Two Lovers

It's love triangle time, as Leonard (Joaquin Phoenix) returns to New York and his Jewish parents after a relationship break-up that - together with his bipolar disorder - has left him occasionally suicidal, only to find two women vying for his heart. Well, maybe "vying" isn't the right word: Sandra (Vinessa Shaw) is the nice Jewish girl his parents set him up with, only it doesn't take much reading between the lines to notice that she was the one with her eye firmly on him even before his parents played matchmaker. Problem is, his new neighbour Michelle (Gwyneth Paltrow) has caught his eye, and he finds himself increasingly drawn to her despite the fact she's currently having an affair with a married man and might just be a little too fond of the drugs.

Director James Gray manages to keep a fairly straightforward love triangle tale interesting with a story that's frayed at the edges - not everything here actually means something, so there's plenty of elements you might expect to turn into something more that just end up being part of the texture of their lives. Phoenix gives yet another compelling performance, while both female leads make an impact. Unfortunately towards the end the rails the plot is running on start to become obvious, and the conclusion becomes obvious three or four scenes beforehand. But this is a film that's as much about mood and tone as it is how the romance ends up, and on that level this will stay with you long after the final scene.

Anthony Morris (this review appeared in Forte #455)

Persepolis

It's a good time to be pretentious in the world of comic books. The literary crowd have (finally) embraced "graphic novels" as being the equal of ordinary prose - at least in theory - and the format is still new enough (at least as far as the literary crowd is concerned) to make even so-so projects seem cutting edge. And they have pictures, which is a big plus. So it's not all that surprising that Persepolis made a bit of a splash when it came out a few years ago. The story of a young Iranian woman growing up in the wake of the overthrow of The Shah, it also managed to tick various boxes marked "serious" and "worthy" and - perhaps most important of all post-9/11 when it comes to being marketed towards a western literary crowd looking to understand a people their right-wing leaders were demonising - "middle eastern". Unfortunately, as a biography (and author Marjane Satrapi has said from the start she tweaked some of the facts, though the central character bears her name) it was more down the "informative" than the "insightful" end of the scale. And apart from the fact that the pictures now move, not much has changed with this animated film: characters are thinly developed, the lead is passive and the tone throughout keeps events at a distance, making this a story that all too often feels obviously "told" rather than experienced. That wouldn't matter much if the story was told with flair, but the animation is basic and the pictures lifeless, resulting in a film that gets by because of the novelty of its setting rather than any real artistic achievement. Still, it's an animated film based on a graphic novel about growing up as a woman in a fundamentalist Muslim regime: you can't get more arthouse cred than that.

Anthony Morris (this review appeared in Forte #435)

Not Quite Hollywood

Once upon a time, not all that long ago, Australian films were entertaining as well as worthy. If you wanted to see well-off people moaning about their problems or poor people griping about their troubles, you could do that - but if you wanted to see people being hunted for sport in the terrifying future world of 2000, that was on offer as well. But in any war the winner gets to write history and when arthouse film took over the local cinemas in the late 80s / early 90s (thanks to a variety of factors, including the demise of the drive-in and changes in taxation), they wrote the entertaining side of Australian cinema out of the history books. Until now: Not Quite Hollywood is both an educational look back at the world of the so-called 'Ozploitation' films of the 70s and 80s and a rip-roaring collection of amazing scenes and sequences from those very same films. It's a double whammy: you not only get a solid history lesson in the dark side of Australian film, complete with countless classic wisecracks from the many, many colourful characters involved (and director Mark Hartley seems to have spoken to everyone who ever made a film in this country, from Barry Humphries to Sigrid Thornton to Dennis Hopper to numerous sleazy behind-the-scenes producers), you also get to see all the best bits from the films of the era. And there are a lot of best bits here. Whether you're a fan of swinging 70's nudity, people being set on fire, car crashes galore or just general trashiness there are far, far too many classic moments here to name. For once all the hype around an Australian film is totally justified: if you see only one Australian film this year... well, that's one more than most people do. But if you see this film, you'll not only learn why that wasn't always the case, you'll have a hell of a good time.

Anthony Morris (this review appeared in Forte #435)

Standard Operating Procedure

Documentary maker Errol Morris (The Thin Blue Line) is usually a name you can trust when it comes to getting to the heart of the matter. But Standard Operating Procedure, his look at the stories behind the torture photos taken inside Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison in 2004, presents a surprisingly blurry picture.

