Hell Is A City

UK, 1960. Directed by Val Guest. Stanley Baker, John Crawford, Donald Pleasence, Maxine Audley, Billie Whitelaw, Joseph Tomelty, Vanda Godsell.

Hammer-produced tough crime thriller set in and around Manchester, with extensive use of authentic locations. Stanley Baker stars as Martineau, a hard-boiled police inspector on the trail of escaped convict Starling (John Crawford), who has returned to the city to pick up his stash from a previous theft. Starling gets his cronies together and pulls off a wages snatch which ends in the murder of a young female courier. Martineau, who has some history with Starling, vows to get his man. The film is notable for its bleak outlook, both in its photography and emotional tone, and can be seen as pointing the way forward for a new type of policeman on British screens. With his weary, seen-it-all demeanour, troubled personal life and uncompromising toughness, Martineau is a forerunner of many British coppers who would grace our screens in the years to come – indeed, just two years later Stratford Johns would be making his name as Barlow in the BBC TV series Z Cars, also set in northern England. Unfortunately the scenes with Martineau’s wife (Maxine Audley), in trying to depict the frustrations and inadequacies of a policeman’s life, feel awkward and barely believable – a problem with the script rather than the actors. But many of the characters are nicely drawn and there’s good work from Donald Pleasence as an unsavoury bookmaker and Billie Whitelaw as his unfaithful wife. There’s a host of other British character actors in supporting roles and some taut action sequences which are still gripping to watch even today. Director Val Guest is clearly influenced by some of the American classics of the genre and mostly it works very well. Topped off with a fine score from Stanley Black, it’s definitely worth seeing. Trivia: fans of vintage Coronation Street episodes may be interested to know that Doris Speed, who as Annie Walker was for many years the matriarch of the Rovers Return, appears briefly in the only film she ever made. Blink and you’ll miss her.

Room To Rent

France / UK, 2000. Directed by Khalid Al-Haggar. Saïd Taghmaoui, Rupert Graves, Anna Massey, Juliette Lewis, Karim Belkhadra, Clémentine Célarié.

Ali (Saïd Taghmaoui) is a young Egyptian who has been living in London but whose visa is due to expire in a few weeks. His aim is to become a screenwriter and he spends a lot of his time tapping out scripts on his battered old typewriter, taking his inspiration from the people and events going on around him. With little money and having been thrown out of his lodgings we follow him as he finds accommodation with a succession of colourful characters while desperately trying to raise the money to buy himself a British bride to enable him to stay in the country. The flatmates are a gay photographer (Rupert Graves), a Marilyn Monroe lookalike (Juliette Lewis) and an elderly blind woman who believes him to be the reincarnation of her dead lover (Anna Massey). This is one of those “immigrants trying to make it in Britain” movies, which I guess originated with My Beautiful Launderette (a much better film than this). It works part of the time, but some of it feels a bit laboured and the final act, which moves us into fantasy territory, sits uneasily with what has gone before. But if this is a weakness it’s also a strength, because what I liked most was that the storyline was admirably unpredictable. Saïd Taghmaoui handles his role satisfactorily and is believable as the hapless hero. As the photographer, Rupert Graves gives a strong, thoughtful performance, which steered clear of the caricature it could have been. As “Marilyn”, Juliette Lewis gives a convincing impersonation of a character who’s impersonating the movie star (if you see what I mean), but I was left unsure as to her motivation. As the elderly woman, veteran Anna Massey delights by simply doing what’s expected of her – I reckon she could do this kind of thing in her sleep! Overall then, a quirky little film which falls short of greatness, but has much to interest the viewer.

Quicksand

France / UK / Germany, 2003. Directed by John Mackenzie. Michael Keaton, Michael Caine, Judith Godrèche, Matthew Marsh, Rade Serbedzija, Xander Berkeley.

