Review: Dragged Across Concrete

Henry Johns (Tory Kittles) is fresh out of prison and looking for a way to make a little money. Old friend Biscuit (Michael Jai White) just might have the job for him, but it doesn’t take long for the pair to realise they’re getting in over their head - working with a couple of stone cold killers who never take their masks off tends to give that impression.

Meanwhile, old-fashioned hard-nosed cops Brett Ridgeman (Mel Gibson) and Anthony Lurasetti (Vince Vaughn) have been caught on camera handing out some street justice and are facing suspension – something neither of them can afford. So now they're looking for a way to make a little money on the side too. This is not good news for anybody.

Writer-director S. Craig Zahler (Bone Tomahawk, Brawl in Cell Block 99) tells a sprawling (it’s over two and a half hours) crime saga where the sprawl is much of the point: just spending time with these dubious characters is much of the appeal of this film, though when the plot does kick in it kicks hard.  And scene-by-scene this is pretty much all good - even a diversion focusing on a bank staffer (Jennifer Carpenter) who doesn't want to go back to work and be separated from her baby.

Gibson and Vaughn are the acting powerhouses here, which skews the film a little; the story as written gives roughly equal time to both sides but the white guys are the faces you’ll remember. They’re also unlikable in ways that are unfashionable today, and the film gives their racial grievances just enough grounding to make it tricky to tell whether the film is on their side or not.

Which is probably the point, as this constantly strives for (and often reaches) the kind of real-world grit most crime films only gesture at. It's not exactly the kind of film where anything could happen, though it has its share of shocks; rather, it's coming from a direction a lot of crime films (and films in general) today won't take, where the characters exist just as flawed human beings rather than symbols of certain moral or social standpoints.

This is a film that has no real interest in right or wrong, and never at any point indicates that anybody deserves anything that comes to them. Bad people might prosper; good people could come to sticky ends. At a time when movie morality seems stuck at the brightly-coloured superhero level, it's a defiantly grown-up view of the world.

- Anthony Morris

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Review: The Nightingale

The tone of convict movies can usually be guessed by their location; the further from Sydney you get, the grimmer they are. And by the time you hit Van Diemen’s Land, you know you’re in serious trouble; if anyone ever makes a convict movie set further south than Hobart, they'll basically just be throwing buckets of blood at the camera from scene one.

And so it proves with The Nightingale, a bracing rape-revenge tale that’s often hard to take even for seasoned genre fans. The year is 1825, and former convict Clare (Aisling Franciosi) is being regularly raped by Lieutenant Hawkins (Sam Claflin), leader of the local military garrison in the southern wilds of Van Diemen's Land. When her husband Aidan (Michael Sheasby) finally speaks out about the injustice of what's going on, the results are bad news all around.

Hawkins, his 2IC sergeant Ruse (Damon Herriman) and a small group of men head north through the wilderness; Clare enlists the help of tracker Billy (Baykali Ganambarr) to help her catch them. What starts out as a chase soon develops into something a bit more complicated, as various agendas clash and revenge turns out to be a bit messier than initially thought. 

At first this film – the second from Jennifer Kent, writer-director of The Babadook – is both brutal and relatively straightforward. It’s not until the third act that things start to lose their focus, which muddies the waters in ways that aren’t always to the film’s benefit. For a film about a chase through the wilderness, there sure do seem to be a lot of people hanging around the bush; when the isolation of some of the characters is presented as a death threat later on, it's hard to take seriously (and rightly so; they get out of it relatively easily). 

The much discussed brutality of the multiple rape scenes is in keeping with the film’s setting, and the characters are nuanced enough that this never feels purely exploitative. Unfortunately, what exactly is being said here never comes clear either. It wants to be bigger than mere revenge at times; at others it's fully behind bloodshed, but only for some characters. It never comes apart, but the ever-widening scope of the film occasionally seems to spin the story beyond Kent's control; this film is at its sharpest when its at its most shocking.

- Anthony Morris

Out now: Shazam!

Remember when superheroes were for kids? Eh, probably not: Tim Burton's Batman back in 1989 pretty much sunk that boat, and since then taking things way too seriously has been the hallmark of the grown-up superhero movie. How weird is it that we're getting a Joker movie that nobody under the age of 25 should see? Creepy murder clowns: they're not just for kids anymore.

All of which is kind of strange, because the one thing superheroes really can do better than just about any other genre is speak to the youth. The phrase "adolescent power fantasies" used to be thrown around a lot in comic-book circles when comics were trying to get out from under the influence of superheroes; the difficult thing today is explaining exactly why it was seen as a bad thing when it leads to a movie like Shazam!.

When orphan 13 year-old Billy Batson (Asher Angel) is given super-powers by a wizard (Djimon Hounsou) to defeat the running amok Seven Deadly Sins and their human puppet Dr Sivana (Mark Strong), he does what any teen would do: uses his all-grown-up superhuman form (Zachary Levi) to buy beer, get out of school, and become a YouTube sensation by doing nutty stunts.

This is the DC universe in kid-friendly mode, ramping up the silliness and keeping the tone light without depriving audiences of superhero thrills. To be fair, the hero formerly known as Captain Marvel is definitely one of their sillier characters, and with a Mr Mind cameo - look him up - this is definitely steering into that side of the superhero world.

There's a lot of comedy here, but beyond that this as much about family and friendship – Billy’s growing bond with fellow group home resident Freddy Freeman (Jack Dylan Grazer) is the surprisingly tender heart of this film – as it is about running around punching bad guys. Levi gives a note-perfect performance as a kid gleefully enjoying his superhero powers the most when he’s using them to do the least, while Grazer rapidly becomes a perfect sidekick and Strong... well, he does what he can with an underdrawn character.