There’s no doubting his rigor in approaching the subject: there are extensive interviews with almost everyone involved, plenty of atmospheric re-enactments and dozens of the often distressing photos. Gradually a picture builds up of a prison under constant attack from outside, and one where the guards had little idea of where to draw the line. Their superiors were happy to keep it that way.

It’s powerful material and Morris tells a gripping story with it, but he’s severely undermined by the soldiers involved in the torture. They’re basically a collection of – let’s say it – dim-bulb army recruits barely able to understand that bashing and sexually humiliating prisoners is wrong – after all they hadn’t been explicitly forbidden from doing so! Their moral blankness is so unlikable and their actions so unpleasant that it swamps any larger moral to be learnt from their actions.

Anthony Morris

Salute

Everyone knows the iconic photo of the two African-American athletes on the winner’s podium at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics raising their fists in a black power salute. The third (white) man on that podium was an Australian sprinter, Peter Norman, and this documentary, made by Peter’s nephew Matt Norman, tells his story.

Salute is an engaging and well-paced mix of history lesson (vital to explain the racially charged atmosphere surrounding the Men’s 200 metre sprint finals), sports drama, and personal history. Peter himself retells much of the story, and while the many interviews with the two other runners, Tommie Smith and John Carlos, are occasionally of rough quality (they were initially done as background material for a dramatization), the power and humour of what they say comes through clearly.

It’s soon obvious that a): Peter was very much part of the protest alongside Smith and Carlos; and b): everyone on that podium paid a heavy toll career-wise for speaking out. Peter (who died in 2006) never ran for Australia again, despite holding the 200 metre Commonwealth record to this day. This film is a fitting tribute to his life.

Anthony Morris

In the Valley of Elah

When Mike Deerfield (Jonathan Tucker) goes AWOL on his first weekend back from a tour of duty in Iraq, his father Hank (Tommy Lee Jones) doesn’t hesitate to join in the search. A former military policeman who served in Vietnam, Hank knows the kind of trouble a soldier can get in fresh back from a war. But as he investigates the disappearance alongside local detective Emily Sanders (Charlize Theron), he soon realises that his son and the soldiers he was with are in more trouble than just another drunken weekend.

This might present itself as a searing indictment of how America throws away its fighting men, but only because writer/director Paul Haggis (Crash) does a solid job of hiding this film’s many cliches under a thick layer of topicality. The performances are strong, the characters are skillfully-written, the mystery ticks along nicely and the film’s atmosphere is suitably bleak. Basically, it’s a well-made crime film. But despite all of Haggis’ shrill and painfully obvious moralising, this is still little more than another clue-laden mystery being solved by a grizzled veteran and a sexy newcomer to the force.

Anthony Morris
(This review first appeared in The Big Issue, #298)

There Will be Blood

An epic character study worthy of comparison to Citizen Kane, this sparse, bleak, and enthralling film has seemingly come out of nowhere. At least, writer/director Paul Thomas Anderson (Boogie Nights) has never made anything like it. Much of the credit though belongs to a riveting performance from Daniel Day-Lewis as Daniel Plainview, this film’s central – and in many ways, only – character.

Working a silver mine in America’s south west during the 19th century, Plainview strikes oil and makes his fortune. A co-worker’s accidental death leaves him with an adoptive son, and word of a farm where oil bubbles from the ground leads him to New Boston. His operation brings prosperity to the town – a prosperity that local evangelical preacher Eli Sunday (Paul Dano) believes he’s owed.

Battling Eli, fate, and his own bitter nature, Plainview is an all-too-human monster given ferocious life by Day-Lewis. An amazing, almost horror-movie soundtrack (from Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood) only adds to the ominous, driving tone. Blood has flaws: the focus on Plainview shuts out the supporting cast, and the final scene is perhaps a step too far. But what truly memorable film is perfect?

Anthony Morris
(This review appeared in The Big Issue, #297)

Charlie Wilson's War

God forbid that every film should follow the Hollywood three-act plot structure, but in this case a decent third act probably wouldn’t have hurt. The film starts out interestingly enough in 1980, with Texas Democrat Senator Charlie Wilson (Tom Hanks) learning about the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan while sitting in a Vegas hot-tub surrounded by showgirls. The all-true tale that follows is slickly told, with playboy Wilson teaming up with a rich right-wing socialite (Julia Roberts) and a gruff CIA agent (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) to get anti-helicopter missiles to the Afghani resistance.

