Review | True Grit (2011)

The news that the Coen brothers were remaking True Grit, the film that won John Wayne his one and only Oscar, received a lukewarm reception from many moviegoers most of whom are probably a bit older than myself. Why remake a classic that features one of the most revered performances of a Hollywood legend like Wayne? Undoubtedly still resonating for some fans of the brothers' work is their decidedly hit-and-miss 2004 remake of The Ladykillers, to date both their their worst film and only other remake. Still, the Coens' resoundingly successful venture into the Western genre with 2007's No Country For Old Men gave more than a glimmer of hope. This coupled with the fact that they would again be teaming up with Jeff Bridges twelve years after his now iconic performance as The Dude in The Big Lebowski, one of their most beloved films, made calling the success or failure of True Grit a tricky task indeed.

The film tells the story of fourteen-year-old Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld) who sets out to capture criminal Tom Chaney (Josh Brolin) who murdered her father and has since taken in with a band of outlaws led by "Lucky" Ned Pepper (Barry Pepper). She hires the services of US Marshal Reuben "Rooster" Cogburn (Bridges), who has encountered Pepper before, in order to do this. Also on Chaney's trail is LaBoeuf (Matt Damon), a Texas Ranger after the bounty on Chaney's head for the murder of a senator. LaBoeuf teams up with Cogburn, and despite both men's protestations, Mattie insists on joining them on the hunt as they head into the Colorado wilderness.

Any fears of the film being either an unnecessary or unsatisfactory remake are soon quashed. I almost put the word "luckily" at the start of the previous sentence, which would have been untrue - luck has nothing to do with it. This is purely great filmmaking from every angle. To call this a reboot is also untrue, as the Coens have apparently gone back to the original novel by Charles Portis in telling the story. Having never seen the 1969 version I can't draw comparison between that version and this; nor have I read the novel upon which both films are based, so faithfulness to the source material is also not something I can analyse. But the film should be judged on its own merits, and to do that is to find a genuinely excellent film.

The film doesn't contain a bad performance; a wealth of fantastic turns are on offer here. From her first moment on screen, Steinfeld has a presence, maturity and gravity that makes it quite mindboggling that this is her first big screen outing. She makes the character of Mattie her own immediately, providing a unique yet believable balance between the innocence and youth of her fourteen years and the quick wit and indomitable spirit of an adolescent who has already experienced the harshness that the world can present.

Damon, too, continues to show why he is one of the most reliably talented actors of today, bringing a stripped down authenticity to LaBoeuf that it's hard to imagine many other actors of Damon's generation being capable of. LaBoeuf's arrogance and enigma make him simultaneously repellant and intriguing and Damon's performance expertly provides the balance between these two facets of the character. Damon clearly relishes the classic Western heritage his character is swathed in, whilst never falling into parody or cliché. It's also worth noting that Damon handles to perfection the change that occurs in the way Laboeuf speaks midway through the film. It would be easy to turn the character into a mockery of his established self, but Damon incorporates this change seamlessly into what he's already created without missing a beat.

Deserving of mention too are Brolin as Tom Chaney and Pepper as Lucky Ned. Whilst both characters receive relatively small amounts of screen time, what they do with the scenes they have adds to the all-round excellence of the film. The calculated control of Lucky Ned contrasts wonderfully with the recalcitrance of Chaney.

However, it is undoubtedly Bridges as Rooster Cogburn who provides the film's most memorable character. The veteran actor never misses a beat, taking the character of Cogburn away from the one-dimensional grizzled lawman and imbuing him with a complex and enigmatic blend of mystery and candour. We get the impression that Cogburn is a man who has seen and done a great deal throughout his life, and what we see is just a snapshot of an immense character. It is the fantastic performance of Bridges that puts across a character of such enormity, whilst at the same time keeping him firmly rooted as an ordinary man. Cogburn is by turns intimidating, admirable, pathetic and amusing - it's therefore no surprise that elements of Bridges' previous Coen incarnation as Jeffrey "The Dude" Lebowski welcomely seep through here and there. It's hard to keep a grin from your face as you watch Cogburn barely stay in the saddle as he rides through the Colorado woodland drunk and not to let yourself see The Dude, just stranded in a different century.

