Dr. Alfred Jones (Ewan McGregor) is a buttoned down man living a buttoned down life. He works as a scientist at the Department Of Agriculture & Fisheries, working on projects that will only be of interest to a tiny few fishermen and wishes nothing more than to be left alone to get on with his studies. Outside his job his marriage is stuck in a rut, where it feels like things have reached an end, but nobody wants to say it.

Things begin to chance when he’s forced to go to a meeting with Harriet (Emily Blunt), who looks after the UK holdings of a ridiculously wealthy sheikh (Amr Waked). The sheikh has a dream – to bring salmon fishing to the Yemen. Without spending any time thinking about it, Fred brands the project ludicrous and decides the sort of person who’d want to do must be incredibly selfish, putting their passions ahead of their people.

However when the Prime Minister’s press secretary (Kristin Scott Thomas) decides salmon fishing in the Yemen is the feel-good middle-east story of UK-Arab co-operation that’s needed after more bad news from Afghanistan, Fred is pretty much forced to start working on the sheikh’s dream. He soon discovers that the Yemeni leader isn’t the arrogant man with more money than sense that he’d expected, and as he delves deeper into the project, he realises that bringing fish to the desert may just be possible, and that with a little bit of a leap of faith, it’s could be about more than just one man’s £50 million hobby. And then there’s Harriet, who Fred slowly falls for, but with any possible romance between them complicated by her three-week-boyfriend having been deployed to Afghanistan.

As Salmon Fishing In The Yemen comes from the director of Dear John and Chocolat, Lasse Hallstrom, you might expect this to be overly sentimental tosh. However many of Hallstrom’s films, such as Cider House Rules and What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, do have a bit of an edge to them in amongst the syrup, and that’s true here. He’s helped in that by a script from Slumdog Millionaire and 127 Hours’ Simon Beaufoy, which may not completely overcome some of the issues with bringing Paul Torday’s novel to the screen, but has enough meat to raise this above your run of the mill rom-com – even if Hallstrom can’t resist dolloping on plenty of corn.

Perhaps the film’s boldest but most successful gamble is making McGregor’s Fred Jones a bit of an ass. Early on I was wondering whether the film was going to fall flat due to Fred going beyond just being a small man living a small life and into him being a bit of an arrogant prig. His early dealings with Blunt’s Harriet are prickly and I started to dislike his dismissive egotism, but oddly this works extremely well when Fred starts off on his journey to becoming a bigger and better man. It becomes a real journey for him, and thanks to a strong performance from McGregor there’s something personal at stake by the time the movie ends. It doesn’t hurt either that even when Fred’s an ass, he has a good sense of humour.

Blunt and Kirstin Scott Thomas also put their all in, with the latter in particular going full force as the never take ‘no’ for an answer press secretary. However it’s Amr Waked as Sheikh Muhammed who’s the most interesting character. Although he sometimes veers too close to being a generic mystical foreigner who must teach the blinded westerners how to see again, he charts an interesting course of a man with a grand vision that’s perhaps too big for others, and even himself sometimes, to see.

The movie’s politics are sometimes a tad muddy, and the film, unlike the book, never really gets a handle on the fact there’s a farcical quality to the central idea of taking salmon to the Yemen. By the end it wants us to cheer the idea of fish swimming upstream by relating it to the situation of the characters, in the hopes you’ll ignore the fact they’ve just spent £50 million on something that they never give a good reason for. There’s talk of helping the locals and big visions, but it never really deals with it properly.

However what does work is the central relationship between McGregor and Blunt, who come together for a very British romance of having unspoken feelings and wanting to do the right thing, while not make things difficult for anyone else. It becomes one of the film’s more interesting questions, whether the ‘right’ thing is what’s right for you, right for others involved or what you feel you ought to do?

By the end it does all get rather sentimental but it works and puts a smile on your face. If you’re in need of a decent date movie, Salmon Fishing In The Yemen certainly fits the bill.

Overall Verdict: Lasse Hallstrom might not be able to resist ladling on the syrup, but McGregor and Blunt are great and their romance works, even if there are still a few issues with the central idea of salmon fishing in the Yemen.

Reviewer: Tim Isaac

At some point in a filmmaker’s career, if he’s had enough exposure and been successful at the box office, people will start referring to their films as carrying his or her “stamp”. A stamp is that collection of qualities that let you know that the film in question has been crafted by a certain brain. For example, disarmingly natural but effective thrillers with clever cinematic tricks to draw the audience in? That’s what you’d call a Hitchcock. Heavily stylised but insightful think-pieces that comment on man’s position in a deteriorating society? Kubrick’s in the house.