Director Mike Nichols (Closer) clearly relishes the more farcical aspects of his tale (the war scenes are less impressive), while the trio of leads all have fun with their larger-than-life roles. But the story never goes anywhere: Wilson wants to help the Afghans, he helps the Afghans, then it’s all over, bar one brief scene pointing out that once the war was over no-one wanted to help Wilson save the gun-toting and radicalised Afghans from themselves. That moment is the entire point of making this film today. Skimming over it does this otherwise interesting story no favours.

Anthony Morris
(This review first appeared in The Big Issue, 28 Jan)

3.10 to Yuma

After years of revisionist westerns and post-modern westerns, seeing a western done straight seems almost shocking. And director James Mangold’s remake of the 1957 film about a dirt-poor farmer and family man (Christian Bale) who joins a rag-tag posse to escort a captured outlaw (a never-more charismatic Russell Crowe) on the long journey to the train to Yuma prison is about as straight as they come.

Yet as the odds against the farmer mount – the captured outlaw’s gang is hot on their trail, and the posse numbers are constantly shrinking – his stubborn refusal to simply surrender ceases to be a straight-forward plot device (if he gives in, the movie ends) and becomes something much deeper and more powerful.

While Mangold does a fine job of staging the numerous action sequences, and Bale’s performance as a battered man with a core of iron is quietly compelling, it’s Crowe’s electrifying turn as the gang leader that powers this film. Honourable, murderous, and as slyly tempting as any devil, his performance would earn a more media-friendly actor a sack of awards. This gripping adventure isn’t just a great western; it’s a great film.

Anthony Morris
(This review appeared in The Big Issue 14 Jan)

Atonement

Like it or not, certain kinds of films get a free pass when it comes to class and Atonement ticks all the right boxes. First, it's based on a novel by Ian McEwan (Endless Love) so it's got literary cred on its side, not to mention a story that's actually about something more than glamorous people talking loud and saying nothing. Second, it's (in part) a love story set against the backdrop of the Second World War - think a less morally dubious version of the extremely classy The English Patient. And third, the characters are all either English gentry or their grimy yet studly servants, and decades of ABC miniseries have trained us to see snooty types in dinner jackets in the 1930's as class all the way. Usually all this class would be hiding a whole lot of not much at its core (again, think The English Patient), but thankfully all this effort hasn't been wasted on a featherweight story.

It's the 1930s, and Briony(Saoirse Ronan) is a precocious child busy writing plays and stories in her family's huge mansion in the English countryside while her older sister Cecilia (Keira Knightly) is slowly circling Robbie (JamesMcAvoy), the made good son of a former servant. Briony thinks she's worldly and wise, but when she jumps to conclusions about her sister's relationship -and then uses those conclusions to tear their lives apart - she soon realises that she's nothing more than a painful meddler. Her efforts to right her wrong make up the second half of the film, and while they initially seem to be setting this film up to be little more than a very well crafted and highly entertaining tale of love lost and (perhaps) found again, it's the revelations towards the end regarding exactly how far Briony is willing to go to engineer a "happily everafter" that lift this from a engaging but lightweight romance to something really special. You might even call it classy.

Anthony Morris

No Country for Old Men

Cormac McCarthy (Blood Meridian, The Road) isn't the cheeriest of writers at the best of times, while in recent years indie film stalwarts the Coen Brothers have drifted into making lightweight, disposable, and worst of all, forgettable films (remember The Ladykillers? Didn't think so). The Coens once had form when it came to offbeat crime (Blood Simple, Fargo), but the success of their adaptation of McCarthy's relatively lightweight yet still dark andbrooding No Country for Old Men was far from the sure thing it once would have been. Turns out those fears were groundless: not only is this a triumphant return to form for the Coens, it actually marks something of a departure for them in terms of crime drama as they (mostly) reign in their quirky humour to stay true toMcCarthy's bleak lament for a barren place that exists as much in men's hearts as it does the physical world.

