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Logan Lucky (Blu-ray Review)

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Starring: Channing Tatum, Adam Driver, Riley Keough, Daniel Craig, Katie Holmes
Directed By: Steven Soderbergh
Running Time: 116 mins
BBFC Certificate: 12
UK Release Date: December 26th 2017

Our Score

Director Steven Soderbergh hasn’t done very well at retiring. After a career that’s ranged from Sex Lies & Videotape, Erin Brockovich and Traffic to the Ocean’s 11 trilogy, Out Of Sight and Magic Mike, he announced that his last feature film as a director would be 2013’s Liberace biopic, Behind The Candelabra. However, just four years later he’s back with Logan Lucky.

What appears to have brought him back wasn’t just the story and script, but that they managed to find a way to essentially cut out the usual mainstream film machine by pre-selling foreign distribution and TV/streaming rights and then releasing the movie in the US himself.

You also have to wonder whether he was intrigued by the premise of the movie. Soderbergh’s most successful films are the Ocean’s movie, where everything is impossibly glossy, the people – both the criminals and the marks – are suave, sophisticated and wealthy. With Logan Lucky he returns to the world of the heist, but here the criminals are blue collar Southerners, the type of people the movies usually dismiss and wouldn’t treat as being smart enough to pull off this type of thing.

The film centres around Jimmy Logan (Channing Tatum), who gets laid off from his construction job at the Charlotte Motor Speedway, just as he discovers his ex-wife (Katie Holmes) wants to move out of state with him daughter. To help pay for the court case, Jimmy enlists his Iraq War veteran brother, Clyde (Adam Driver), to help him rob the Speedway track during a major NASCAR event, using their knowledge of the systems to help them pull it off.

They need some help though, including their sister Mellie (Riley Keough), and the Bang brothers, the dim-witted Sam and Fish (Brian Gleeson and Jack Quaid), and the smarter and more useful, Joe (Daniel Craig). There’s a problem with that though, as Joe is already in prison, so they’ll need to get him out before they can use his skills, and hopefully get him back in again before anyone notices. However, some people think the Logan family is cursed – a curse that has already cost Jimmy his promising football career and Clyde one of his arms in Iraq – which isn’t exactly something you want hanging over you when you’re planning a high stakes heist.

Despite its very different setting, the movie has more in common with the Ocean’s movies than it might first appear. It’s a film that’s fun, very slickly made, move at a quick pace and is often pretty funny, but ultimately it doesn’t really add up to an awful lot. There’s nothing wrong with a movie that’s just a fun diversion, but there are times when Logan Lucky appears to be striving and failing to achieve more.

Also similar to Ocean’s, it’s aided by a cast that appears to be having a really good time. Channing Tatum may wear more clothes than he did last time he worked with Soderbergh on Magic Mike, but he relishes the role of Jimmy, bringing a flare for understated comedy and a great ability to act as a central pivot around which the other characters rotate. Similarly, Adam Driver shows a lighter side than many will have seen from him before, although it’s Daniel Craig who makes the biggest impact as the bleach-blond, unpredictable and very entertaining Joe Bang. They all help keep things rolling along in entertaining fashion.

There are moments when the film gets very close to seeming like it’s making fun of its uneducated, hillbilly characters, and indeed with different actors and another director the whole thing could have been horrifically insulting. Tatum and co. ensure that even at moments when it’s close to stereotyping, the characters retain a sense of dignity and, despite their criminal dealings, a sense of decency.

By the end you’ll have had a good time, but that’s about it. Sometimes though, that’s all you need.

Overall Verdict: A fun and very entertaining heist movie, that may not have much point to it, but entertains thanks to a good cast and smart direction.

Reviewer: Tim Isaac

Special Features:
Deleted Scenes

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American Made (Blu-ray Review)

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Starring: Tom Cruise, Domhnall Gleeson, Sarah Wright, Jesse Plemons, Caleb Landry Jones
Directed By: Doug Liman
Running Time: 115 mins
BBFC Certificate: 15
UK Release Date: December 26th 2017

Our Score

Barry Seal (Tom Cruise) is working as a pilot for TWA in the late 70s when she’s spotted by CIA agent Monty ‘Schafer’ (Domhnall Gleeson). Schafer wants Barry to fly reconnaissance missions in Central America, where the Soviet Union is backing Communist militias. His success at that leads to missions where he acts of the CIA courier to General Noriega in Panama, as well as helping to arm the anti-Communist Nicaraguan Contras in Honduras.