Some of the jokes aren’t the freshest, but even the old “let’s test your powers” routines are fun to watch and when things start to get heartfelt this still has a bunch of strange but fitting cards to play. This really does get just about everything right, and the result is easily the strongest DC universe film since Wonder Woman. Shazam! is all-ages fun that’s all-ages funny; with darker superhero films looming on the horizon, it’s the comic relief you didn’t know you needed.

- Anthony Morris

Review: Palm Beach

There’s a certain kind of film that feels like it’ll vanish from our screens the second someone figures out how to make virtual reality really work. Gripping stories and dramatic characters probably aren’t ever going to go away, but movies where the whole point is that we get to spend time with nice people in fancy locations – often with a bunch of delicious food being served – are the kind of virtual getaway that technology can only improve on. You probably wouldn't want to live through a Jack Reacher novel on the Star Trek holodeck, but one of those movies where you take a slow drive through the south of France? Beam me up, Scottie.

(yes, I know Scottie's Enterprise didn't have holodecks, they were introduced in Star Trek: The Next Generation, give me a break)

And so it proves to be with Palm Beach, a movie where a bunch of oldish folks go to a very nice looking beach town, stay at a very fancy mansion, take a bit of a stroll around the neighbourhood, soak up some rays, and just generally have a good old time relaxing in the sun. It doesn't quite feel like the Palm Beach Chamber of Commerce paid director Rachel Ward to film a commercial about the wonders of their little town - at least, not in the way that Any Questions For Ben felt like it was a commercial for Melbourne - but if there were a pile of brochures about purchasing beachside property outside the cinema when it was over you wouldn't be too surprised.

Okay, there is a bit of a story here too, as Frank (Bryan Brown), having made a mint from artist representation (or selling t-shirts, it's a little unclear), has invited his former band mates to his beach house for a weekend of chilling out. Actually, there’s a bit of four or five stories early on, but a lot of plot threads between these old friends with unfinished business are dropped or just fizzle out (it feels like there could possibly be a three hour directors cut somewhere). 

Unfortunately, some of the forgotten threads are the interesting ones. Richard E Grant's character is writing advertising jingles and won an award for basically ripping off the band's only hit single; he's also somewhat bitter that Frank is cashed up and he's still struggling. This side of things is quietly dropped; likewise, the fact that the band's original singer (and Frank's wife) died years ago is just thrown out there before sinking without trace. There is a family mystery that plays out involving Sam Neill's character, but it's literally the most obvious story here, and it goes all the obvious places.

(oh, and Frank tears down a neighbour's chimney because it's blocking his view, though his frustration with his impotence could be a factor as well)

Still, Brown, Neill, and Grant, along with Jacqueline McKenzie and Greta Scacchi (and others) make for entertaining beachside company to hang out with. And really, that's the point of all this. These are all well-off people with minor problems at best, and the film really doesn't pretend otherwise. It'd probably be more offensive if it tried to tell a serious story around these characters; despite the occasional gloomy expression, with the views they're currently enjoying out over the Pacific they don't have a care in the world.

- Anthony Morris

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Out now: Gloria Bell

It’s been twelve years since she was divorced but Gloria Bell (Julianne Moore) hasn’t given up on finding love again. A regular at LA’s surprisingly thriving mature-age disco scene (where the hits of the 70s play all night long), she’s relentlessly optimistic when to the casual observer it looks like she doesn't have all that much to be optimistic about. Her day job is a dull office slog, while her nights are often spent listening to the ranting lunatic who lives upstairs – he’s the son of her landlord, so there’s only so many complaints she can make – and shooing his hairless cat out of her kitchen.

Her children (Michael Cera and Caren Pistorius) are still on the scene but only just; they’re both already distant, and they’re moving towards big changes that will take them away from her. Then she meets divorced former marine and paintball park owner Arnold (John Turturro) and tentatively they begin a relationship. The only problem is his clingy family; will he be able to start again with someone new? Does he even really want to?

Chilean writer-director Sebastián Lelio hasn’t quite made a scene-for-scene remake of the 2013 version (simply titled Gloria), but it comes close – which makes its shift in tone all the more impressive. In the original, Gloria’s desperation comes through more firmly; she’s a woman for whom time is running out. The Arnold character is more sinister (he’s much older, and having a military past in Chile means something very different), the film's overall tone darker. She’s still dancing, but the dance is a little more frantic.

Here though, it’s the comedy that’s played up. The set-piece scenes have a freer, more spontaneous feel (the LA sunshine helps), while the smaller moments in Gloria’s existence are filmed with an eye towards the absurdity of life. They’re rarely laugh-out-loud scenes, but they open the film up and give it a looser, airy vibe. In this version Arnold is still a man with a darker side and the film never treats him as a joke, but Turturro plays him with a lighter, more wounded, touch. He’s never a threat, just a man who’s given his life over to rules and order and can’t quite break away now that his devotion to duty is being used to keep him tied down.

It’s Moore who shines throughout. Again and again she makes fresh and vital moments that from someone else would easily feel stale (even scenes where she sings along to her car radio). Above all, she feels constantly alive, always present in the moment while her worries remain just under the surface, only rarely letting them show to devastating effect. This film is an exploration of her, and of how she’s making it through life; through good times or bad she remains defiantly, triumphantly herself.

Gloria Bell is out now on DVD

- Anthony Morris