True Grit doesn't simply get by on the performances of its cast, however. The story is genuinely gripping and, after a slow burning first act to establish Mattie and Cogburn, the tense and gritty scenes just keep coming until the inevitable showdown that both stays in keeping with the film's authentic approach and doesn't disappoint. This is also arguably the Coens most beautiful film with marvelous cinematography taking advantage of the landscape the story is set against and camerawork wonderfully reminiscent of the Western genre heritage. The quirky Coens-style moments are not as prevalent as in most of their previous films, but that's not to say it's not there. Early scenes between Mattie and a horse trader are vintage Coens; another where Cogburn and Mattie encounter a man wearing an entire bear skin (complete with head) will surely raise a smile for its sheer absurdity.

True Grit is one of those films that is simply a joy to experience. There is no part of it that is not of very high quality; nothing lets it down. The story may burn ever so slightly too slowly at the start, but this is soon forgiven for its deep, rich characters portrayed with universal excellence and the masterful control and artistry of the sibling directors at its helm.

9/10

Review | Love And Other Drugs (2010)

Love them or hate them, one thing that is certainly true of romantic comedies is that you know exactly where you are with them in terms of characterisation and plot development. Of all the contemporary popular film genres, the rom-com is the most reliably safe. Directors and actors remain firmly on the rails to produce middle-of-the-road cinema that they know has a definite audience who paid to see a film that will offer unchallenging viewing and nothing coming out of left field. True, straying from this tried and tested formula can sometimes produce surprisingly pleasing results - just watch (500) Days Of Summer - but it can also hatch cinematic turkeys that can't even provide the vanilla comedy of their unreservedly formulaic cousins. And whilst Love And Other Drugs isn't a complete and utter disaster, it ultimately veers firmly into the latter scenario.

Set in the mid '90s, the film tells the story of Jamie Randall (Jake Gyllenhaal), a salesman for drugs company Pfizer whose success comes from being one of the first people to sell viagra to medical practitioners. After talking his way into shadowing an influential doctor (Hank Azaria) Jamie meets Maggie Murdock (Anne Hathaway), a patient suffering from early onset Parkinson's. The two quickly form an almost entirely physical relationship, but this soon begins to develop into something more complex.

Technically, I suppose, Love And Other Drugs is a romantic comedy-drama (or "dramedy" for those whose time is too precious to say two words where one can be portmanteaued into existence) as it is clear some sections are there to make you laugh, and others are definitely not. One of the key problems in the film is that of balance; when providing comedy the scenes are simply not funny enough, or awkardly juxtaposed with pathos that makes you unsure of whether you should be laughing or not. Equally, when tackling more serious scenes, the emotion can seem limp - and at times almost completely absent - and the film quickly becomes tedious.

The reason behind this imbalance is that neither Gyllenhaal nor Hathaway's characters are very nice people, which makes it hard to care much about the things that happen to them. Soon after we are first introduced to Gyllenhaal's Jamie he is promptly fired from his job in a top-of-the-range electrical shop for unashamedly shagging his boss's girfriend in the stockroom. Receiving a punch in the face for his troubles, Jamie promptly reminds his irate former employer that he's owed a significant amount in commission and runs out of the store, flirting with a female customer all the while. Jamie comes across as shallow and arrogant from the start, which makes it very hard to care about - or indeed believe in - his emotional journey with Maggie later on. Gyllenhaal has proven in the past that he can deliver when it comes to challenging roles, but here his performance simply doesn't provide the emotional depth or connection with the audience needed to make his character either credible or appealing.

Anne Hathaway too struggles to lift Maggie off the screen, leaving her a collection of rom-com and tearjerker clichés that largely come across as irritating. The fact that Maggie is suffering from a disease rarely associated with the younger generation would seem a fairly easy way of generating sympathy for her; instead, Maggie comes across for most of the film as something of a self-obsessed bitch. Granted, suffering from Parkinson's at such a young age can't be easy, but there are so few moments in the film where Maggie shows even a modicum of care for anyone other than herself that it's hard not to consciously detach yourself from the character entirely. As a result of this, the handful of scenes where Hathaway does begin to bring some depth to her character's condition are rendered entirely useless.