All this leads him to some dodgy places, including into the sphere of the Medellin Cartel, who get Barry to help them smuggle drugs into the US on his return trips. The CIA turn a blind eye to his side job as long as he still gets results. However, not every US law enforcement agency is as keen to ignore Barry’s smuggling. [Read more…]

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The Limehouse Golem (DVD Review)

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Starring: Bill Nighy, Olivia Cooke, Daniel Mays, Douglas Booth, Sam Reid
Directed By: Juan Carlos Medina
Running Time: 109 mins
BBFC Certificate: 15
UK Release Date: December 26th 2017 (UK)

Our Score

A murderer is stalking the streets of Limehouse in Victorian London, killing viciously and spreading panic. The killer has become known as the Limehouse Golem; named after the medieval Jewish monster made of clay. Police Inspector John Kildare (Bill Nighy) is brought in to investigate, soon coming to wonder whether the killer is the recently deceased John Cree (Sam Reid).

This line of questioning introduces him to Cree’s wife, Lizzie (Olivia Cooke), as well as the world of the music hall theatre she used to work at, which is led by comedy star Dan Leno (Douglas Booth). The number of potential suspects continues to grow – at one point even leading Kildare to the door of Karl Marx – especially after the discovery of a book that may be the murderer’s diary. But who wrote it and why?

The Limehouse Golem is one of those films that’s close to being great, but from the title – which sounds too much like a fantasy film – to the slightly sloppy way it handles some key aspects of the investigation, there’s a sense that things haven’t been thought through as much as they should have. Director Juan Carlos Medina does a good job with the individual pieces of this murder mystery puzzle, but those pieces never fully coalesce in the way they ought to.

That’s not to say it’s a bad film. The performances are great, with Bill Nighy turning in a strong central performance as the put-upon Kildare, while Olivia Cooke handles the complex role of Lizzie Cree extremely well, especially towards the end. It’s also good to see Douglas Booth really sinking his teeth into a role. In some movies it’s felt he’s mainly been there to be pretty, but here he brings a nice theatricality and hint of menace to real-life music hall star, Dan Leno.

The movie also has a good ending, as even if you figure out where it’s heading it’s nicely handled and retains tension thanks to not just being about who the killer is, but what Kildare is going to do about. However, it’s not quite the crescendo it could have been if what led up to it had pulled together better.

What’s also intriguing – and still unusual – is that several of the lead characters may be LGBT. As it’s set in Victorian times, no one comes right out and says it, but there are hints towards the fact Dan Leno, Lizzie, Kildare and his sergeant, George Flood (Daniel Mays), are probably not straight. Some viewers will undoubtedly feel frustrated by the fact that none of this is ever fully resolved, and the film does sometimes feel like it’s being more squeamish about this than it needs to be, especially as hidden sexualities is thematically important to the movie. Even so it’s unusual for a mainstream movie to be based around so many potentially LGBT characters, from Kildare – whose career was derailed by possibly true insinuations he liked men – to the potentially asexual (or lesbian) Lizzie. It’s just a shame it couldn’t be a little more upfront about it.

Overall Verdict: The Limehouse Golem is close to being a great slice of Victorian murder mystery, but its ingredients – from the direction to the way it handles the sexuality of its characters – don’t quite come together in the way they might have.

Reviewer: Tim Isaac

Special Features:
‘Making The Limehouse Golem’ Featurette

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Dunkirk (Blu-ray Review)

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Starring: Fionn Whitehead, Tom Hardy, Mark Rylance, Kenneth Branagh, Cillian Murphy
Directed By: Christopher Nolan
Running Time: 106 Minutes
BBFC Certificate: 12
UK Release Date: December 18th 2017

Our Score

Christopher Nolan is one of the few directors who can pretty much make any movie he wants. Thanks to the success of unconventional big budget movies such as Interstellar and Inception – and of course The Dark Knight trilogy – Warner Bros. trusts him to deliver. On the surface Dunkirk seems a more straightforward proposition as it’s a World War II movie, but as this is Nolan, he’s not going to make a war film quite like anyone else.

