Frank is a minor London drug dealer, coasting by in life, selling to habitual users and nightclub patrons. When an opportunity for a huge, one-time deal arises, Frank spies a chance to make a killing with little effort and takes a large shipment from his supplier. When things go awry and Frank is left with no drugs and no money, he ends up resorting to drastic measures to pay back his huge debt in the unforgiving timeframe he is given.

Pusher is a remake of the 1996 Danish film of the same name, whose success effectively launched the careers of director Nicolas Winding Refn and supporting star Mads Mikkelsen.

If there is anyone for whom Richard Coyle still remains ‘Jeff from Coupling’, Pusher will drastically alter their perceptions. In place of the Welsh cloudcuckoolander is a man calm and stoic when unprovoked but violent when necessary. Instead of the ruthless sadist that dealers are often portrayed as, Frank is a three-dimensional character with hopes, ambitions and fears. Indeed, part of the plot involves his plan to elevate himself from the small time via a large drug shipment from Amsterdam, which inconveniently ties up his finances at the exact point he needs them the most.

Rounded personalities also extend to the nominal villains. Serbian drug lord Milo (Zlatko Buri?, reprising his role from the original trio of films) is pleasant and friendly when things go to plan, but will not hesitate to turn hostile if he feels he has been crossed. Likewise, his enforcer Hakan is no stranger to violence, but speaks of it matter-of-factly and takes no joy in inflicting it.

The supporting characters of Frank’s world add degrees of realism to proceedings. Tony is Frank’s somewhat gormless sidekick. Acting mostly as comic relief – mainly due to his being nowhere near as tough or sexy as he thinks he is – his practical use as Frank’s assistant is somewhat dubious. A touch of heart to the gritty underworld is added by Flo, an exotic dancer who also acts as Frank’s banker. Although the precise nature of their relationship is unclear, it’s obvious they share some degree of intimacy.

As the week of Frank’s life speeds by and his plans to fix his myriad problems start to crumble, his desperation becomes ever more palpable. The lengths that escalating events force him to resort to in order to ensure his continued survival elicit increasing sympathy. That the film can make you care about a criminal whose career is pretty much unjustifiable is the mark of highly skilled storytelling.

Overall Verdict: Short, fast and brutal, Pusher pulls no punches and offers no apologies. Few remakes stand up to comparison to their source, but happily this is in the minority of exceptions.

Reviewer: Andrew Marshall

Competing with Killer Joe for darkest comedy at this year’s EIFF, God Bless America is a scathingly angry attack on the type of modern American (and let’s face it, global) culture that celebrates stupidity, shallowness and cruelty.

Joel Murray manages to out sad-sack his brother Bill as Frank, a friendless, divorced office worker who spends his days staring in horrified disbelief at the parade of hideous reality stars and scare-mongering “social commentators” that pollute his TV. He simply can’t understand the total lack of compassion and basic decency that pervades a society where all anyone wants is to be famous. When on the same day Frank is fired for sexual harassment after trying to make a connection with a co-worker, he’s also diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumour.

Deciding he has nothing left to lose, he sets out to do away with the repellent celebrities, Tea Party members and anyone else who he believes is adding to the downward spiral of America. In the early stages of his crusade he encounters Roxy (Tara Lynne Barr) a 16-year-old social outcast who shares his hatred of cruel celebrity culture and pledges to join him.

Bobcat Goldthwait’s satirical bloodbath manages to be both hilariously, outrageously funny and depressingly reflective of modern life. The early sequences where Frank is exposed to unending, tawdry celebrations of stupidity on TV feel like scenes from some dystopian sci-fi film until you realise they’re actually just slightly exaggerated versions of the reality shows that now dominate the TV schedules both in America and on this side of the Atlantic.

Frank is like a cross between Travis Bickle and George Bailey and is possibly the most likable mass-murderer in cinematic history. This is mainly due to his dedication to decency and fair playm and to the fact that his victims are such caricatured, hideous monsters even if they are all horribly recognisable. Frank is also quite clearly acting as a mouthpiece for Goldthwait himself; he delivers several brilliantly bitter monologues where he rails against all the facets of modern popular culture that he despises and it’s hard not to find yourself thinking he’s hit the nail on the head every time. I’m not sure what his beef with the new Battlestar Galactica is though!

