20/20 Filmsight - Film Criticism by David O'Connell

Film Criticism by David O'Connell

I'm a Sydney-based film reviewer that loves to review local screenings and film festivals. Want me to cover your event? Email me at cibbuano ~AT~ orble ~DOT~ com.

Snitch

May 14th 2013 03:35

The incongruous sight of Susan Sarandon in an action vehicle for The Rock notwithstanding, there’s little in the way of novelty in Snitch. Unless you exclude the fact of Dwayne Johnson, a now ubiquitous and strangely magnetic screen presence, holding his own against the Oscar winning thespian who seems to be loitering in unforgivingly marginalised roles these days. As a noble man ensnared by sinister circumstances that push him to physically and mentally punishing extremes to protect his family, Johnson simply revels whilst Sarandon flounders in a cardboard cut-out portrayal.

There’s not a great deal of complexity in former stuntman Ric Roman Waugh’s latest film. Though social commentary about the less culpable victims of America’s war on drugs tends to sustain the narrative in a way that’s mildly didactic but palatable for audiences who can’t help rooting for the innocent even when they’re guilty.

Johnson’s John Matthews is one of those absentee father figures, having moved on to a second marriage and the raising of another child who naturally takes precedence in his life. The impressions we receive of these facts are consolidated in a scant scene or two and are perfunctory to say the least. When son Jason (Rafi Gavron) stupidly accepts a package sent to him by a trusted friend, the feds are there to pounce and so he’s tossed into a cauldron of legal complications that strip him of the liberty he’s taken for granted. His mother Sylvie (a suitably anguished Melina Kanakaredes) and father are confused by the system that can claim their ‘good boy’ and outraged by the harshness of his potential punishment.

Matthews is not one to sit and stew over his family’s plight however and decides to take matters into his own hands. He goes undercover and bringing down a drug cartel with only the reluctant aid of a former crim on his staff, Daniel (a fine Jon Bernthal), a federal prosecutor (Sarandon) and a totally unconvincing cop, (Barry Pepper whose implausible appearance may be part of a dare we the audience are not privy to).

Waugh’s film is, refreshingly, far less action-oriented than the trailers would have us believe. Rather, Snitch (2013) is about the rupturing of a typical family unit and the penalties we face for simple errors of judgement. Of course it’s also a dramatized illustration – inspired by ‘true events’ in case you were wondering – of the specious inequalities that see those on the lowest rungs of the ladder having their fingernails stripped off.

Johnson may not be the finest actor to grace the silver screen but there’s something eminently watchable about him and because of that Snitch is an enjoyable enough entertainment. It doesn’t aim high and delivers on it meagre promise. Johnson’s indomitable physical presence, bravado and predilection for choosing roles that flatter men of action do him little disservice. He’s clearly fulfilling the brief Hollywood executives have set out for him and doing so with his dignity intact.

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Posted By: David O'Connell - Category: United States

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Me and You

April 23rd 2013 07:42

When a 14 year old, Lorenzo (Jacopo Olmo Antinori), decides he can’t face the prospect of a week long, winter school excursion, he fakes his absence and takes up residence in the basement of the building where he lives with his mother (Sonia Bergamasco). A half-formed opening scene offers only a glimpse into Lorenzo’s fragile, troubled state. A counsellor queries his responsibility for a reckless, hurtful act against another student, but receives little in the way of remorseful communication.

Soon he’s holed up in his dusty, makeshift lair surrounded by the fading clothes attributed to an old countess who once resided in the building but Lorenzo's solitude will be foiled by the arrival of older half-sister Olivia (Tea Falco), a photographic artist with past delinquencies of her own. When not attempting to discourage her to leave, he whiles away the hours with a week's worth of basic supplies, his computer, a Walkman and the half-hearted perusal of Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire.

There's also a glass enclosed ant farm, its inhabitants later employed in a more metaphorical sense as Vincenzo’s attempts to relinquish responsibility and preserve an unnatural containment in the basement are revealed as futile. The wider world always has other ideas, exerting itself with an incalculable immensity, sneaking in through the cracks that inevitably widen even as Leonardo might vainly hope for an everlasting, consoling solitude.

