Meek’s Cutoff

***
Occasionally you get a more realistic glimpse of the Old West. This is one of those times. The story of settlers winding their wagon trains west is rarely realised in such minute detail. Meek’s Cutoff does just this, revealing how hard that journey must have been. Michelle Williams reunites with Wendy and Lucy writer/director for another feel-good, date movie of the year. If you’ve seen the director's previous film you’ll know that’s a joke, since the outlook in Meek’s Cutoff is, once more, particularly bleak.

It is 1845 and three wagons head west through Oregon. The group’s guide is Stephen Meek (Bruce Greenwood) whose leadership skills are coming into question as they become lost and their search for water becomes desperate.

It is a very capable cast. The likes of Paul Dano and Shirley Henderson deliver the requisite authenticity. Will Hutton, who I instantly equate with big dumb Jerry Bruckheimer flicks, teams with Reichardt again, proving himself a very watchable character actor. Bruce Greenwood is believably gruff and woolly as Meek.

However, I’m beginning to think that Kelly Reichardt just doesn’t know how to end a film. I won’t give away anything but there is no pay-off or resolution, just doubt and pessimism. A bit like in Wendy and Lucy. There’s a difference between a downbeat ending and one that totally cheats the viewer. I haven’t felt as robbed since (and this is probably a controversial view) Michael Haneke’s Hidden – a film that similarly built towards a climax that never appeared. Saying that, the process of getting to this non-existent climax is rather fascinating. It won’t be to everyone’s taste: a simple act of say, crossing a river, is seen in a very long take. The wagons are led through the water by the male actors and the women, in their bonnets and all, wade through holding precious items aloft to keep them dry. Although some of the locations are spectacular Reichardt’s shooting style is not, and this only adds to the realism. If you have the patience for it, what results is bold, original and quite a mesmerising experience. (But it's a shame about the ending.)

Win Win

**** 

Thomas McCarthy is probably one of the most talented people you’ve never heard of; he’s a successful jobbing actor of twenty years (Wire fans will know him as dastardly journalist Scott Templeton), he’s an Oscar-nominated writer (for Pixar’s Up), and he’s an accomplished indie auteur. His directorial debut was 2003’s The Station Agent, a beguiling tale of the vertically-challenged Fin - a firm favourite of this reviewer (if you haven’t seen it then I urge you to seek it out). Win Win is the third feature he has both written and directed.

A product of these financially uncertain times Win Win is about a foolish and desperate act and its subsequent fallout - good and bad. Mike Flaherty (Paul Giamatti) is a lawyer whose small firm is struggling. He takes advantage of an old man (Burt Young), becoming his legal guardian for the sake of a monthly remuneration. His wayward grandson Kyle (Alex Shaffer) turns up unexpectedly and is taken in by the Flaherty family. Kyle is a talented wrestler and joins the school team which is coached by Mike. This juvenile with occasional habits of delinquency has an unexpected and profound effect on Mike, his family, the team and his life in general.

McCarthy casts well: Giamatti is perfect in the role. He is backed by the superb Jeffrey Tambor, Amy Ryan (a talent I’m unfamiliar with) and the brilliant Bobby Cannavale in another comedic role under McCarthy’s direction. And the ageing Burt Young makes an impact in a small but not insignificant role. The teenage Shaffer (a real life wrestling champ) is very good in this, his debut. As the neglected teen he doesn’t display a lot of charm but makes up for it elsewhere in spades. It’s a good lesson in how not to judge a book by its cover or, in this case, how not to judge a teenager by their hairstyle.

The film is touching and gently feelgood. And that’s feelgood in a smart way. Although it has a lot of heart it never cheeses out, whacking you over the head with an emotional sledge hammer. Due to its quirkiness some may brand it as arthouse but it’s nothing particularly leftfield. It’s actually quite conventional. But it is an intelligent film for adults, and I wish Hollywood was making more of them.

Moonrise Kingdom

****
Moonrise Kingdom displays all the idiosyncrasies one would expect from a Wes Anderson film. And then some. The director goes for it in his fairytale imagining of a story in which the main focus is upon children. It has an odd crudity to it – more so than any of his other live action works. This is undoubtedly a conscious decision and all adds to the childlike charm. It also adds to the period flavour.