The addition of his young sidekick Roxy may have been to stop the film feeling like Grumpy Old Murderers, but it also allows the film to explore generational differences. Frank thinks he’s found a kindred spirit in the equally embittered Roxy but her joy at the idea that the murderous pair might become celebrities themselves, suggests the lust for fame may be hopelessly ingrained in young people.

Despite its excessive body count and the bitter rage at its heart, God Bless America has a light, almost cartoonish tone and far from being disturbing the violence often feels like slapstick. Despite this there will obviously be people who see it as irresponsible with its suggestion that so many people deserve to die and that the world would be better without them. But for people smart enough to appreciate the satire it’s a reassuringly cynical yet surprisingly warm-hearted, laugh filled comedy.

Overall Verdict: A furious and funny satire that takes no prisoners. For anyone sick of the shallow, celebrity-obsessed culture we live in its gratifying proof that you are not alone.

Reviewer: Adam Pidgeon

A few years ago I went to see Doomsday, Neil Marshall’s barmy Mad Max-esque action thriller, with a Canadian friend of mine. As we left the cinema he turned to me and said. “Who told you Brits you could make action movies?” He was dead right. A couple of notable exceptions aside, British cinema has always had trouble sinking its teeth in to what, for lack of a better word, we’ll call the Hollywood staple.

Where the Americans seem to excel in the more common genres, action/horror/rom-com, the UK has always struggled to do those formats justice, leaning more towards sweeping costumed epics & low key societal dissections. And with good reason, because when we do try and create our take on movies whose format is a Hollywood institution, we end up with films like Storage-24.

Noel Clarke plays a recently heart-broken everyman, visiting a long-term storage facility in order to pick up his share of possessions from the break-up. But wait! In a shocking twist, his ex is there as well, and the added inconvenience of a military plane crash depositing something nasty in the facility pits the broken couple (and some friends) against the unseen terror.

Well, “unseen” is a bit of a misnomer, seeing as we get a full on front view of the creature in the first 20 minutes. You can’t do this, you simply cannot. Instilling fear in an audience is all about tricking their brains into creating something scarier than even the most advanced special effects can conjure. Even with its limited budget and amiable tone, it’s difficult to side with a horror film that fails this badly at Genre Studies 101.

The performances are largely forgettable, with only Laura Haddock emerging with some credit as the sarcastic and sassy best friend. The actors struggle with underwritten characters and clichéd plot-twists that leave nobody any time to develop. This is no more apparent than with Clarke himself, whose performance is earnest, but wrapped around a character with nowhere to go.

The film has its moments, with some genuinely humorous back and forth, and the film takes an entertaining twist with the appearance of an eccentric storage resident. The creature itself, whilst receiving too much screen time too early on is decently menacing, and gives Storage 24 a much needed boost in the creature feature department.

But therein lies Storage’s fundamental problem. It can’t decide whether it wants to be an Attack The Block style comedic thriller or a genuine Alien-esque sci-fi horror and instead settles on a decidedly unsatisfying middle-ground that leaves it wanting in almost every department.

Overall Verdict: Has the feel of a straight-to-DVD release and, without Clarke’s involvement, probably would have been. There just aren’t enough new or well executed ideas here to make Storage 24 worth the effort.

Reviewer: Alex Hall

 

The aptly named California Solo is one of those films that is entirely concerned with telling one individual’s story; all other characters are there to either help drive the story forward or provide background information on the central character. These kind of stories stand or fall on that character being interesting, well written and, crucially, being portrayed by a talented actor. Luckily, California Solo succeeds on all fronts and is powered by an amazing performance by Robert Carlyle. The part of Lachlan MacAldonich, a forgotten former Britpop star in self-imposed exile in the California hills was written by writer/director Marshall Lewy especially for Carlyle, and despite some of the incredibly memorable performances he’s given over the years, there’s a good chance that this will be remembered as his best.

The alcoholic Lachlan is the former guitarist for The Cranks, a Scottish band that recorded two successful albums in the mid-90s before the death of their lead singer, who was also Lachlan’s brother, Jed, caused them to fade into obscurity. He’s now working on a farm outside Los Angeles and in his spare time records a podcast where he discusses the lives and deaths of great deceased musicians. When Lachlan is caught drunk driving and is threatened with deportation, it emerges that the thing he fears most is being forced to move back to the UK.