Michael Keaton here plays a stiff, fastidious bank investigator who unwittingly gets himself embroiled in criminal activities when he is sent to the South of France to look into some dodgy money movement. “Criminal activities” includes money laundering, corrupt cops, human trafficking, the Russian mafia, assassination, family kidnapping etc., etc., none of it very original. He uncovers a film company being used as a front for the villains and meets a has-been actor unwittingly working for them (Michael Caine). He forms an alliance with a female executive of the company (Judith Godrèche), the film’s would-be femme fatale. He is set up and framed for a murder he didn’t commit and spends much of the movie on the run, dodging both the cops and the villains as he doesn’t know who to trust. Finally his daughter is kidnapped, leading to the film’s climax. Does any of this sound familiar? With the two Michaels headlining I had certainly hoped for more from this film. But the plot is hopelessly contrived and Keaton didn’t convince me as the fussy bank investigator in the opening sequences, which made his transformation into action hero less believable. Michael Caine has often said in interviews that one of the first things he looks for when offered a script is its location, and I venture to suggest that was his prime motivator here. As the washed-up actor he gives us a performance which is almost a parody of himself – watching it I was reminded of his Spitting Image puppet from years ago, lounging around with a big fat cigar, pointing to a spot in his garden and instructing Bob Hoskins (with wheelbarrow full of cash) to “put the money over there, Bob”. As the female lead Judith Godrèche looks good but that’s about it. It seems a shame that the film’s director should be John Mackenzie, who made The Long Good Friday. I understand the movie failed to get a theatrical release but went straight to DVD – I can’t really say I’m surprised.

Arsenic And Old Lace

USA, 1944. Directed by Frank Capra. Cary Grant, Priscilla Lane, Raymond Massey, Peter Lorre, Josephine Hull, Jean Adair.

Mortimer (Grant) is a theatre critic and previously confirmed bachelor who’s just got married to Priscilla Lane. En route to their honeymoon he stops off to see his sweet old aunts (Hull and Adair), only to discover they’ve been poisoning a succession of lonely elderly men and burying them in their cellar. Also in the house is Mortimer’s brother Teddy (John Alexander), who thinks he’s Teddy Roosevelt and runs up the staircase blowing a bugle and yelling “Chaaaaarge!” every half hour or so. As the evening draws on his other brother Jonathan (Massey), a murderer newly escaped from prison, turns up with his accomplice, mad Doctor Einstein (superb Peter Lorre). They have a body of their own they’re trying to dispose of. Other characters drift in and out of the action, including a wannabe playwright cop (Jack Carson), so concerned to interest Mortimer in the play he’s written he completely misses the chaos going on around him. And there’s stalwart support from Edward Everett Horton and James Gleason. There's also an amusing running in-joke about Jonathan looking like Boris Karloff, the actor who had played the role on stage. Adapted from the successful play by Joseph Kesselring, Arsenic And Old Lace is a wonderful farce which delights from start to finish and has been a personal favourite of mine for many years. Everyone plays their part well, director Capra keeps the action moving fast and furiously and there’s a laugh in almost every line. Just about perfect.

The Disappeared

UK, 2008. Directed by Johnny Kevorkian. Harry Treadaway, Greg Wise, Alex Jennings, Ros Leeming, Tom Felton, Nikki Amuka-Bird.

Although tagged as a horror/thriller, this is more accurately described as a ghost story with some horror overtones. Matthew (Harry Treadaway) returns home after a spell in a psychiatric ward where he has been trying to come to terms with the disappearance and probable death of his younger brother. He still carries feelings of guilt as his father (Greg Wise) had left him in charge of the younger boy on the night he vanished. Home is a run-down flat in a grey tower block in South London which he shares with his father. There is an uneasy mood between them which we can gather is due at least in part to recent events, although in the father we also have a sense of a quick temper possibly fuelled by drink. Soon Matthew is hearing the voice of his brother calling out to him in a variety of ways and he takes this as his cue to investigate his disappearance further. Along the way he is helped by his new neighbour, Amy (Ros Leeming), a young girl with family troubles of her own, a local psychic (Nikki Amuka-Bird) and his best friend Simon, played by Tom Felton (Draco in the Harry Potter films, here in a more sympathetic role). This is the first feature-length production for director Johnny Kevorkian and co-writer Neil Murphy, and it’s an impressive debut. The twists and turns of the plot aren’t that surprising when they come and there’s quite a few clichés, but what made it interesting for me was the bleak landscape and naturalistic feel to the cinematography and the acting. You get a sense that this is what it would be like if Ken Loach made a horror film. It’s only in the final scenes, where the plot demands a more conventional thriller action and dénouement, that the naturalism jars a little. But still well worth a look.