It's 1980, and when trailer park resident Llwewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin) stumbles across the aftermath of a drug deal gone bad, complete with a ute full of drugs and a satchel full of cash, he decides to take the money and run. That puts him in the sights of the extremely deadly Chigurh (Javier Bardem in a nightmare-inducing performance), while local sheriff Bell (Tommy Lee Jones) tries to put the pieces together.

The film's lean, stripped-back style comes largely from the novel - there are long silent sequences here that simply involve people going about their work, which sometimes results in murder - but its the kind of thing the Coens did brilliantly in their earlier films and they clearly haven't lost the knack. The three lead performances are all amazing: Brolin is perfect as a decent man not sure how over his head he is, Bardem seems like he should be a jokevillain but turns out to be the scariest thing on screen this year, and Jones (who doesn't appear onscreen until half an hour in, but turns out to be the film's central character) continues his recent run of quality work as a worn down man unsure of the worth of his work. There's plenty of sly humour and dry wit on offer, but where the Coen's earlier work would squeeze a note of redemption into the grimmest of events (think of the end of Fargo), this winds up in a way that's both quietly real and totally devastating. This is one of the year's best films.

Anthony Morris

September

The year is 1968, and on a farm out in the West Australian wheat belt two teenage boys are good friends: Ed (Xavier Samuel) is the white son of the farm's owner, and the aboriginal Paddy (Clarence John Ryan) works for Ed's father alonside his own dad in return for food and board on the property. And for a long time that's pretty much all there is to this film, as writer / director Peter Carstairs is content to let images speak louder than words as scene after slow-paced scene involves little more than the two teenagers hanging out together around the farm. Then the government, in a well-meaning act of compensation, makes it mandatory for Aboriginal workers to be paid the same as everyone else and things start to fall apart between both the teenagers and their fathers. If you're looking for a high-energy, hard-hitting parable about race-relations in this country, keep walking. This film is content to be its own thing, and while the story might have wider implications that's for you to find. Closer to a tone poem than anything else, this is well-acted and often beautifully shot with long moments of near-wordless visual power. But for those who like things to happen in their viewing, the leisurely pace might start to get to you after a while.

Anthony Morris

Hitman

There's no real reason why movies based on video games have to have bland and generic stories - they just do. It's tempting to suggest that it has something to do with the nature of the games themselves: if games only need simple, straight-forward storylines to hang their action on, then that's why their movie versions are so simplistic. But then surely the writers and directors could fill in the space left by the games' simple story with unique and interesting material? Whatever the reason, Hitman is a perfectly serviceable action thriller that ends up a boring chore to watch thanks to the determination of the behind-the-camera crew to make a movie containing no original material whatsoever. 47 (Timothy Olyphant, who does his best with almost nothing to work with) has been trained since childhood to be the world's deadliest assassin, but when he's betrayed by his employers over a botched (or is it?) attempt to kill the Russian president, he has to kill a whole bunch of people so... well, so he can then kill a whole bunch more people. With a plot stitched together Frankenstein's monster-style from a dozen better movies it can't really fail, but eventually the complete lack of originality starts to sink in and once your attention wanders you start to ask inconvenient questions. Like why does a supposedly untraceable hitman have a shaved head with a barcode tattooed across the back of it when it makes him instantly recognisable? And why does a super-secret organisation of killers stamp their logo on all their tools of the trade? If you've never seen an action movie before in your life, then you'll enjoy this; otherwise, go watch The Professional again.

Anthony Morris

Rescue Dawn

In the mid-90's acclaimed film-maker Werner Herzog (Grizzly Man, Fitzcarraldo) made Little Dieter Needs to Fly, a documentary telling the story of German-born US navy pilot Dieter Dengler and how he escaped from the Viet Cong after being shot down over Laos in the early days of the Vietnam War. Unusually, that version wasn't enough for Herzog, and in Rescue Dawn he tells Deiter's story once again, this time in an often powerful yet never fully satisfying recreation. The problem isn't with the casting: Christian Bale plays Deiter and gives a gritty, intensely physical performance in a role that for the most part requires him to be caged like an animal or trekking through thick jungle. The support cast is equally strong, especially Steve Zahn as a fellow American and escapee who's spirit has been all but crushed by captivity. And the story itself ticks all the right boxes, especially in the long months in the POW camp as Dieter slowly scrapes together the pieces that will first give the prisoners their dignity back, and then give them the means to break free. But in the jungle sequences, where the film really should have its strongest emotional impact, things don't feel quite right. There's no denying that these scenes are well handled, and the aimless and increasingly desperate nature of the escapee's wanderings in a land where both nature and the population are out to finish them off is convincing. Still, Herzog feels like he's either holding back (Rescue Dawn is a rare effort on his part to work within the traditional movie industry) or lost his way: for a director who's made his career with fiercely powerful and unflinching looks at the relationship between man and nature, too often this feels like standard (but well-made) Hollywood fare. It's a good film rather than a great one.

