In The Loop

''You'll go far! Now fuck off.''



Following a slip of the tongue in which he described war in the Middle East as ''unforeseeable'', Minister for International Development Simon Foster (Tom Hollander), finds himself in a quagmire of farce and intrigue as those for and against the war try to use him as a fulcrum to give their case leverage. Flown over to Washington, new aide, Toby (Chris Addison), in toe, Foster has to contend with American politicians (Mimi Kennedy and David Rasche), a dovish general (James Gandolfini) and the P.M.'s pernicious and prurient Press Secretary, Malcolm Tucker (Peter Capaldi), as war seems ever more likely.

A non-canonical spin-off from his BBC series, 'The Thick Of It', Armando Iannucci's 'In The Loop' is possibly the funniest film I've seen in the last five years. Much like the series, there is a relentless pace to each scene with fouled-mouthed witticism or ludicrous dollop of stupidity following fouled-mouthed witticism or ludicrous dollop of stupidity.

As with the TV show, Malcolm Tucker is the highlight of proceedings. He is a whirlwind of spite and bile, appearing almost out of nowhere to constantly bully every character unlucky enough to get in his way until he can get what he, or at least the people he works for, wants. Capaldi has a ball as Tucker, and clearly relishes his opportunity to kick arse and turn the air blue on a whole new continent.

James Gandolfini, as the anti-war General George Miller, is the other focal point of the film. Finding himself railroaded by ideologues and facing down a major conflict, he gets plenty of laughs, whether conversing with Mimi Kennedy's Assistant Secretary of Diplomacy or confronting Tucker, but also brings a degree of pathos and gravitas to the role that lends a certain amount of weight to his humour. Gandolfini fits very neatly into Iannucci's world, and acts as a nice heroic figure for the majority of the time.

As well as an international cast and setting, the other thing that sets In The Loop apart from its small-screen relative is its scope; the problem facing the Minister is not the failure of the Snooper Squad to find leverage with the P.M., it is whether or not he will be party to a full-scale war. Admittedly there is some small-scale stuff involving Steve Coogan and a wall which feels much closer to the spirit of The Thick Of It, but even that acts in service of the main drive of the plot, which is a satirical look at the behind the scenes finagling that led up to the war in Iraq.

This justifies the need for the film to be set outside of the comfort zone of the TV show, but it also made for my one caveat about the whole enterprise; its conclusion which, even considering the caustic nature of The Thick Of It, is somewhat dark, and it came as something of a shock to me after I'd spent the previous 90 minutes in peals of laughter. I realised that, in amongst all the swear words and jokes about masturbating to shark documentaries, there was a seriousness to what was happening.

This shouldn't be a surprise, though, since it stems from the very nature of the film; if it's to be a true and honest satire of the lead up to the Iraq War, it has to end with a war. The elements that the audience are, or at least should be, against must ultimately win out and the 'good' character must betray their own beliefs or be destroyed for having them, all you can say at the end is a simple, ''That's that, then''.

If 'The Thick Of It' was 'Yes, Minister' for the twenty-first century, then at times 'In The Loop' verges on being a Dr. Strangelove for the twenty-first century; it's caustic, dark, incredibly sweary and, up to a point, deliriously funny.

Watchmen

(Insert obligatory “`Who Watches The Watchmen?` `We do`” joke here)






The Watchmen is, for those who haven’t read it, one of the definitive graphic novels. Following the exploits of masked vigilantes in a world where such exploits are outlawed, it’s a surprisingly dark, deep and cliché free adventure that digs deep into the psyche of those who would undertake such a lifestyle. So, who better than Zach “gloss coat” Snyder to bring it to the big screen? Well...


As a fan of the novel, I really enjoyed the film. It was a great chance to see all of the characters brought to life on screen, all performed well, with high end special effects. But there was something missing, something I couldn’t put my finger on until I recommended it to a friend who hadn’t read the book. Simply, it’s missing coherency.


The book (/comic series, however you want to look at it) is a fairly gargantuan affair, not only in terms of panels, but also with dense written sections that explain the histories of the characters, and give a twisted insight into the creation of what are essentially Superhero archetypes. Sure, we still get the flashbacks that make up the majority of the first half of the story, but in a film it doesn’t feel like it flows correctly, as Snyder has tried to keep the plot a little too similar to the book. The pacing worked for a ten part graphic novel, but just feels a little jarring here. Snyder has tried to make a perfect adaptation, but without the adaptation. With character development and world building sitting on the back burner (the history of the Minutemen and Watchmen cobbled together well as a two minute re-cap for those already in the know, but not hugely useful beyond that).


Another issue is that the core element of it following “masked heroes” rather than super-powered ones is that here they all seem to have at least super strength, if not stamina and speed as well. This essentially undermines one of the most basic concepts and issues raised by the story, which separates it from other comic book adapted detritus.


None of this, of course is a problem if you have read the book, but I feel it’s worth noting. If you are already a fan, the omissions of character development aren’t a huge issue. There’s still a lot there to remind you of who everyone is, but in the way one of those Sparknotes revision guides would. Not enough to tell you the story, but enough to remind you of it, allowing the geek membranes and cortex’s of the brain to come together and say “Yes, Rorschach’s mask IS made of a space material made by Doctor Manhattan”. If that last sentence made no sense, I would highly advise steering well clear of the movie.