Of course it’s not always a good thing. Messily executed mish-mash of explosions and shallow, unlikable characters? Good evening, Michael Bay. Pretentious, unwatchable guff that genuinely makes you hate cinema a bit? M. Night Shyamalan at your service. The reason I bring this up is because, for all the right reasons, Cabin In The Woods has got Joss Whedon written all over it.

For those of you unfamiliar with the man, Joss Whedon is, without hint of exaggeration, something of a living deity amongst what you might call “The Geek Fraternity”. He had early mainstream success as the writer of the original Toy Story movie and is also helming this summer’s superhero extravaganza, The Avengers. However his real ascension came in 1996 when he resurrected his very first project, modestly successful horror-comedy Buffy The Vampire Slayer, and turned it into arguably one of the most influential TV series of all time. Buffy led to a revolution in feminism on television (Charmed, Dark Angel, Alias and many more owe a huge debt to Whedon and his creation) and also birthed a trend of subverting audience expectations. It is this latter philosophy around which Cabin In The Woods bases its entire M.O.

Co-written by Whedon and Cloverfield writer/former Buffy scribe Drew Goddard (who also directs), Cabin In The Woods tells the story of 5 high-schoolers who take a trip out to a remote log cabin and are subsequently attacked by something hideous. If you’ve been paying attention for the last…say, 30 years of cinema, you may have heard that one before, but there’s much, much more to it than that. Ever watched a horror film and shouted “Why would you do that?” at the seemingly idiotic characters on-screen? Well Cabin In The Woods attempts to answer that question, and it succeeds complete.

Like any good deconstruction, the film sets up a hatful of clichés to knock down, beginning with the characters themselves. You have the jock (Chris Hemsworth), the prom-queen (Anna Hutchinson), the stoner (Fran Kranz), the nice-guy (Jesse Williams) and the shy-girl (Kristen Connelly). Thrown in for good measure, you also have the creepy remote gas station owner, and some zombies.

Beyond that, however, it’s quite difficult to describe the story in much greater detail without spoiling the entire experience. Needless to say, the group find themselves in the traditional life-threatening situation, but the focus is on the “Why” of it all. Why, when faced with an “us or them” survival situation, why do the kids decide to split up? Why is it that having sex in this situation almost always leads to disaster? The answers provided here are clever, well-executed and, at times, laugh out loud funny.

The main ensemble cast play up to every ridiculous decision put their way and are all endearing enough to miss them when they get inevitably picked off, but the real kudos must go to what I will have to call, in order to avoid spoilers, the “support ensemble”. Two gentlemen, whose roles can’t really be discussed here, but who are played to perfection by Richard Jenkins and Bradley Whitford, make superb workaday counterpoints to the madness unfolding around them, and are brilliantly supported by others including former Buffy/Angel alumni Amy Acker and Tom Lenk.

Post-modern deconstructions are often a risky business. There’s always the chance that it will come off a little too “wink-wink, nudge-nudge” and end up alienating the audience with smugness. Cabin In The Woods steers expertly around this by injecting just the right balance of humour, gore and smart observation into what could be considered the ultimate clapped-out genre. There are so many brilliant little touches in this film that it warrants going back and watching cookie-cutter stuff like the Urban Legend and Wrong Turn series just to see if the answers posed by Whedon and Goddard match up across the genre. Not only that, but towards its conclusion the film almost turns to the audience and says “Hey you! Yes you, you sick bastards, why do you even get pleasure out of watching this kind of suffering, fictitious though it may be? Why do we as a society seem to get off on this?”

In short, this does for the “monsters in the woods” genre what Scream did for “murderer in the house”, and then some. But where that saga was more of a critique of a well worn story, this is both dissection and glorious homage. In a very real way it’s the spiritual successor to Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead series and perhaps the most fun you’ll have at the cinema all year.

Overall Verdict: At once an acutely observed essay on cinematic conventions and a love-letter to pure gore-filled enjoyment. Cabin In The Woods is nothing short of a satirical masterpiece, expertly combining comedy, insight and thrills into an immensely enjoyable and sometimes mind-blowing sideways look at the modern horror film. Think you know the story? Watch this film. Think again.

