crafted film.

Rarely predictable and highly enjoyable, Up in the Air is that elusive beast that I'll always praise whenever it appears- a romcom that doesn't glamorise deplorable characters or resort to cookie-cutter formula, and instead tells an enjoyable story. Clooney's playing a character whose line of work is becoming obsolete, but in real life, he's continuing to pick interesting projects like this one instead of resting on his laurels. Despite an utterly schmaltzy last line that made me feel physically sick for a couple of minutes, this is a satisfying and likable romantic comedy.


Now, what to say on the subject of All About Steve? It follows Mary Horowitz, a relentlessly twee crossword constructor who lives with her long-suffering parents while her flat is being fumigated. They set their daughter up on a blind date with Steve, a news cameraman who is frequently on the road. When Steve tries to let Mary down gently, she misreads the signs and sets out across country to er... stalk him. Yeah, really. Hilarity ensues, I say with the largest dollop of irony your web browser can support.

Tonally, it is all over the place. With its subject matter, I reckon that with the raw footage, an editing suite and some creepy music, even a monkey could transform it into a very passable horror film. Maybe reshoot all the scenes with Mary's parents so they're tied to a bed, Misery-style, everytime they appear. In trying to set up a message for individuality, what the writer has actually done is cast Sandra Bullock as an overbearing and unlikable woman.

More than that, there are two films at war with each other in All About Steve. There's the aforementioned horror film of Mary's character, mixed in with some element of genuinely funny satire of 24 hour rolling news culture. I wouldn't say a whole film around Thomas Haden-Church's conceited newsman would be funny, but I did laugh at some of the jokes involving him for the same reason I laugh at Charlie Brooker's Newswipe. What this film does is take two films that would be fairly mediocre and merge them into a gestalt of incredibly inventive rubbish.

Early on in the film, Mary 'hilariously' ponders whether brain cancer is better than a lobotomy, or vice versa, and for a while I was thinking I'd prefer both to watching any more of the film. I'd went in expecting to hate the film, come back here and make some Kermodian declaration that if I saw 10 films worse than All About Steve in 2010, I would quit reviewing.

Don't get me wrong, it is absolutely awful, but when I'm constantly complaining that romantic comedies have a cookie-cutter formula that means you can tell the ending of any given film just from watching the trailer, this is something different. It goes to absurd and asinine extremes to be different, but I can't deny it's different.

It circumvents "so bad, it's good" and settles back in "bad" territory again, but there's something incredibly entertaining to watch about that. I can't really fault the performances so much as the writing, and although this may just be me finally having snapped, I have to make this statement- this film is the reason why I go to the cinema.

Let me put it this way, to conclude- All About Steve is like the dark twin of Up in the Air. Reitman's film subverts the traditional romcom template with likable characters and relatable situations. This film does it with cartoonishly abhorrent characters and a set piece where some deaf children fall down a mineshaft at a funfair. Reitman's film is great, and All About Steve is just awful. But my God, it's trying.

It's a one star out of five film, make no mistake, but it did make me laugh, which was way more than I was expecting. For sheer innovation of awfulness, and the fact that it's actually challenging me to write objectively about a film I really ought to hate with every iota of my being, I have to give some small acclaim. Very small. Really, don't pay to see this.

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You're probably all horribly confused now, but that's why this post is named for a similarly rubbish Doctor Who story from 1984. Basically, if you want an unequivocally well made and well judged romcom, see Up in the Air. If you want to challenge yourself a little more, join the ranks of the four or so people in the UK who've been to see All About Steve. And if you've seen either, why not share your comments below?

Given the absolute chaos of advertising that seems to be going on with The Lovely Bones, I have no idea if that's out this Friday or next month. That aside, the next trips to the cinema are likely to cover Ninja Assassin, Precious and/or Edge of Darkness.

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

Clooney's Farm

George Clooney is known for many things these days, but we Batman fans, we usually remember just one thing. We remember that he was in Batman & Robin. While we certainly don't forget, it's possible that if we love film as much as the caped crusader, we might eventually forgive. I mean, sure, Clooney is the worst Batman ever, but is he really as much to blame for that film as Arnold Schwarzenegger, Akiva Goldsman or Joel Schumacher? Certainly not, especially since he's exonerated himself with his latter departures from TV soap operas.

The fact is that Clooney is a rather talented actor, writer and director. He's got one Oscar win under his belt already and has a rather impressive body of work through collaborations with the Coen brothers and Stephen Soderbergh. Yeah, there's that Sexiest Man in the World thing, but I'm loath to mentioning his perceived dreaminess for fear of the errant ton of homophobic bricks that might fall on me. Besides which, I've said many times before that good looks aren't necessary to good filmmaking. I just think the guy's a great film star, and he's got a number of films out lately, so today's post will cover Fantastic Mr. Fox and The Men Who Stare At Goats, his two farm animal related outings in cinemas at the moment. As something of a regular disclaimer, it's only my opinion on 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.


First off, Clooney lends his voice to the titular Mr. Fox in Wes Anderson's Fantastic Mr. Fox. Borrowing the premise of Roald Dahl's much loved book, Mr. Fox mounts a terrific heist on the local farms of Boggis, Bunce and Bean, raiding for chickens, turkeys and cider. Little does he realise that the farmers will go to the ends of the earth for revenge, deploying their combined workforces to obliterate Mr. Fox and his family's home. Banding together with the Rabbit and Badger families, Mr. Fox eludes capture and mounts yet another raid on the farms, only making the farmers madder. If that sounds like a pretty straightforward and entertaining animation, you've probably overestimated Wes Anderson.

