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.

Dark Shadows

May 14th 2012 06:27

The best bits are in the trailer: sadly, this proves to be the truth in the case of Tim Burton’s Dark Shadows, a painfully mediocre re-imagining of the long-running 60’s TV series created by Dan Curtis. Johnny Depp stars as Barnabas Collins, who as a young man was turned into a vampire by a witch with a mad crush, Angelique (Eva Green); one who refused to let him die as as a mortal with his despondent one true love. Now, 200 years later, in the 1970’s, Collins, accidentally released from his emtombment, returns to his family’s estate to revive their flagging fortunes as if the intervening centuries were but a fleeting memory - which is exactly what he suspects they are at first.

His return is a bit of a shock to current head of the family estate, cousin Elizabeth (Michelle Pfeiffer), who now resides at Collinwood with husband Roger (Jonny Lee Miller), troubled son David (Gulliver McGrath), rebellious stepdaughter Carolyn (Chloe Grace Moretz), a resident doctor, Julia Hoffman (Helena Bonham Carter), and latest acquisition in housekeeper Victoria (Bella Heathcote).

The only trouble for Barnabas is that his witchy, very patient, not-so-secret admirer and antagonist, the sensual and ubiquitous Angelique, is still around, having assumed the role of community business leader in her current incarnation. She’s still got the hots for Barnabas too and would nothing more than to reclaim her man and live happily ever after.

To be fair, Depp is the shining light of this mildly diverting but tepid film as Collins, who must fend off advances from Angelique like a persistent fencer before leaping into the fray of the inevitable showdown which is as pedestrian as the preceding 90 minutes. His milky pallor, fish-out-of-water status and hopeless initial attempts at integration into the 70’s culture give cause for mild humour but never threaten to split anyone’s side.

The limp, unengaging screenplay by Seth Graeme-Smith is the chief culprit here with Depp’s best efforts negated by a flimsy plot and annoying and extraneous minor characters. Any attempt by Burton’s long-time muse to enliven proceedings comes across as picking the final, meagre strips of flesh off a carcass floating down a clogged river of cinematic anonymity.

Dark Shadows (2012) is a significant improvement on Burton’s previous film, Alice in Wonderland (2010), which is only to damn it with the faintest praise. It’s not a bona fide disaster but so far from Burton’s best work that the gulf separating the continents of this and Edward Scissorhands (1990) feels like an unnavigable divide.

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

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The Comfort of Strangers

May 8th 2012 04:19

A film with great pedigree that intrigues, tantalises and eventually deflates with its shock ending, Paul Schrader’s The Comfort of Strangers (1990) is still a curiosity worth revisiting despite some glaring, potentially fatal flaws. Adapted by Harold Pinter from the slim novella by Ian McEwan, the film, made in 1990, is a mildly unnerving translation of the source material but not an entirely successful one.

A couple, Colin (Rupert Everitt) and Mary (Natasha Richardson), are holidaying in Venice for a second time, though neither appears particularly enthused about being there. They’ve left Mary’s two children back in England, a fact that seems to irk Mary whilst leaving Colin remotely apathetic. Their lazy, hesitant perusal of the city is undercut by a mostly unspoken malaise. We later learn they’ve returned, chiefly, to confront a truth about their union; to revisit to a place of fond memories to hopefully hold a mirror up to a happier past and recover its meaningfulness.

Like many other tourists in Venice they fall prey to the maze of alleys that distinguish the city's unique, abstract design. Fortunately they encounter a helpful stranger, Robert (Christopher Walken), who guides them to his café/bar and regales them with stiff recollections of his colourful past. He intercepts them again the next day after a torrid night spent sleeping on the street for want of a route back to their hotel. Robert insists on making recompense and invites the couple to his home where they meet housebound wife Caroline (Helen Mirren). Each has a story to relay, but in snippets, and with oblique motivations attached. Is it chance that has brought these couples together or is it because of a sinister, deliberate manipulation?