Not a huge amount has been changed from the book, only lost. As with the aforementioned character development and world building, also gone are the back story “Behind the Mask” novel excerpts, and the side story comic “Tales of the Black Freighter.” The latter is being released as a DVD to coincide with the film itself, and is apparently going to be edited back in to the movie in an extended cut. I’m quite glad it’s gone, it was always my least favourite part of the book, and never really felt necessary even with the best will in the world. I was informed that it was supposed to reflect the events of the novel to provide a sense of dread, but my view was simply that the actual narrative was doing that anyway, why read the same sentiment as an echo from a pirate’s mouth?


The majority of the cast play the parts exceptionally well, and fit perfectly to their now iconic roles. Billy Crudup gives a fantastic performance as Jon Osterman/ Dr Manhattan (the big blue guy), combining the sense of frailty, power, loss and alienation core to the essence of the character: a Nietchzian Super-man with no sense of purpose. During his origin sequence, the film gives him a personal chance to shine, seeing as the rest of the time he is bathed in a sea of (admittedly very impressive) computer generated imagery. Jeffrey Dean Morgan (not Robert Downey Jr) does a splendid job as The Comedian, bringing heart and empathy to a character that could easily be portrayed to be devoid of either. Malin Ackerman impresses as the Silk Spectre, and Patrick Wilson does a great job as the Nite Owl- a sort of hybrid of Batman and Egon Spengler from Ghostbusters. Matthew Goode isn’t as impressive as the other cast members, but then Ozymandias “The World’s Smartest Man” never had the depth of the other characters.


But, the character Watchmen is best known for is Rorschach – the crazy, mask wearing vigilante, known for his clear cut morality and corpse based note paper. Played here by Jackie Earle Haley, he is... adequate. He looks perfect for the part, and has the right movement, but there’s a combination of issues that just drag him flat down onto his ever changing face. Firstly, the script just doesn’t work for him on screen- it feels too comic book esque, and rarely carries the menace of the character in the same way it was in the book. Secondly, his voice. Remember the complaints about Christian Bale in “The Dark Knight” using the “Bat Voice”? Well imagine that, but for the whole film. It sounds ridiculous. It sits alongside Daniel Day Lewis in “There Will Be Blood” for my personal award for services to ridiculous voices and speaking in a fashion that no one would ever speak like. Ever. He’s so gravelly, I thought I could hear the blood gargling in his torn larynx. He (like Day Lewis) isn’t bad by any stretch of the imagination, but the ridiculous voices are a little too distracting in both circumstances.


There’s a lot to talk about with Watchmen, but I’m sure you’re probably getting bored at this point. The ending is new (but thematically identical, so quit yer whinin’) and the sex scene is laughable at best etc. Overall, however, it’s a an enjoyable and worthwhile watch as a visual companion piece to one of the finest graphic novels of all time. Unfortunately, without the book as reference material, I’m reliably assured that it’s little more than a display of flashing colours and eighties music. Which might be your thing.

The Spirit

There are days when I’m glad we don’t have a rating system.





The Spirit is a curious piece of cinema. Marketed as a gritty follow up to Sin City, adapted from a comic strip that attempted to break the clichés of superheroes, and packed with an all star cast. What the audience gets is in fact a camp, cliché ridden superhero tale full of over the top scenery chewing performances. But does that make it bad?

Here’s the thing, The Spirit is an incredibly dumb film but gloriously so. In all of my years of cinema trawling, there are few films with such a blatant disregard for characterisation, pacing and subtlety. The film opens pretty much with a fight between the titular hero “Spirit” (Gabriel Macht) and the villainous “Octopus” (Samuel L Jackson), two seemingly immortal characters tearing each other up in a swamp with whatever items they can find as weapons. The Octopus hits the Spirit over the head with a cistern, which gets stuck, before proclaiming “Come on! Toilets are always funny!” to an indifferent, dead sigh from the audience. That’s the level we’re at here.

Another sequence, one that has become slightly infamous, involves the Octopus delivering a monologue dressed as a Nazi. Though it has been criticised as tasteless, I assumed it was the very silly humour of the movie coming in to play, with each scene trying to hammer home how evil the Octopus is. The ridiculous nature of this should really have been taken as read; given that shortly afterwards he dissolves a very cute kitten, much to the disgust of the girls sitting on the same row in the cinema. But like the toilet joke, it was the reaction that I found funnier than the film itself.

Performance wise, the film is okay. Gabriel Macht plays a good Bruce Campbell, Scarlett Johannson plays a plank of wood convincingly and Samuel L Jackson once again proves that no one else can play Samuel L Jackson quite like he can. Eva Mendes also shows up in the film as the femme fatale of the film, also providing by far the worst performance on display here. Everyone else is at panto level, she could convincingly transport her character to “Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace” without changing a thing. Sadly, at least that is supposed to be a parody.