Happy-Go-Lucky

UK, 2008. Directed by Mike Leigh. Sally Hawkins, Eddie Marsan, Alexis Zegerman, Samuel Roukin, Sylvestra Le Touzel, Andrea Riseborough.

In my book any Mike Leigh film is going to be interesting in some way because of his unique, collaborative approach to constructing the characters and storyline. In this one we have an award-winning performance by Sally Hawkins as Poppy, a teacher whose mostly optimistic view of life is reflected in the film’s title. She is 30 years old and relentlessly – some would say irritatingly – chirpy and good humoured, with a childlike enthusiasm for much of what goes on around her. There is little plot; rather, we are shown episodes in her life over a short period of time – with girlfriends on a boozy night out, taking driving lessons, preparing for and taking a class at the primary school in which she works, an edgy visit to her married, pregnant sister, dealing with a child who’s being bullied, taking part in a dance class (hilarious!) and beginning a relationship with a new man in her life. Of these it is the driving lessons which are given the most screen time, with the instructor, Scott, being the other major character in the film. In a powerful performance by Eddie Marsan, we see that Scott is in a sense the antithesis to Poppy. Where she is happy and optimistic, he is depressed and pessimistic. Where she is chirpy and easy-going, he is despairing and serious. Where she is relaxed and open minded he is uptight and bigoted. Where she accepts the multiracial society she lives in he is a paranoid racist. Most of all he is profoundly angry – about almost everything. Verdict: an engrossing film which makes an impressive addition to Mike Leigh’s body of work and incidentally, how nice to see a film set in a real-life London instead of the picture postcard tour which is so often served up.

Primeval

USA, 2007. Directed by Michael Katleman. Dominic Purcell, Brooke Langton, Orlando Jones, Jürgen Prochnow, Gideon Emery, Gabriel Malema.

Supposedly a horror film about an extra large killer crocodile, Primeval is actually a bit of a joke – in fact they should have called it What’s Up, Croc? Set in Burundi amidst the background of civil war, a small news team investigates the aforementioned killer croc which has become news in the Western world because it’s recently gobbled up a white woman. The team are a motley group of caricatures we’ve all seen before: a hunky male reporter (Purcell), who initially regards the expedition as a waste of his time; a foxy female reporter (Langton) who insists they take it seriously; a wisecracking black cameraman (Jones), best buddy of Purcell; a Steve Irwin-type crocodile expert cum media pundit (Emery); a grizzled old crocodile hunter with a chip on his shoulder (Jürgen Prochnow no less); and a black youth (Malema) who tags along with them because he wants them to take him back to the States when they leave. But having set up this scenario the film then takes a different direction entirely and becomes an action thriller about the Burundi civil war and its genocide. From this point on the poor old croc struggles to get his fair share of screen time. Even this wouldn’t be such a disaster if it had been done well, but the script is very heavy-handed and discussions amongst the team about the political situation are very po-faced and unconvincing. There seems to be an attempt to use the crocodile as some sort of allegory, by giving him the same name as the dreaded local war lord, Gustave. Some of the action sequences are effective enough, although they would have been well advised to follow the rule of such films that the less you see of the monster the more effective the threat. The whole thing has a sort of 1970s feel to it. Fans of this genre will be pleased to note it has the obligatory cute animal – in this case a dog – which enables a scene where our heroes have to return to the danger zone to rescue it.

Mildred Pierce

USA, 1945. Directed by Michael Curtiz. Joan Crawford, Jack Carson, Zachary Scott, Eve Arden, Ann Blyth, Bruce Bennett.