Though I’m an ardent Walken fan, his performance is the film’s major sticking point. His stilted delivery detracts from any naturalistic effect; yes, there is reasoning behind the off-putting delivery of a repeated monologue, for example, but it receives a payoff late in proceedings in the way Robert’s sublimated, though far from profound, dysfunctionality surfaces. When juxtaposed against the already timid performance of Richardson however, a tinge of unreality resolves Pinter’s narrative reconstruction into a blighted smear. Mirren too feels miscast and nothing like McEwan’s version of Caroline. Her false (supposedly Canadian) accent notwithstanding, the lack of psychological depth and motivation of her character helps render the conclusion one without depth.

And what of the denouement? Upon arrival, it confounds and contorts far more than it illuminates. This painterly twist dipped in deepest red feels like a calculated taunt, a need to draw ire from audiences with a grand sweeping summation of the dark undertones and perversions that have fatefully converged with the poor couple’s lives.

Yet despite its shortcomings and the generally languid direction by Schrader, The Comfort of Strangers remains a strangely compelling drama. Angelo Badalamenti’s score is a lush one with flavourful melodies that seem to reverberate from within the concentration on the city’s more Arabic/Middle Eastern architecture (including Robert and Caroline’s palatial apartment). Then there’s the composer’s glorious main theme and ‘Preludium’ piece which seems to musically foreshadow the operatic grandeur of the film’s devilish final twist of the knife.

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Posted By: David O'Connell - Category: European

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Safe

May 4th 2012 03:55

You can’t pretend to not know what you’ve signed up for when heading into the trenches with Jason Statham. This unlikeliest of action anti-heroes, with his stoic, impenetrable demeanour, flinty determination and rough-round-the-edges British accent has cunningly carved out his own terrain in a realm of Hollywood vacated by aging, hardly active behemoths like Willis and Schwarzennegger. From superior pieces like The Italian Job (2003), The Bank Job (2008), The Transporter trilogy (2002-2008), to more variable projects like The Expendables (2010), and the ludicrous pair of Crank films (2006 and 2009), Statham has cut a swath through bad buys with a conviction directly proportional to that of a cannonball with legs.

In Boaz Yakin’s Safe (2012) he’s an ex-cop, Luke Wright, moonlighting as a fighter for chump change. But in failing to ‘throw’ a fight he’s royally pissed off some Russian gangsters who decide to ruin his life by murdering his wife. Released into the anonymous void of New York City’s homeless underclass Luke teeters on the edge of a platform, resigned to ending it all. Until he spots a curious sight: a young Chinese girl, Mei (Catherine Chan) evading some thugs on the platform. He decrees it a sign of some import and helps her escape.

Guess what? The girl is a mathematical genius being sought by the city’s Chinese Triads for the staggering sequence of very important numbers she's capable of memorising at a glance. And some corrupt NYC cops wouldn’t mind tracking her down either, with Captain Wolf (Robert John Burke) in particular, looking to have his cake and eat it too by playing the Triad and Russian goons against one another. In short, everyone wants the girl, and by association Luke, the obstacle hindering their approach. But with Luke quickly cranking up his defence of Mei into Tempest Mode, one thing is assured: people are going to die before this elaborate tangled pursuit ends.

Marked by kinetic action set-pieces, hail upon hail of bullets and random citizens used as careless shields, Safe does exactly as you’d expect; in other words, for the undiscerning, it entertains! And with Statham in the driver’s seat, this is a nasty but gleeful guilty pleasure of a trip through the urban maze of New York. Yakin’s sleek, palsied direction ensures even narcoleptics will remain alert throughout and with composer Mark Mothersbaugh delivering the most atypical score of his career, a tasty urban melange of classic Goldsmith, Schifrin and Grusin – packed with urgent brass blasts and throbbing low-end piano runs - Safe delivers at a primal cinematic level. High art? No. Ripping, brainless fun? Affirmative.

Safe opens in Australian cinemas on Thursday, May 10.