The characters are never fully explained, with the exception of San Sarif (Mendes) who gets a terrible, extended flashback which does break the big, dumb fun aesthetic of the rest of the film. It’s even stranger given that her character has no depth in the first place, so it’s difficult to care. Basically it can be summed up as “I was poor and like diamonds, so went off and got rich.” Done. Takes twenty five minutes in the film.

The main draw of the movie is the cinematography, and if you’ve seen the trailer I’m sure you’ll agree it is absolutely stunning. Almost every shot in the film looks fantastic, with the Sin City colour palette being brought out once more and pushed to its extremities. It’s also quite nice to be able to see what’s happening in the fight sequences, which hasn’t happened for a while. However, given the Sin City colour scheme and total rewriting of the lore of the comic (for example, the Spirit in the comic is a normal man who fakes his death to become a ghostly vigilante figure, here he actually dies and is resurrected as a superhero), the lack of fame of the comic (really, who had heard of it before the film?) and with the full title being “Will Eisner’s The Spirit”, why Miller didn’t just say it was his. Maybe he realised the script was really bad, and needed a scapegoat.

But the Spirit is a difficult film to review, it’s incredibly pretty and a lot of fun, but it is shit. I’m not entirely sure if I even enjoyed the film at all, or whether it was just the audience response, which is rarely a good sign.

Perhaps it would have been better received if it had advertised the more ridiculous aspects of the film a bit more heavily rather than it's generally dark marketing campaign, even so it still sits in the grand canon of "so bad it's moderately entertaining-ish". Just remember, it has nothing to do with Sin City.




And to think, I saw this instead of "The Wrestler".

(Låt den rätte komma in) Let The Right One In

I'm twelve, but I've been twelve for a long time.



It has now been three days since I watched Let The Right One In and I'm not sure about it. I thought it was an intelligent, haunting and beautiful fairytale that entranced me from the moment that young, isolated Oskar (Kåre Hedebrant) met mysterious Eli (Lina Leandersson). However, I left the cinema feeling somewhat stunned and sickened by it. It shook me to my very core, and I can't stop thinking about it.

It's somehow appropriate that the film, and the book it is based on, took its name from a Morrissey song since it shares a lot of themes and tropes with Stephen Patrick's work and could be a dramatisation of one of his songs; there's a sense of teenage alienation, a retreat into books to escape from the darker side of life and a friendship, tentative though it may be, that is the centre of the characters' world, all of which fits very much into that particular worldview.

There's also vampires, which is where the comparison falls down somewhat.

Yes, Let The Right One In is a vampire movie, and that instantly throws up a number of images; cloaks, coffins, crucifixes and Robert Pattinson. Thankfully, none of these things feature in Let The Right One In. Well, there is a box but let's ignore that.

Director Tomas Alfredson and screenwriter John Ajvide Lindqvist, who adapts his own novel, take an unfussy, straightforward approach to the vampire mythos that focuses on the relationship between Oskar and Eli, rather than on the exsanguinations. They are presented as damaged individuals who discover something in each other that they can't find elsewhere. Oskar finds someone who is strong enough to help him fight the bullies that hound him, and Eli finds someone who doesn't fear or worship her.

The rest of the world is suitably fleshed out by Alfredson and Lindqvist, who create a world of individuals who co-exist with, but are distant from, each other. The neighbourhood is distinctly distant and ethereal, thanks to Alfredson's detached direction and the snow-covered, blood-speckled landscapes of the film, and this disjointed reality contrasts with the intimate relationship between the main characters. There's a real human side to their story that ultimately anchors it amidst the blood and violence.

Furthermore, whilst the film doesn't focus on the vampire elements, it does not forget that it is a vampire film; there are moments when Eli leaps from the shadows and bites innocent people, hopelessly overcome by her biological desire. The film firmly follows the traditional ideas of what vampires are, but also emphasises the human side. Eli kills people for sustenance, but she is not soulless in the way that most cinematic vampires are. She is a sweet, endearing child who just happens to have a need that, every so often, forces her to kill people. It's a delicate balancing act to make such a character likable, but Lina Leandersson nails it. She gives Eli an otherworldly air, yet still has a little girl lost air to her that makes her sympathetic and her relationship with Oskar so believable.

It is this relationship that forms the basis for my uncertainty about the film. There is a point in the narrative where Eli kills someone. By this point, she's already killed quite a few people, but this time it's a character that we have spent a lot of time with and whose motivations we completely understand. When Eli killed him I felt elated, then deflated as I realised that I was cheering on the death of a character that I sympathised with, but because I liked Eli and Oskar, I felt happier that he was dead, rather than the mass-murdering vampire. This ambiguity really stuck with me and, for fear of sounding melodramatic, made me question my own morality regarding the situation.

Now that's a reaction, and that's why, ultimately, I think Let The Right One In will be in my Top 10 for the year. It's not the acting, it's not the story, it's not the direction, it's the fact that it made me think and it elicited a visceral reaction out of me that I was unexpected.

Violent, poignant and haunting with a dark, pulsating heart, Let The Right One In is a special, special film.