Reviewer: Alex Hall

Just picture it – writer goes to see producer and says I have an idea for a movie, “Let’s base it on a game, say Battleship. We’ll make the enemy Aliens (Transformers style), set it in Pearl Harbor – with our allies being the Japanese, of all people – and let’s debut the worlds biggest pop star in her movie debut! You can think of it as Top Gun meets Independence Day!” Producer proceeds to mentally count the cash he thinks he’ll make.

This is basically the premise of one of the most anticipated films of the year – which to be honest isn’t a great state of affairs, if this is all Hollywood can deliver. That said, with an estimated budget of over $200M, you have to hope it’ll do better than last years’ two alien invasion efforts, Skyline and Battle Los Angeles.

In Battleship, Aliens have decided to visit Earth due to our scientists messaging another planet that’s similar to our homeworld and could possibly sustain life. No actual proper explanation is given as to why they are here, but it is insinuated that they are a war faring species. The Aliens themselves look interesting, almost appearing half human and half amphibian, and they have an aversion to bright sunlight – which will obviously come in handy at a later stage for our patriotic American heroes

Following the usual formula, the aliens arrive and worldwide panic ensues, showing us the reactions of capitals across the world, including recent London riot footage. There’s also plenty of paranoia – is the technology North Korean? However surprise surprise, it is left to the American fleet, along with some Japanese officers (so it’s at least nominally international), to save the world from imminent destruction.

For the human element you can add in two handsome brothers, both naval officers, played by Taylor Kitsch and Alexander Skarsgard. There’s also the always dependable Liam Neeson as Admiral Shane, Brooklyn Decker as the love interest (who also happens to be Admiral Shane’s daughter), and Rihanna as the wise cracking, gun toting, Raikes.

The problem with the film is that it suffers from every cliché imaginable. The dialogue is dire and every hoary old war movie chestnut is thrown in, with everyone from battle amputees to WW2 veterans (reminiscent of Space Cowboys) all doing their bit for Uncle Sam. There’s nothing intrinsically wrong with a bit of patriotism, but here it’s being used in place of a plot with at least a nod to originality and as a cheap way to try and artificially add emotional resonance. I almost expected to see Cher sitting astride one of the ships’ guns singing ‘If I Could Turn Back Time’, which to be honest wouldn’t have been out of place with the rock soundtrack underscoring most of the battle scenes.

One of the major inconsistencies is that the aliens themselves have far superior technology, but inexplicably don’t attack the final battleship or anyone unarmed initially – thus leading them to their inevitable downfall (sorry if you feel that was a spoiler, but did you really expect the film to end with aliens having taken over Earth and humanity either dead or enslaved?). It would appear these extra-terrestrials have spent so much time on their weaponry that they don’t even understand rudimentary war strategy.

In its favour the film does often have some amusing scenes, even if the humour is often outweighed by the unintentional laughs when the patriotic speeches spew forth. At times the film plays a bit like Independence Day with amazing special effects including the ripping apart of ships and especially the wrecking balls, but it fails partly due to the lack of a charismatic lead such as Will Smith. The strongest and most believable characters are Liam Neeson, Alexander Skarsgard and, surprisingly, Rihanna, whilst Taylor Kitsch delivers yet another turkey after John Carter.

Will the rookie played by Kitsch get Liam Neeson’s permission to marry his daughter? Will the Aliens be defeated? What do you think?

Overall Verdict: Amazing special effects and it will be a massive hit Stateside, but with too many clichés and inconsistencies, yet another blockbuster fails to deliver. If you want to see a ship sinking watch Titanic, and if we are going to have a good alien film this year, let’s hope Prometheus delivers!

Reviewer: Stephen Sclater

The antihero can be a difficult thing to pull off. If your protagonist is doing things that would normally be considered the province of the villain, you need to work extra hard to make the audience empathise with them or see them as heroic. You can get round it with something like someone’s family being attacked so they have a reason to go out for revenge, but what if your ‘hero’ is actually a bit of an asshole?

That’s what we have in Headhunters, but it actually manages to make it work, which is no small achievement.

The film’s based on a book by Norwegian author Jo Nesbo – best known for his Harry Hole books – and comes along as part of the current wave of interest in Scandinavian thrillers. Roger Brown (Aksel Hennie) works as a corporate Headhunter. Despite his high-powered job and being rather arrogant, he’s a very insecure fellow (which makes more sense than it might appear). He feels he’s too short, not handsome enough and generally inadequate to keep his beautiful wife Diana (Synnove Macody Lund) by his side. As a result he supplements his income by stealing valuable paintings and replacing them with knock-offs.