A film noir melodrama, Mildred Pierce is perhaps most famous for being the movie that sensationally rescued Joan Crawford’s career and brought her back to box office success and the stardom she had experienced in the 1930s. Her performance in the title role won her the Oscar for Best Actress. The story, adapted from a James M. Cain novel, is straightforward enough: Mildred’s love for her daughter Veda (Ann Blyth) leads her through a series of catastrophes which she not only survives but uses to transform herself into a highly capable, wealthy and successful businesswoman. Unfortunately Veda is so thoroughly selfish and grasping, the more she gets the more she wants, as Mildred eventually realises (not before time, we the audience are thinking!). The story begins with a murder and is then told in flashback for much of the film's running time, as we gradually learn of the events which led to this violent climax. Crawford’s melodramatic style works well in a movie which combines soap opera with noir thriller. Directed by Michael Curtiz and shot in classic expressionistic style by Ernest Haller (whose cinematography was also nominated), with a memorable score by Max Steiner, the film is a triumph of the talents who produced it. As the men in Mildred’s life, Carson, Scott and Bennett all play their parts well and Ann Blyth is suitable repulsive as the daughter from hell. But the most telling line in the movie is left to Mildred’s business associate Ida (a peerless performance by Eve Arden): "Personally, I think alligators have the right idea. They eat their young."

Cellular

USA / Germany, 2004. Directed by David R. Ellis. Kim Basinger, Chris Evans, William H. Macey, Jason Statham, Eric Christian Olsen, Adam Taylor Gordon.

Kim Basinger has been kidnapped and held prisoner in the attic of her own home by a gang of ruthless thugs for reasons she does not understand. Her son and husband are also at threat and in a desperate attempt to try to rally help she clicks together the wires of a wall phone smashed by her captors, hoping to connect to someone at random and convince them she’s being held prisoner. She can do this because we have learned in the opening minutes of the film that she’s a science teacher. She reaches Ryan (Chris Evans), convinces him she’s in danger and it’s up to him to save the day but to do so they have to keep the connection open. This plot gimmick then carries us through the film, with Ryan facing all manner of threats to the connection and eventually, to himself. Preposterous? Yes. Does it work? Surprisingly well. From its opening scenes of calm suddenly shattered by vicious assault this film rattles along, keeping the action moving and its audience gripped as Ryan solves one difficulty after another and demonstrates the versatility of the humble cell phone. They should have called it 101 Things To Do With A Mobile Phone. The acting’s fine – Jason Statham makes a convincing bad guy and it’s a real bonus to find William H. Macey – an actor I am happy to watch in any movie – in the cast playing a weary but principled cop. For me, the film benefits from two things in particular, which I often mention in reviews. The first is that it succeeds in drawing in its audience and keeping them hooked by keeping the action going. If you are telling an unlikely or implausible story the worst thing you can do is to give the audience time to figure out the illogicalities of the plot. The second thing, which connects with the first, is that this film runs only just over an hour and a half. I seem to have watched so many films lasting two hours which would have benefited from having 20 minutes or so chopped off. Cellular is definitely one of the better thrillers I’ve watched in recent times.

The Last Castle

USA, 2001. Directed by Rod Lurie. Robert Redford, James Gandolfini, Mark Ruffalo, Steve Burton, Delroy Lindo, Robin Wright Penn.

Prison drama which centres around the arrival of the highly decorated soldier General Irwin (Redford) at a military prison run by the obsessive, sadistic Colonel Winter (Gandolfini). We learn Irwin has been incarcerated for disobeying a direct order which led to the death of soldiers under his command. Winter admires Irwin and initially the general states he just wants to do his time and get home and we see him discouraging other inmates from treating him any differently from anyone else. But Winter’s cruel regime soon changes Irwin’s mind and before long the two are locked into what is effectively a battle of wills within the confines of the prison as Irwin plans and leads an uprising. Both men use military strategies; the difference is that Winter is largely a theorist (he even has a collection of books and military memorabilia), while Irwin has fought many real-life battles. It’s a film whose plot doesn’t stand too much close scrutiny but it is highly effective in its portrayal of the two opponents and the final battle is exciting to watch. It benefits from two solid leading performances. Redford is as reliable as ever, bringing all those qualities we have come to expect of him over the years, oozing a mixture of fairness, inner strength, determination and toughness. But it’s Gandolfini who impressed me more – his portrayal of Winter is subtle and gives a real sense of the inner life of the man without turning him into a caricature. He proves once again there’s more to him than his breakthrough role in The Sopranos.