With the two main characters so undesirable, it's not difficult to see why the story becomes tedious fairly quickly. After initially seeming like an extended fling, Jamie and Maggie's relationship soon moves into more involved territory (after much preening and self-obsession from both characters), but this shift is both hard to believe and hard to care about. By the film's halfway point I'd lost virtually all interest in their relationship: when Maggie begins to self-destruct, struggling to cope with the hopelessness of her incurable condition, I genuinely wasn't bothered whether Hathaway and Gyllenhaal's characters stayed together or broke off their relationship. The incredibly clichéd rom-com climax to the film, which seems somewhat out of place following the relatively less conventional format of that which has preceded it, might have felt a bit more disappointing had my attention still been held at that point. As it is, I wasn't all that surprised - it just felt like the filmmakers had given up hope on the film a bit later than I had.

Supporting characters are either achingly out of place (Josh Gad as Jamie's brother Josh feels like he's wandered out of a Judd Apatow film) or painfully underutilised - Jamie's sales partner Bruce (Oliver Platt) appears to be a character with a story potentially much more interesting and affecting than that of Jamie and Maggie, but sadly is relegated to the position of underdeveloped side character.

Considering Love And Other Drugs is based upon a non-fiction book, it's a shame that so many elements in the film are lacking in either dimension or authenticity. Love And Other Drugs has all the ingredients to potentially make it a refreshing and original take on the rom-com genre. But with misfire after misfire in terms of plot and script coupled with lacklustre performances by the leads, this doesn't even have the quick and easy bubblegum cinema charm of safer offerings in the genre. If there was a cinematic equivalent of viagra, Love And Other Drugs would require a lengthy prescription, delivering as it does a consistently disappointing performance.

3/10

Review Round-Up | January 2011

Caddyshack (1980)

A film that left me feeling decidedly nonplussed at various points throughout. Chevy Chase puts in the most successful and funny performance as the privileged and unsettlingly wacky Ty Webb. Bill Murray is also funny as the dimwitted Carl Spackler, although this is far from Murray's best work. Rodney Dangerfield's nouveau-riche Al Czervik is amusing, although over thirty years on both the character and Dangerfield's performance come across as decidedly dated. The film generally suffers from a lack of direction, with the story seemingly dropped without warning and then picked up again all the way through, allowing for some amusing stand-alone sequences but also some more tedious sections. Entertaining, and worth seeing to get some of those Simpsons and Family Guy references you've never quite recognised, but ultimately less than the sum of its parts.

6/10

Uncle Buck (1989)

A John Candy vehicle plain and simple, but undoubtedly a highly successful one. The plot's nothing to write home about - family crisis forces parents Bob and Cindy Russell (Garrett M. Brown and Elaine Bromka) to call Bob's brash brother Buck (Candy) to take care of their three children whilst they're away - and in the hands of anyone but Candy and director John Hughes this would be a very ignorable film. Candy entirely inhabits Buck, creating one of his most memorable characters, and owns every scene he's in, which adds up to the vast majority of the film. A pre-Home Alone Macauley Culkin shows why he became such a huge child star in the early '90s, giving a charming, cute and genuinely funny performance as Buck's nephew Miles. Jean Louisa Kelly as older sibling Tia also provides a pleasingly acerbic turn in an entertaining battle of the wills with her uncle. This is Candy's show though, and he truly delivers with a genuinely very funny performance punctuated with a handful of well-handled more emotional scenes. This might not be the most lauded of Hughes' films, but his innate ability to understand and bring out pure entertainment from everyday people makes this film a great pleasure.

8/10

Hot Shots! (1991)

Hot Shots! very much wants to join the heights of success and popularity that both Airplane! and The Naked Gun films enjoyed, and at times the humour comes close to the sharpness of those films. Charlie Sheen as Topper Harley plays things pleasingly deadpan, recalling (although never coming close to the heights of) Leslie Nielsen as Frank Drebin, and giving the film a sound foundation on which to build its ridiculousness. Lloyd Bridges as Admiral Tug Benson is also a surreal delight throughout. But although the jokes largely hit their mark, too often it feels as though you're waiting for the next laugh to come, and the story and performances are ultimately nowhere near strong enough to prop things up when the humour is absent. That said, Hot Shots! is enjoyable and entertaining with enough examples of sharply observed comedy to make it worthwhile viewing.