It’s the kind of slow-burning story that bit by bit fills in the gaps as it moves along. We’re presented with a broken man and then gradually we learn what broke him. This means that by the time we’ve learned about some of the mistakes and life choices he’s made, which may not make him a particularly sympathetic character, we’ve already grown to like him and are rooting for him to find redemption. It also brings to mind Darren Aronofsky’s The Wrestler, in that it’s a character piece about a man abandoned by fame and coming to terms with his past and current demons. The obvious difference between the two films is that Mickey Rourke’s Randy “The Ram” Robinson was desperate to relive and hang on to his fame; while Lachlan McAldonich wants nothing more than to be forgotten.

California Solo is a film about a musician not necessarily about music, but it still manages to be nostalgic and respectful not only towards the Britpop era of the 90s but also to earlier musicians such as Marc Bolan, whom Lachlan lists as inspirations on his show. It also made this reviewer feel quite old, as it seems the predominant musical scene of my childhood took place long enough ago now that films can be written about its aging victims! Although we only hear a few snatches of songs by The Cranks, they were put together by Adam Franklin and New York band The Violens, and they sound not only authentic but pretty damn good.

In fact authenticity is California Solo’s greatest strength. It’s beautifully shot in an understated, unflashy way and there isn’t a moment that doesn’t feel completely real. This allows you to become completely immersed in Lachlan Macaldonich’s story and to buy him as a real person who existed before the film started and will continue to exist after the credits roll. Hopefully, when this American film get’s a UK release, its British star will get all the award recognition he deserves.

Overall Verdict: A truly affecting and realistic sad song of a film that avoids clichés and is driven by a blisteringly raw and vulnerable performance from Robert Carlyle.

Reviewer: Adam Pidgeon

 

What do you do if you want a kid but you don’t have a significant other? Well, if you’re a woman you could pop down the sperm bank, I suppose, but in the case of Jason (Adam Scott) and Julie (Jennifer Westfeldt), they decide perhaps they should have a kid together, despite not being in love. Now in their 30s, the duo are best of friends, but for various reasons haven’t settled down.

That’s not true of their friends, Ben (Jon Hamm) and Missy (Kristen Wiig), and Leslie (Maya Rudolph) and Alex (Chris O’Dowd), who are married and on the baby train. Despite the fact both couples seem harassed and on the edge due to their children, Jason and Julie decide to go ahead anyway and have a child. Their mates are convinced it’ll be a disaster, but are shocked and a bit jealous when the baby arrives and Jason and Julie appear to have child-raising down pat. However, while they went into this convinced they were just friends, Julie starts to have feelings for Jason, but will her skirt-chasing baby-daddy feel the same way?

Initially Friends With Kids feels like it’s going to be something fresh and a bit different, eschewing the tradition rom-com tropes and charting its own potentially interesting course. It starts out with some interesting observations about modern relationships and does a great job of balancing its slightly indie sensibilities with some mainstream comedy. However things go rather downhill in the second half, when it heads for far more stereotypical territory. Indeed it’s a bit of a let-down as something fresh and original suddenly seems uncertain what direction to go in, and so takes the easy way out and starts to rely on easy jokes and standard rom-com plots.

Writer-director-star Jennifer Westfeldt got a lot of kudos for her writing debut, All The Real Girls, and so there’s been much interest in Friends With Kids, which marks her helming debut. However it seems a bit trapped between the indie spirit of her earlier movie and a desire to be commercial, never quite reconciling the two.

I also have the feeling that perhaps Westfeldt shouldn’t direct herself, as she’s proven an extremely good actress elsewhere, but seems a bit flattened and a tad annoying here. Adam Scott, a perennial supporting character in film and TV, is great as Justin, who thinks he can have it all, including a baby with his best friend and a relationship with a smoking hot dancer, played by Megan Fox. Indeed it’s only when Justin and Julie strike up romantic relationships with other people (hers with Ed Burns, his with Fox) that problems arise in their baby-raising plans.

Kristen Wiig, Maya Rudolph, Jon Hamm (who’s also Westfeldt’s real-life, long-term squeeze) and Chris O’Dowd also put in good work, but their characters quickly become a little frustrating. Their presence becomes a series of relatively hackneyed observations about married life, with little insight into the reasons behind it – if you go by the movie, if you’re married and have a kid, you’ll never have sex again and spend all your time shouting at one another (I’m sure some would agree with that, but the film offers little logic to it).