This allows him to maintain a lifestyle that would otherwise be beyond his means, but which he feels he needs so that his wife can have everything she might want. And he does all this despite the fact he’s actually cheating on his spouse. Like I said, he’s actually a bit of an ass (and it doesn’t help that actor Aksel Hennie look oddly like the love child of Ron Weasley and Vladimir Putin).

Roger has turned robbery into a refined art, but with the bills stacking up, he needs a big score. He thinks he’s found one when he’s introduced to Clas Greve (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau), who he is told owns an incredibly valuable painting by Rubens, which was thought lost after the Nazis looted it during World War II. Roger lures Clas in with the promise of a top job, while actually using the info he gleans from their meeting to find a good time to rob him. However Clas is not your usual marks, as he’s ex-military with a speciality in tracking people.

Before he knows it, Roger is massively out of his depth in an ever deepening conspiracy that puts not only his own life at serious risk, but also that of everyone around him, and where art theft is the last thing on anyone’s mind.

I have no doubt that Headhunters will fail for some people because they won’t be able to get past the fact Roger is an ass. While his insecurity and sense of humour make him somewhat sympathetic, there’s nevertheless a sense of chickens coming home to roost and Roger being someone it’s difficult to 100% root for. Indeed one of the things the movie plays with is whether Roger’s wife wants him dead, and it sets thing up so that if she does, it seems as justified as it is the ultimate betrayal.

It’s a character balance the film doesn’t always pull off, especially when innocent people start dying. It’s also tough to know at the end if the idea of redemption is more illusionary than real – all the symbols are there of somebody being brought through the fire to a new self-awareness, but it’s difficult to tell whether Roger genuinely becomes less of a fool or not. However the ride is entertaining, the plot ever twisting, and while it is essentially sleight of hand, Headhunters does a good job of continually pulling the rug out from under what you think is happening.

The film is helped tremendously by Nikolaj Coster-Waldau as Clas, who is as charming as he is scary. Indeed, it’s his character who ultimately makes the film work. The reason for that is that while Roger may be an ass, he’s more misguided than evil, while Clas is all charm and attractiveness on the surface, hiding an utter single-minded ruthlessness. They are opposites and it’s this character dynamic that makes the film succeed. It’s a miracle it does, as pitted against virtually anyone else it would be tough to care what happened to Roger. It doesn’t hurt either that the movie has a sense of humour and offers a few decent laughs, becoming more and more a black comedy as it goes on.

I’d quite like to know whether Scandinavia has been making these fun thrillers for years and we’re only paying attention now, or whether the likes of Dragon Tattoo and The Killing have allowed a lot more to be made. Either way, while not every thriller coming out of Scandinavia is a masterpiece, Headhunters is great fun.

Overall Verdict: A fun, entertaining knot of a thriller which pull off the tough feat of working solely due to the mix of personalities.

Reviewer: Tim Isaac

 

What is it with Hollywood and unimaginative film titles? In this case it can be forgiven as it refers to a song by the Talking Heads, and not some ill thought out, Channel 5 afternoon film drama. I suppose ‘Ex Rockstar Turned Nazi Hunter’, or ‘Cheyenne’s Odyssey’ might have been too obvious.

This Must Be The Place played in competition at the Cannes Film Festival 2011, and is certainly quirky enough to have gone down well. The film is directed by Paolo Sorrentino (his first English language film, having won the Cannes Prix Du Jury in 2008 with Il Divo) and stars the incredible talent that is Sean Penn.

He plays central character Cheyenne, a 50-year-old Goth who is 30 years retired from the music industry (due to the trauma suffered after the death of two children who took his depressive lyrics too seriously). Cheyenne lives off the money made from his group, Cheyenne and The Fellows (cheekily referencing Siouxsie and The Banshees), which affords him all the luxuries he wants, including playing the stock market.

He now lives in idyllic surroundings in a mansion in Dublin, married to his quirky firefighter wife (played compassionately by Frances McDormand) and also has a few good friends around him. Having previously lived life to excess, fuelled by drink, drugs and having lived through past trauma, he now cuts a sorrowful figure as a depressed ex Rock Star/Goth, with zero lust for life.