The Green Man

UK, 1956. Directed by Robert Day. Alastair Sim, George Cole, Jill Adams, Terry-Thomas, Raymond Huntley, Colin Gordon, Dora Bryan.

Adapted from the stage play Meet A Body by producers Launder & Gilliat, this farce may not be as widely known as the more famous Ealing comedies but is nevertheless one of the funniest British films of the 1950s. It tells the tale of a gauche vacuum cleaner salesman (Cole) and the young woman he befriends (Adams) who together thwart the murderous plans of a master assassin (Sim). In addition to the leads there’s a wealth of familiar faces appearing in supporting roles: Raymond Huntley as a pompous politician, attempting to have a dirty weekend with a naiive typist, Terry-Thomas as a caddish charmer, convinced his wife is keeping tabs on him, Dora Bryan as a flirty barmaid and the wonderful Colin Gordon as a pretentious intellectual poet-cum-BBC newsreader. In real life Alastair Sim fostered George Cole and helped his acting career – they appeared together in numerous films including of course the St Trinians series. Here they don’t have many scenes together but each is amusing in his own right whenever they’re on screen. Cole of course would find even greater fame on TV in the 1980s playing Arthur Daley in Minder. My favourite moment in this film: Sim’s pretence of enthusiasm as the string trio play in the hotel lounge. Priceless.

The Jacket

USA / Germany, 2005. Directed by John Maybury. Adrien Brody, Keira Knightley, Kris Kristofferson, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Kelly Lynch, Brad Renfro, Daniel Craig.

How do I describe this movie? Psychological thriller? Sci-fi? Horror? Contemplative piece on the meaning of life? It has elements of all of these, which perhaps explains my difficulty with it. A Gulf War soldier (Brody) is shot when he lets down his guard. Initially thought to be dead he miraculously comes back to life. His voice-over tells us: “I was 27 the first time I died”. In a series of brief episodes we see him convicted of a murder he didn’t commit and incarcerated in a secure hospital for the criminally insane where he becomes the object of a mad doctor’s (Kristofferson) experiments. The story then develops into a time-travel saga, one of those tales where the protagonist keeps making leaps forwards and backwards to try to change the future and right wrongs etc. It has a slightly arty feel to it, which is no surprise from this director, but for me it still feels like an expanded episode of The Twilight Zone. Nothing wrong with that I guess, but I had the impression I was supposed to engage with it on a higher level than that, something I failed to do. It’s solidly made, the acting’s excellent (Brody’s mournful persona is just right here) and the scenes in the hospital are shot in suitably subdued colours, nicely contrasting with those set in the future. Keira Knightley as Brody’s girlfriend – a key player in the story – excels in a role that requires some skill in its execution, but Daniel Craig fares less well, in a small role which seems superfluous. Satisfactory if you’re happy to suspend your disbelief and just go with it.

The Manchurian Candidate

USA, 2004. Directed by Jonathan Demme. Denzel Washington, Meryl Streep, Liev Schreiber, Kimberly Elise, Jon Voight, Vera Farmiga, Bruno Ganz.

I’m wary of remakes, especially if I have fond memories of the original, and John Frankenheimer’s 1962 version starring Laurence Harvey and Frank Sinatra is a film I rate highly. But this one is headlined by two actors at the top of their game – Streep and Washington – and in Jonathan Demme has a highly acclaimed director, so I was interested to see what they’d done with it. The film uses the basic storyline from the original but updates and expands it. So we still have a conspiracy plot to use a brainwashed veteran to assassinate the president and an evil, power-hungry mother but the Communist conspirators of the earlier version are now the enemy within – big business and its corporate interests in the shape of the sinister Manchurian Corporation. Really comparisons aren’t helpful because despite the similarities this really is a different film and unfortunately a less successful one. Political thrillers with unscrupulous corporations and corrupt politicians have become a cliché and there is a lack of clarity and direction in the writing here which fails to lift this above the ordinary. There are too many plot holes left gaping and just too many indeterminate men in suits – I never did figure out the significance of Dean Stockwell’s character. Despite this Washington is superb – he just needs a better film. Streep was disappointing – her performance felt a bit like pantomime. Trivia: was Jon Voight’s final scene in the kayak a sly reference to his famous role in Deliverance all those years ago?