These rather standard observations would be okay if there wasn’t a vague whiff of misandry. I’m not saying that Westfeldt genuinely hates men, but her male characters have a shallow, blind selfishness – even the good ones – that suggest all guys are essentially stupid. You could say this is just redressing the way female characters of all types have been short-changed, objectified and categorised in film over the past century – but it did annoy me that the film seems to find endless excuses for female foibles, while men are sex-obsessed fools, who at any moment could burst into full-on cruelty. Yes, women in film generally are underwritten, but I don’t think the answer should be to flesh out the female characters while pithing to men.

It’s certainly not a dreadful film, but it’s a shame it can’t fulfil the promise of its first half hour and instead starts to state the obvious and fall into typical rom-com plots and attitudes. For me perhaps the most disappointing thing is that a movie that initially seemed to be about how rational beings can make decisions and actually have some measure of control over their life and happiness in the modern world, turns into yet another film about how we’re slaves to our emotions. Indeed, the message of the film could be said to be that having a child means you lose the ability for rational thought – I’m sure some parents would agree, but not to this extent.

Overall Verdict: A promising start descends into typical and not particularly convincing rom-com fireworks. Friends With Kids is an interesting premise which ends up having little to say about it.

Reviewer: Tim Isaac

Note: While we published a review of Killer Joe on Monday, another of our writers also saw the film at the Edinburgh International Film Festival. Here’s his take…

As countless men have been telling their girlfriends for years; there is something deeply sinister about that Matthew McConaughey fellow that they’re so fond of. Now, the rom-com stalwart has kindly decided to prove them right by starring as the titular Joe, a Dallas detective who moonlights as a hired killer. Joe is hired by the debt-ridden failed drug dealer Chris (Emile Hirsch) to bump off his worthless mother for her $50,000 life insurance policy.

Chris manages to rope his preternaturally stupid dad Ansel (Thomas Haden Church) in to his dastardly scheme and the pair predictably fail to come up with the required advance payment. Luckily Joe has taken a disturbing shine to Dottie (Juno Temple), Chris’s simple minded little sister and agrees to take her as a “retainer” until the job is done and payment is made. Unfortunately due to Chris’s scheming stepmother Sharla (Gina Gershon) and Joe’s increasingly perverse obsession with Dottie it soon becomes clear that this will not end well.

Killer Joe is a joyously squalid and sleazy slice of neo-noir based on the play by Tracey Letts and helmed by William Friedkin, the legend behind The French Connection and The Exorcist, whose recent career has never met the heights of those classics. But nothing in Friedkin’s back catalogue would suggest he’d one day out Coen the Coen Brothers with one of the darkest, most twisted comedy films ever made. In fact the humour here is so dark and twisted that a good portion of the audience probably won’t even realise they’re watching a comedy, half will be laughing at the sheer, unrelenting, over-the-top bleakness and the other half will be giving them nervous glances and trying to change seats.

With the exception of Juno Temple’s Dottie, the characters are all terrible people, so it’s a credit to the cast that they’re all so watchable. Chris is the closest thing the film has to a protagonist and although he’s a snivelling scumbag, Emile Hirsch manages to make him sympathetic as he tries to dig himself and his sister out of the mess he’s made and dreams of a better life. Thomas Haden Church is totally convincing as a man with the mental agility of a slug as is Gina Gershon as a master manipulator who’s finally met her match. But the film belongs to Juno Temple and Matthew McConaughey; every scene they share together is creepy enough to make you squirm in your seat thanks to Dotties’ indeterminate age and Temple’s wide-eyed performance.

But these scenes are mostly effective, as is the entire film, because of McConaughey’s image-shattering turn as one of the great screen villains of recent memory. Joe is such a warped, dead-eyed lunatic (as Dottie keeps repeating “his eyes hurt”) that after seeing this film it’s hard to imagine ever buying McConaughey as a bland romantic lead ever again. And after the staggeringly messed-up denouement where the true extent of Joe’s psychosis is revealed it’s also hard to imagine ever enjoying KFC again.

Overall Verdict: An excessively grim piece of comedy noir that’s built around what is hopefully a career-redefining performance from Matthew McConaughey. Killer Joe is sure to divide audiences but for those that get the humour it’s a fantastically twisted tale.

Reviewer: Adam Pidgeon