It is 1965 and a troop of Khaki Scouts are camping on a small archipelago, Penzance Island off the coast of New England. Young Sam Shakusky (Jared Gilman) has run away from Camp with local girl Suzy Bishop (Kara Hayward). Scout Master Randy Ward (Edward Norton) and Police Captain Sharp (Bruce Willis) round up a search party, including Suzy’s parents (Bill Murray and Frances McDormand), and hunt for the missing pair.

Norton plays it appropriately straight as a man who takes his scouting very seriously. Willis gives more than a touch of melancholy. McDormand and Murray are a little quirkier in performance. But they all play second fiddle to the kids. The two young leads do well, heading this seasoned cast. There is nothing obvious about newcomer Jared Gilman’s performance. It is wonderfully unaffected and, as so often with children in real life, unconsciously eccentric. Kara Hayward has a charming vulnerability and makes for a believable young sweetheart.

In scripting the film, Wes Anderson reunites, and comes up trumps again, with Roman Coppola, with whom he wrote The Darjeeling Limited. Moonrise Kingdom is completely charming and should – as proved in Cannes just recently - melt the iciest of cynical hearts. It’s as fresh and brilliantly peculiar as anything Anderson’s done previously. At times its cartoonishness undermines the emotional heft. As with all of his films there is depth if you look for it. The director always manages to captures the seriousness of childhood and here he is given opportunity to explore that in more detail. It makes me wonder what kind of a kid he was, himself. I like to think he was just like one of his characters, marching around giving orders to a lackey traipsing behind him taking notes. But I imagine it would have been an awful lot of fun – even for that lackey - being his friend.

Shattered Glass

*** 

Poor Hayden Christensen. There really is no shaking the legacy of those Star Wars films. Shame, because contrary to common belief he’s not a bad actor - wooden in said space opera. Agreed. But they weren’t exactly great scripts and I suspect he didn’t receive the requisite direction a young actor might need. But here he’s pretty good. Released in between Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith this sees him in something a lot more down to earth.

The 2003 film Shattered Glass tells the fascinating real life tale of Stephen Glass (Christensen), a journalist at The New Republic. We are told it is “the in-flight magazine on Air Force One” and for a publication of such distinction it has an absurdly young staff: one of whom, just in his twenties, is Glass. It is discovered that one of his pieces, Hack Heaven, is not entirely true, and leads to further revelations that he has been fabricating material.

In scope, it’s quite a small story, but that’s one of its strengths. Director Billy Ray allows us a detailed peek into the close workings of an interesting publication and a scandal that rocked it. Kept within a relatively short timeframe and in and around The New Republic offices, the focus on the events is tight. This keeps things lean and mean with little to distract from the central story. Hollywood take note. It didn’t exactly blow me away. I would liked to have see more examples of his fakery. But this is solid script-led story telling from a writer/director who really understands his subject matter. It also has a very watchable cast.

Bright young things of the early noughties give strong support: Peter Sarsgaard, Chloe Sevigny, Rosario Dawson and Steve Zahn As one of the older cast members (and that’s not old), he of many-a-Simpsons-voice, Hank Azaria is excellent as always. Random fact: owner of the magazine, Marty Peretz is played by director Ted Kotcheff, he of First Blood fame. Christensen himself does a good job – Glass is something of an oddball. Although he is capable of kindness and liked by his peers, there is just something not quite right about him and he pulls this off well.

Horrible Bosses

**

The film is unimaginative as the title. Borrowing the central conceit from Strangers on a Train the director has the bad sense to include a mention of both this and Throw Momma from the Train. This acts as a startling reminder that you could be watching something more worthwhile.

Nick (Jason Bateman), Kurt (Jason Sudeikis) and Dale (Charlie Day) each, as you may have already suspected, are experiencing serious problems with their employers; Kevin Spacey plays psychotic, Colin Farrell a coke-snorting arsehole, and Anniston a dangerous nymphomaniac. Taking the advice of one Motherfucker Jones (Jamie Foxx) the three of them decide to do a switcheroo, each murdering the boss of one of their friends.

Just one example of the lack of imagination involved in this production is its use of How You Like Me Now by The Heavy. The song was something of an unofficial theme for David O. Russell’s instant classic The Fighter which makes its appropriation here not just uninspired but impotent. But perhaps that’s being picky. The main problems are in what lacks: originality, characterisation and laughs.

