The film doesn’t really go into any of the fundamentals of fundamentalism that led to the kidnapping but instead works more as a standard police procedural of the investigation. In fact, it doesn’t seem to have any particular political bias in it at all. Where a Hollywood film could quite easily take an extreme anti-terrorist stance and pump it full of sentimentality, Winterbottom simply sticks with the facts, as presented in the source material. Where it does excel is in Angelina Jolie’s role as the wife. Although she already has a Supporting Actress Oscar, she could quite easily be a contender for Lead Actress with this role. With her high profile celebrity status, a rather public coupling with Brad Pitt, and not to mention Lara Croft, it is quite easy to forget she is a very good actress. She was able to play subdued where necessary and pour on the emotion when it was needed and all done with an incredibly convincing French accent. Irffan Khan (seen recently in The Namesake) as the police captain was also excellent.
This is definitely a film to see, just not early in the morning.
A Mighty Heart is showing on Saturday 18 and Sunday 19 ahead of a general release on September 21
After that reality shock it was time to escape into a bit of fantasy in the form of Day Watch, the sequel to the hit Russian movie Night Watch. This film has been a long time coming to western screens, having been out in Russia for two years but fans of the first film won’t be disappointed. At the end of the first film Anton, a Light Other operative for the Day Watch (the good guys), loses his son to the Dark Others (the bad guys), and it looks like the fragile truce is set to fall apart and the apocalypse is on its way. It does help if you have seen the first film although it is briefly summarised at the beginning. I saw a dubbed version of the film earlier in the year and when the introduction started in English I was preparing to leave, but thankfully it went into subtitled Russian when the film proper started. I am happy to watch dubbed films on occasions, especially anime, but I was particularly interested to see if Fox had put the same effort in the subtitling as they did with Day Watch, unfortunately they haven’t. There are still some nice touches like those in the original film but they are fairly sparse. Luckily the film itself is as much of a visual treat and the story is equally as absorbing and although it seems to be resolved at the end of the film there is still a third episode to come.
Day Watch is showing at the Cameo on Saturday 18 at 23:45 and at the Filmhouse on Saturday 25 at 21:30 ahead of a general release.
As entertaining as it is Day Watch is still a rather dark and intense film so I opted for something much lighter for my next film: Ratatouille, the latest film from Pixar. I must say that I am a big fan of Pixar films although I do await each new release with some trepidation in case they finally lose their magic winning streak. When Cars came out I was dubious but was actually pleasantly surprised and although it was no match for The Incredibles is was still miles ahead of most of the other CG animation around. But a story about a French rat that wants to be a chef!! I was almost convinced this was going to be the one finally did it, even with Brad Bird directing, but my faith has remained intact. It is a charming and funny film that manages to maintain the stylised characterisation of 2D animation with the gloss of 3D that has become the studios trademark, particularly with the Parisian scenery. What is particularly impressive is they managed to capture the atmosphere of a restaurant kitchen and the passion for cooking, in a realistic way - and showing that rats aren’t just the dirty vermin they are usually perceived as (they really do make nice pets). This is definitely going to be a family crowd pleaser when its on general release in October but this is a great chance to catch it early. As with all previous Pixar features it is prefaced with a short, and this one about two aliens is hilarious and reminiscent of the classic Warner Brothers cartoons, and is almost worth the admission price in it self.
Ratatouille is showing at Cineworld Fountain Park on Saturday 18 and 25.
Final film for the day was Quentin Tarantino’s contribution to Grindhouse – Death Proof. For some reason, undoubtedly financial, the UK is not going to get the double bill that it was originally planned to show as. Tarantino’s film has received a lot of bad press, and word of mouth, which may be another reason why it is showing separately to Robert Rodriguez’s better-received Planet Terror. For me Death Proof was not a disappointment, possibly because I was expecting the worst, in fact I found it highly entertaining. OK it is a slightly self-indulgent homage to the grindhouse exploitation films of the seventies, but it does exactly what it says on the label and is not pretending to be anything else. Or maybe it’s because I’m old enough to remember many of the movies it references, such as Vanishing Point and Dirty Mary and Crazy Larry. For whatever reason the film was fun.
The film itself is almost two films. In the first half, three hot chicks are planning a weekend away in a lakeside cabin but stop at a bar, run by Mr Tarantino, where they meet Stuntman Mike (Kurt Russell in Snake Pliskin mode). Mike drives a stunt car, which is where the film gets its title from, because it is made death proof. Let’s say that Mike’s intentions towards the girls is far from honourable.
The second half of the film is set over a year later in a different state, with four different girls who are working on a movie. One of the girls is a stuntperson (Zoe Bell, playing herself) who is really keen to drive a car the same as the one in Vanishing Point. When she finds one for sale near the movie set she decides to take it for a test drive and use it to perform a high-speed stunt, except Stuntman Mike is waiting for them with other plans. This leads to an adrenaline pumping car chase.
Tarantino obviously loves the genre and has recreated it in astonishing detail, complete with scratch faded film, jumps, colour shifts and everything you expect to see on a movie that has been abused by bad projectors. Tarantino has obviously put as much effort into making this film look genuinely bad as Soderburgh did in making The Good German look lush. But it goes beyond just the look. It has all the usual pop-culture referential dialogue that got him noticed in the first place and plenty of visual references that geeks will be able to talk about for hours.
It is very much a blokes film in the sense that it has lots of beautiful women and fast cars, but the women are strong and in the end are not exploited as they were in the original movies of the genre.
Death Proof is showing at Cineworld on Saturday 18 and Monday 20 at 21:30 ahead of general distribution.