For a start there’s remarkably little dialogue and while there are main characters, we learn comparatively little about them. Likewise, while it’s about an incredibly famous event, it’s not interested in being an exposition-heavy historical overview, complete with officers pushing little boats around a war-room map to explain to us what’s going on. Instead it’s a film that wants to create a sense of realism about the events it’s talking about. It also has an almost puzzle-box nature – three intercut stories each taking place at a slightly different time – helping to create a sense of the chaos and uncertainty for those caught up in the events of late Spring 1940. [Read more…]

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The Dark Tower (Blu-ray Review)

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Starring: Idris Elba, Matthew McConaughey, Tom Taylor, Jackie Earle Haley, Katheryn Winnick
Directed By: Nikolaj Arcel
Running Time: 95 mins
BBFC Certificate: 12
UK Release Date: December 11th 2017 (UK)

Our Score

It’s a movie 10-years in the making (at least this attempt took 10 year), but when it arrived in cinemas The Dark Tower was met with negative reviews and muted box office. It currently has a pretty abysmal 16% on RottenTomatoes and just 5.9/10 from viewers on IMDB. So is it really that bad? No, it’s not, but its easy to understand why it’s had such bad reactions.

The film focuses on teenager Jake (Tom Taylor), who’s been having strange visions of a giant tower at the centre of the universe and the ‘Man In Black’ (Matthew McConaughey), who’s determined to destroy it. While those around him are beginning to think Jake is becoming unhinged, the teen discovers what he’s been seeing is real. [Read more…]

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Strike: The Cuckoo’s Calling (DVD Review)

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Starring: Tom Burke, Holliday Grainger, Tara Fitzgerald, Martin Shaw
Directed By: Michael Keillor
Running Time: 180 mins
BBFC Certificate: 15
UK Release Date: November 27th 2017 (UK)

Our Score

Apparently, the BBC enquired about the rights to Robert Galbraith’s novel, The Cuckoo’s Calling, before it was revealed that Galbraith was actually a pseudonym of JK Rowling. However, it’s likely their plans for a TV version changed once they realised the interest that would be generated by the connection to the Harry Potter author.

This year we got five episodes of ‘Strike’, the first three of which adapted The Cuckoo’s Calling, and the other two The Silkworm. This DVD just contains the former, introducing us to private eye Cormoran Strike (Tom Burke) – an injured war veteran (he lost part of his leg in Afghanistan), who’s swimming in debt and sleeping in his office.

He’s hired to look into the death of model Lula Landry. Although officially classified a suicide, her brother thinks it was murder. At the same time Cormoran also picks up a Girl Friday in the form of temp secretary, Robin (Holliday Grainger), who turns out to be more useful than the gumshoe expected.

As Strike looks further into the case, things get increasingly dangerous.

Things would probably have been better for The Cuckoo’s Calling if the aura of Rowling didn’t hang over it. Rather like mini-series adaptation of her previous book, The Casual Vacancy, it brings a weight of expectation that it would be difficult to live up to. With Strike, we have a decent new TV detective, but it feels a bit disappointing as it’s nothing we haven’t seen many times before. Indeed, the character of Strike is pretty much a pulp novel cliché transplanted into the body of a 21st Century man. Thankfully he’s given charming life by the talented and genial Tom Burke. Holliday Grainger also gives it her all as his sidekick, but to be honest she’s not given a vast amount to do.

I also wonder whether if it wasn’t for the aura of Rowling, The Cuckoo’s Calling would have been given a shorter, sharper adaptation. Spreading it out over three episodes stretches the plot out quite thinly, particularly because it’s not the most enthralling, intricate mystery the world has ever seen. Two episodes would have been more than enough to do it justice, as without the Rowling/Galbraith prose to keep you hooked, the plot itself isn’t all that different to many other mysteries and has to be stretched out over three hours.

I know I’m sounding pretty negative, which I don’t mean to. It’s just that with the talent on display here, not least from the actors, this could have been more than it is. Even stretched out over three hours it’s entertaining and keeps you pulled in, but with more thought and intensity it could have brought out both the humour and the dark edges far more than it does.

What it undoubtedly does is work as a decent pilot for what could become a really good detective series. There’s enough here to make the viewer want to see more, even if they may wish The Cuckoo’s Calling itself was at least equal to the sum of its parts.

Overall Verdict: Perhaps a little too in thrall to its superstar author, but The Cuckoo’s Calling is a watchable first TV adventure for private eye Cormoran Strike.

Reviewer: Tim Isaac

Special Features:
Featurette

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