6/10

Hot Shots! Part Deux (1993)

Pretty similar in many ways to Hot Shots! with the main focus of parody moved from Top Gun to the Rambo franchise. All the things the first film did right are done right here too, and thankfully several of the problems seen previously have been remedied. There are fewer gaps between laughs, and the gaps that are there are shorter and more bearable. The humour is better crafted with well-placed parodies and references that draw from a pleasingly broad range of films - look out for nods to everything from Terminator 2 to Lady And The Tramp - and the vast majority of these are successful. There are also a handful of great moments where the film touches on postmodernist humour. A conversation between Topper (Charlie Sheen) and his love interest Romada (Valeria Golino) on the nature of film sequels is particularly well done, and followed quickly by a brilliant reference to another Sheen movie. Not a quite classic, but consistently enjoyable and very funny.

7/10

Dumb & Dumber (1994)

The film that, for better or worse, spawned a thousand "gross-out" imitators and successors. Few have reached the idiotic heights of Harry (Jeff Daniels) and Lloyd (Jim Carrey) however. Daniels and Carrey have genuine chemistry and give it their moronic all throughout, both as a duo and individually. Daniels takes to the role brilliantly, and Carrey gives arguably his best "rubberface" performance. The Farrelly Brothers get the comedy spot on, with gag after gag hitting the mark. Seventeen years on and this is still a complete hoot from start to finish.

8/10

Click (2006)

Incredibly patchy and seemingly unsure of what type of film it wants to be. Sandler swings wildly in the message of using his "universal" remote control, from crude humour (pausing his life to fart into his boss's face or kick a love rival in the crotch) to much more sinister, heartless reasons (skipping having to "endure" spending an evening with his aging parents). The sudden switches between these two extremes is sometimes so sudden as to be uncomfortable. The key problem I had with Click is the same problem I've had I've had with other Sandler films, in that I found it very difficult to either like or care about Sandler's character. The ending also comes across as lazy, clichéd and ultimately unsatisfying. David Hasselhoff as Sandler's boss is somewhat amusing, but becomes a bit tiresome before thankfully bowing out around halfway through. Christopher Walken's kooky performance as Morty (essentially Walken parodying himself) is Click's main saving grace, along with a James Earl Jones cameo in the film's most inspired moment. Not funny enough to be a comedy, not enough substance to be a drama, and ultimately far too preachy for its own good.

4/10

Twelve Monkeys (1995)

Fantastic performances from Willis and Pitt give the film the substance and depth needed to carry off the phantasmagorical story and cinematography. Gilliam's direction suits the themes and plot, and whilst the film occasionally becomes too entangled in its own concept, it never seriously takes away from the film's success. Both Gilliam's stylised presentation of the future and the present marry together well with a satisfying grittiness and authenticity that again helps to ground some of the film's more far-flung elements. Intelligent and bold film-making place Twelve Monkeys amongst the finest sci-fi films of the 1990s.

8/10

To Wong Foo, Thanks For Everything! Julie Newmar (1995)

"It's like living in a Tex Avery cartoon" Vida (Patrick Swayze) comments to Noxeema (Wesley Snipes) at one point during the film, and this is exactly the way in which To Wong Foo... should be viewed - an over-exaggerated camp-fest that should be enjoyed way before anything else. And viewed this way the film is a great success. The trio of Swayze, Snipes and John Leguizamo make the film incredibly fun and all three give very impressive performances. The film's more serious elements, such as a spousal abuse subplot involving Arliss Howard and a predictably excellent Stockard Channing, are generally handled satisfactorily, but thankfully take a backseat to the humour. The cartoonish elements of the film are its biggest successes however - Snipes' Noxeema teaching the local men to treat women with respect in a very painful manner is a highlight. Almost certainly not a film for everyone, but if you can enter into the spirit of To Wong Foo... with an open mind and a light heart, there's a great deal here to enjoy and appreciate.

7/10

Did You Hear About The Morgans? (2009)

Sarah Jessica Parker struggles to make her character light enough, and Hugh Grant's befuddled Englishman in America comes across as noticeably tired. Together they aren't any better with a severe lack of chemistry throughout. It feels as though director Marc Lawrence has gone for a style harking back to the classic romantic caper films of yesteryear, but this for the most part backfires as the feel of both the film's plot and execution is cheap and clunky. Sam Elliot and Mary Steenburgen provide a welcome remedy to Parker and Grant, although they can only do so much with the lacklustre material they are given. The film's presentation of rural America is occasionally amusing, but much more often comes across as clichéd stereotype. A mediocre rom-com which aims low and achieves lower.

4/10