There is very little chemistry between the three leads or even a shred of evidence as to why they are best buds. The ever-reliable Bateman does his best with a poor script, Sudeikis is poorly cast (ladies man? I don’t think so) and Day’s amateurish performance is so annoying I very nearly switched off. There are worse comedies but I’m struggling to remember the funny bits. I feel it’s a wasted opportunity, particularly in its use of the three villains. Nice to see Aniston playing against type, and to see Spacey in a comedy but neither are really given the chance to shine. A brilliantly-styled Colin Farrell barely gets a look in. Possibly because they are so underused we’re not given enough reason to hate them. And for a film involving adult themes such as sex  and drugs it’s very lightweight. If you’re using these elements in the first place you might as well go for it and not hold back. As a result, Horrible Bosses never delivers the necessary darkness for a supposed black comedy.

Headhunters

****

Headhunters is yet another quality Scandinavian crime export. Not as darkly serious as the likes of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, this has something a little wittier to say. The tension (of which there is a lot) is consistently underpinned by humour. This doesn’t detract from the thriller element but actually adds to it.

Roger Brown (Aksel Hennie) is a successful headhunter. Standing at 1.68 metres tall (5’6”) he has a lot to prove. You might say he has a large chip on his shoulder. He is also living beyond his means to keep his (tall) trophy wife happy. To support their expensive lifestyle he is also an art thief, stealing valuable paintings from people’s homes. That is until he messes with the wrong guy.

Developed from a book by popular Norwegian author Jo Nesbo this is a first class adaptation to screen. Director Morten Tyldum has delivered a polished piece of work. It is constantly surprising, always intelligent and wrapped in a very attractive package. In this noir-ish setting nobody is completely without sin and the focus of the story is on someone who’s not entirely likeable. I was still rooting for this anti-hero, though, because he experiences such pain and humiliation. And Hennie, who is barely offscreen, weaves a certain magic by making the smarmy, cocksure Roger sympathetic. Hopelessly out of his depth, he is plunged into a dangerous world. We see the violence through his eyes – as unpredictable and often surreal. These weird depictions of aggression reminded me very much of the Coen brothers, and that’s never a bad thing. (Hennie’s similarity to Steve Buscemi may have added to this.) The director realistically captures the scrappy nature of violence – balletic this is not. It’s also pretty strong for the UK’s 15 Certificate. (Or perhaps I’m just getting soft in my old age.)

Summit Entertainment purchased the rights to produce an American remake, even before its initial release. But please don’t wait for that - check out what is almost certain to be “the superior original”.

The Hunger Games

***

The bar has been set pretty low with Twilight so the new young-adult-aimed-franchise on the block is far better than anticipated. Featuring vistas of a dystopian future this is film-making on a slightly grander scale. However, the real strength of the film is the human element.

Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) lives in a poor mining region, District 12, in the nation of Panem. Her younger sister is selected by lottery to take part in the titular Hunger Games. This is an annual televised event in which one boy and one girl from each of the twelve districts is selected to fight to the death until only one is left. Katniss volunteers to take her sister’s place and is taken to the city of Capitol where she is groomed, trained, and primed to kick some serious butt.

The build-up to the Games is tense and exciting. Anything that resembles Spartacus gets a thumbs-up from this reviewer. However, the actual Games feels rushed. Here, the writer of Big and director of Pleasantville starts to flounder. The momentary action itself is handled well but most of the set-pieces are daft and lack tension. Sometimes they are unintentionally funny. One such scenario sees a band of lean, mean killing machines unable to get Katniss down from a tree even though they armed with bows and arrows. This might be ok on the page but on the screen it looks ridiculous. In this whole section no effort is given to develop character. With the exception of one, the other opponents are crudely painted as drooling psychopaths. (Whereas the decent and true Katniss only kills in self-defence.) I’m no expert in forest warfare but I imagine something that gives away your position is a lot of shouting and screaming. This could have been a chance for some subtext commenting on noisy teenagers – a simple cautionary tale (i.e. noise = death). But no, the one making most of this racket is our fearless heroine. And she, as you can probably guess with two imminent sequels, doesn’t come out of it too badly.