Though adapted by Bertolucci with a trio of writers, including novelist Niccolo Ammaniti upon whose book the film is based, this is a dispiritingly modest work from a director of Bertolucci’s standing. After a ten year hiatus, has he devoted himself to something far beneath his talents in the way contemporary Francis Ford Coppola once latched onto lame Robin Williams project Jack (1996)?

It’s true, there’s little in the way of profundities to be gleaned from Me and You (2012); it’s simple, pared back and narratively unadventurous, and yet it’s not without humble pleasures as the half-siblings begin to learn more about what makes the other tick. Disappointingly however, the character of Lorenzo isn’t nearly defined enough for us to either embrace or despise him; this resulting neutrality means that Falco must be the film’s saving grace – and she's certainly that, her Olivia a compelling figure and force of nature, defying Falco’s lack of cinema experience. Amazingly, this is only her second major screen role.

Olivia’s arrival in Lorenzo’s nest is a necessary contrivance, but it allows her to become a source of healing as well as provocation, jolting him out of an unhealthy solitary reverie, slaving like ants, working ceaselessly to cover limited terrain a million times over. In short then, though the interaction between the two, wavering between cautious tenderness and anger, is mildly compelling, whether we actually care about either's ultimate fate is up for debate. The uncomplicated, unsurprising resolution almost helps us decide.

Me and You (Io e te) screens on April 26, 27, and 28 at Melbourne's ACMI cinemas. Full details HERE.

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Posted By: David O'Connell - Category: European

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Antiviral

April 17th 2013 02:33

Brandon Cronenberg does indeed prove to be a chip off the old block. His superb directorial debut Antiviral, despite a limited budget, is rife with fascinating ideas and striking visuals that reflect the alternate world in which chief protagonist Syd March (Caleb Landry Jones) finds himself. And yet is this incarnation of Toronto really so far removed from the present day equivalent of a western city in which all sorts of weird obsessions consume the populace to an unnatural degree?

March is employed by a medical clinic that specialises in selling blood-harvested samples of the latest celebrity viruses. These are injected into paying customers whose obsession with their idols includes experiencing their pain and distress first hand. March also smuggles samples of these viruses out of the clinic inside his own body to sell illegally via a butcher who, when not cooking up ‘celebrity cell steaks’, moonlights as a black marketeer. But things become murkier for Syd once he allows a diseased sample from dying celebrity Hannah Geist (Sarah Gadon) into his bloodstream. From there things begin to get a bit messy – in more ways than one.

There’s much to admire about Antiviral (2012), a film which exposes and satirises the various malignancies that blight our world – chiefly, that of celebrity obsession that leads to disturbing, harmful, and of course - for this is a Cronenberg film – perverted transformations of the mind and physical self. At our basest, Cronenberg shows us, we’ve become parasites hungering for experiences that mirror those of idolised non-entities.

In peculiar and audacious ways, Cronenberg’s film harkens back to the early ‘body horror’ films of his father David, like Videodrome (1983), The Fly (1986), Rabid (1977) and The Brood (1979), with a sustained tone of bleakness and sterility exquisitely engineered through the striking use of stark white interiors. True, the third act is wonky, with the impression of a narrative losing coherence and eating its own tail. But the pros far outweigh the cons for me; this is a promising, at times startling debut, handled with the aplomb of a veteran – not so surprising given its director’s pedigree. Cronenberg was hardly likely to be fumbling in the dark upon taking the plunge into cinema. He also makes canny use of E.C. Woodley’s music to provocatively support his images, something Cronenberg Sr has done for years with the aid of the incomparable Howard Shore.

The director’s real masterstroke may have been in casting Jones in the lead. The directness and intensity of his haunted eyes are remarkably persuasive, non-verbal indicators of the doom that descends upon March as he’s swallowed up by the ugly ramifications of his viral theft. The relatively inexperienced actor, best known for his work on The Last Exorcism (2010) and a small part in X-Men: First Class (2011), gives the impression of being far older than 23. Antiviral is both a wonderful throwback - like an old, unscreened gem rescued from the vaults of Cronenberg senior’s back catalogue - and refreshingly original. A follow-up is eagerly awaited.

Antiviral opens in Australian cinemas on Thursday, April 25.

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