Suddenly Cheyenne receives news that his father’s health is ailing and he has to visit America. He gets there too late but decides to follow his father’s life cause and track down a Nazi war criminal. Gone are the days of Mickey Spillane – we are now faced with a gothic Robert-Smith-of-The-Cure-lookalike, always dressed in black, melancholically travelling across America on his own personal mission, trailing his suitcase on wheels behind while seeking justice for his father. It is evident that the journey will be life changing for Cheyenne. During the odyssey he begins to grow as a person. He starts to drink, smoke and even drives a car for the first time in 30 years, slowly coming to terms with his past and his relationship with his father.

What drives the film is Penn’s central performance. As expected he throws everything into the role. Sometimes childish, sometimes pathetic and sometimes very sharp, Penn delves into the part with gusto. With his nervous tick of blowing his hair and his ucertain laugh, we end up loving the flawed character. At times he seems to be a victim of his success and excesses, as well as being a complete misfit, but at others Cheyenne comes out his repression and explodes with either a vindictive act or outburst, which make for rare but very powerful scenes. Cheyenne Ozzy Osbourne’s his way through the film, often appearing neither here nor there, but always has an awareness despite his maudlin appearance.

Overall Verdict: A fantastic performance by Penn and the supporting cast, an unusual plot, quirky characters, great soundtrack and score. However the film does seem overlong and a little fractured at times and has the pace of the perceived thought processes of Cheyenne’s mind.

Reviewer: Stephen Sclater

 

While adolescence is one of cinema’s favourite subjects (and for various reasons a virtual obsession in gay and lesbian cinema), few films find a balance that feels as if it’s getting to the truth about ‘coming of age’. Bavo Defurne’s North Sea Texas does just that, telling a familiar story yet managing to make it feel fresh, acutely observed and charming. Much of this comes from evoking a strong sense of the1970s, great cinematography and excellent performances from a mostly inexperienced cast. It doesn’t hurt either that the strong characters avoid clichés.

Pim (Jelle Florizoone) is a teenager living with his floozy former beauty queen mother in a Belgian coastal town. His mother is more interested in how Pim makes her feel than the boy himself, although this does give him a small amount of freedom to lust after his next door neighbour, Gino (Mathias Vergels). Teenage hijinks turns into first love for Pim as he and Gino embark on a relationship, but heartbreak’s not far off when Gino decides to get a girlfriend. A silver lining arrives in the form of handsome carney Zoltan (Thomas Coumans), who rents a room from Pim’s mother. Pim starts to flirt with him, as much to get back at Gino and his mum as from a genuine attraction, but further pain isn’t far off.

Films about teens starting to express their sexuality have a tendency to view that as the only important thing in a gay adolescent’s life (probably because it’s something that looms so large in gay people’s lives after the fact), but North Sea Texas realises it’s just one thing in the melting pot of youth – a vital part but not the only thing. Indeed it’s almost backwards to most film’s about gay youngsters, as Pim seems one of the few people around with his head screwed on right and who actually knows what he wants – he is who he is and has been since he was a little boy (collecting things that are special to him in a secret box) and that never changes.

He has angst, but it’s caused more by other people’s inability to be honest about themselves than any lack of self-awareness on his part – something that’s as true of Pim’s mother as it is of Gino. While Gino is keen to see his relationship with Pim as being part of a phase and just two young guys letting off sexual steam, Pim himself never questions his sexuality. It’s a refreshing thing to see in a subgenre that’s often far too overwrought for its own good – it may be set in the 70s, but Pim is a rather 21st Century gay cinema hero.

With strong performances, great characters and some wonderful seascapes, it’s a film with real charm. Jelle Florizoone as Pim is a real find, with a wonderful mix of innocence and strength. Also excellent is Nina Marie Kortekaas as Gino’s younger sister, who harbours a crush on Pim.

Director Bavo Defurne is admired by many for the short films on gay and lesbian themes he made in the 90s. It’s taken a long time for us to get a feature length movie from him, but it’s been worth the wait. Defurne is a filmmaker with a real voice and a sharp eye, creating a world that feels at once mundane and gritty, while also being special and bright. It’s a world that’s depressed and yet has promise for the future, or at least it does as seen through the eyes of Pim.

Overall Verdict: I can easily see this becoming a bit of a gay cinema fave, as it’s charming, entertaining, sweet, moving and has a strong romantic streak. A wonderful film that understands youth far better than most.

Reviewer: Tim Isaac