Anthony Morris

Beowulf

Computer-generated imagery has come a long way very quickly, but it still can't quite get the human face right. So in a strange way Beowulf's script (by fantasy author Neil Gaiman and one-time Tarantino collaborator Roger Avery) is too good for the current technology: sometimes subtle in mood and often relying on facial expressions to get across things the characters left unsaid (in short, acting), more than once it outstrips the ability of CGI animators to bring their human characters to life. But that said, the only way film progresses as a medium in through films like this, where the reach of all involved exceeds - sometimes - their grasp. Based on the Dark Ages epic poem, Beowulf is the story of, er, Beowulf (the voice of Ray Winstone), who arrives in a land under siege from the monster Grendel and promises the king (Anthony Hopkins) to rid the land of this blight. But while brute force and a bit of naked wrestling might be enough to tackle Grendel, his demon mother (Angelina Jolie) is another matter entirely. Unusually for this genre, which usually just powers blindly on to an all-action climax, this film's third act could almost be a separate film, as the much older and world-weary Beowulf is forced to face the mistakes of his past and try to put things right once and for all. Fortunately for action fans, this involves fighting a dragon, and it's the combination of narrative force and physical action that sets this above the average fantasy film. The animation works best when there's monsters around, but even in the human-only sequences (and there are plenty of them, with the of Beowulf, the King, and the King's wife - voiced by Robin Wright Penn - becoming quite the twisted love triangle) it's only the occasional stiff or stilted moment in the performances that jars. If Beowulf is the future of film, it's mostly because it's sticks close to that oldest of values: solid storytelling.

Anthony Morris

Interview

After controversial Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh was murdered by a Muslim fundamentalist in 2004, his producers decided to continue with van Gogh’s plans for English-language versions of three of his films. Interview is the first of the remakes to be released as part of this project, but those lured by its controversial origins might come away wondering what the fuss was all about

Co-written and directed by Steve Buscemi (who also stars) this tale of a clash between political reporter Pierre Peders (Buscemi) forced to interview not-so-vapid starlet Katya (Sienna Miller) has the wordy nature of a stage play. For most of its length the two character circle one another warily, searching for a way to get under the other’s skin. There’s some nice moments here, and Miller’s performance is a decent one (even if, as a Hollywood starlet, she’s basically playing herself), but even at barely eighty minutes there are moments when the energy flags.

This film’s real saving grace is Buscemi himself. Miller might be conventionally beautiful, but he’s the one you can’t take your eyes off. Pierre is an arrogant, manipulative creep; Buscemi makes him compelling.

Anthony Morris

Death Proof

Is it worth wading through ninety minutes of dreary chit-chat to see the most thrilling car chase ever filmed? That’s the question to ask before checking out Death Proof. Writer/director Quentin Tarantino’s sharp ear for dialogue deserts him in this sluggish tale of a group of young women who sit around and talk for close to forty minutes until stunt-car driver turned serial killer Stuntman Mike (the excellent Kurt Russell) finally and fatally runs them off the road in his specially modified ‘death proof’ car. Then another four girls come along and we start all over again.

Staggering from the wreckage of Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez’s failed Grindhouse feature (where two short trashy films and fake trailers were combined into one box-office flop), Death Proof is a love letter to 70’s exploitation films. Unfortunately, Tarantino gets the details right but forgets to make things interesting – until the final car chase, featuring Mike versus a car with New Zealand stuntwoman Zoe Bell (playing herself) tied to the bonnet. This CGI-free sequence is astounding, nail-biting stuff. It’s Tarantino’s best film-making to date, trapped inside (probably) his worst film.

Anthony Morris
(This review first appeared in edition #291 of The Big Issue Australia, 5 November 2007)