A film based on this book should be accessible for children, correct? Not in Wes Anderson's world, where he's crafted the biggest disappointment I've had at the cinema in a while now. Fantastic Mr. Fox is essentially just like The Royal Tenenbaums, which I personally found to be the most overrated comedy in years, transplanted into Roald Dahl's world, and it just didn't work for me. It's obviously been sanitised for kids, but the use of the word "cuss" every time there should be a swear word isn't endearing at all- it just feels like Anderson wrote fuck, shit and tits exactly as he normally might, and then censored himself afterwards. The final title card proclaims that the film is based on Roald Dahl's book, but I actually want to decry that as false advertising.


The worst part of this approach is that it's a film for middle-aged people rather than Dahl's much younger target audience. There are films that strike a balance between adult enjoyment and children's entertainment, mostly the output of Aardman and Pixar, but you can't tell me that the 8-year-olds in the audience are excited by Mr. Fox talking about existentialism. Simultaneously humanising- not to mention Americanising- the animals and still making frequent mentions of how wild and feral they are confused me, never mind, your average 8-year-old. I'm a proponent of young audiences being more intelligent than most Hollywood fare gives them credit for, but Anderson has made an Anderson film, not an adaptation of the book. Personally, I'm just scorned by the fact that I was excited about Jarvis Cocker's contribution to the soundtrack, only to discover that he essentially cameos as himself in stop-motion form. Wes Anderson has made Jarvis Cocker annoying, and that's a cardinal sin of filmmaking in my book.

That's not to say the film is without merit- despite being utterly mistargeted, the voice cast largely do a great job. George Clooney brings Mr. Fox to life as a charming yet cunning creature, and it's always terrific to hear the voices of Bill Murray and Michael Gambon, whether attached to their bodies or not. Moreover, the animation looks fabulous. Production company Indian Paintbrush have given this a wonderfully retro aesthetic. It's not polished or computer generated like most animated films of late, but that gives it a lot more soul than its counterparts. With a less self-indulgent script, all the ingredients would have been there to make Fantastic Mr. Fox into a truly special animated treat. As it is, it's something of a letdown- who ever wanted to see a Roald Dahl book repurposed for Wes Anderson fans?


On the other side of Clooney's farm, we have The Men Who Stare At Goats, the feature film version of Jon Ronson's exposé of US black ops. In the film version, Ewan McGregor plays Bob Wilton, a heartbroken journalist who goes to cover the conflict in Iraq with a need to justify himself. There he has a chance encounter with Lyn Cassady (Farmer Clooney again), and discovers that he's undergone training as a psychic "Jedi" soldier for the New Earth Army, an American funded project. Bob is roped into Lyn's latest mission, which puts them at odds with the more nefarious Larry Hooper, played by Kevin Spacey. If you've seen the trailer, it's the one that gives off a slight vibe of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, only a lot more mainstream.

And that's just what some have said is the problem with the film. I haven't read Jon Ronson's book yet, and even though I plan to in the wake of enjoying this version, I don't think you can let that ruin your enjoyment of The Men Who Stare At Goats. As I've said in the past, any adaptation has to stand alone in the medium it's being brought to you in- sure, a nod to those who've followed the story across different iterations is nice here and there, but the most abominable adaptations are those that subsist on such nods rather than forming any coherent translation. The script for this one comes from screenwriter Peter Straughan, who also translated How To Lose Friends and Alienate People to the screen last year, but with much less competence than he displays here. It's a difficult beast to convert, but somehow it pays off beautifully.


A modest caption of "More of this is true than you would believe" doesn't completely overshadow the audience's enjoyment of the film, and you'd expect nothing less of Grant Heslov and George Clooney, who last collaborated on the understated and really rather excellent Good Night And Good Luck. As much as that film was a different beast, very grounded in reality, the opposite approach pays off remarkably well here. It's a comedy first and foremost, and its grasp of absurdity and humour makes this a very enjoyable watch indeed. McGregor is our narrator a la Gonzo, and got more than a few titters whenever the word "Jedi" came out of his mouth, given his brave struggle through three not-very-good films as a very-good Obi Wan Kenobi. Clooney plays Lyn almost completely deadpan, and it works brilliantly. Similarly enjoyable are Jeff Bridges, as the psychic project's hippie lieutenant Bill Django, and Kevin Spacey, as the almost cartoonishly spiteful villain.

There's a wonderful surrealism to the comedy of The Men Who Stare At Goats that keeps the laughs coming consistently for the full 93 minute running time. Its sense of humour put me in mind of Anchorman, given how both are traditionally viewed as "men's films" and this one has nary a female in sight. That said, the reviews it's been getting between user-generated content and more reputed critics suggests that this is going to be sadly overlooked. The complaints have been with narrative flow, but as a comedy it excels everything the mainstream reviews have said and sits comfortably amongst other great satires of the US military. Ewan McGregor's best Jedi film, and one of the best comedies of the year.

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It only occurred to me halfway through writing that I could have just as easily paired Jennifer's Body (Megan Fox) with Fantastic Mr. Fox (...with some foxes), both of which were released by 20th Century Fox and had a Fox-fest. Ah...

Moving swiftly on, the next post will cover Jennifer's Body and Michael Jackson's This Is It, even though you can't really describe the latter as a film. In the meantime, if you've seen Fantastic Mr. Fox or The Men Who Stare At Goats, why not share your comments below?

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