The Killer

“I’m not exceptional…just apart”

An unnamed assassin waits in the makeshift lair of a half-renovated office, watching Paris wake up through a tarpaulin draped hole masquerading as a window. The words quoted above, borrowed from someone else, act as his introduction and his confession. Name expunged, history scored clean, he is a man whose actions and thoughts are plunged into the light of The Killer, the latest from David Fincher.

From Thief, to Heat and to Drive, American crime films have formed the trope of the outsider. A man, whose life in the underbelly is pathology for a deeper sickness. One of isolation from a society which affords no connection. Outlaws, hewn from the pulp churn of Westerns, who look into the follies of modernity. Their crimes are attempts to rebel against and reconcile with a system standing apart from them. The killer is not like these anti-heroes. He is an antagonistic force ripping through the world, bound into the lithe and lupine form of Michael Fassbender, whose monologues reveal a man unashamed and unrepentant of what he is.

What shakes the Killer is when the world, so dispassionately tracked through a rifle lens, steps into his lair. The risk of failure is a constant hazard to be planned for in the Killer’s career-path. Now his latest job has left a target alive, forcing the Killer onto a course of extreme prejudice to ensure his own survival.

The opening of The Killer is the film in microcosm. A sequence of executions, dissonantly reduced to a puzzle, while the clear shadow of failure lingers on. The Killer, echoing the momentum of Jason Bourne across the four films, paces out a plan. The compulsion to watch is to see the trick unfold, to witness the slights of hand of the Killer as inevitable set-backs spark redundancies and desperate improvisation.  Fincher delights in displaying these puzzles. Repeating the “mission” framework of Paris over and again as the Killer, now ostracised, formulates his own bloody tasks. Fincher, and his eye for detail, turns each part into a display of street magic. Hints, slotted between the Killer’s sultry monologues, are flicked before the eye until the parts form into a whole. Yet the Killer is not a super-man. Readily acknowledging his own shortcomings before a dismal failure in Paris, the man is both predator and prey whose own fragility in a locked game of death never fades away.

The Killer himself holds no qualms of what he is, and despite embers of real humanity, Fincher ensures that the character’s capacity for evil never gutters out. Fassbender’s physicality and natural charm, even if it is moulded around a professional killer, creates a level of magnetism. The real draw of the Killer is the audience’s voyeurism. From Se7en to Gone Girl, Fincher’s finds subject material which latches onto the viewer’s need to see the darkness. The killer is an usher into a vicarious life of misdeeds which audiences long to explore.

Echoing the anonymous man at its centre, The Killer is ponderous and introverted, slow to build to each small summit before its final subdued crescendo. Viewers will know, within the opening act in Paris, whether they wish to continue with The Killer. Those who continue to watch will find a story worth their effort.

Fincher has honed over his works an eye that at first seems dispassionate. Detached and cold but still able to convey sub-text and emotions to the viewer. The Killer is Fincher at his most forensic. Befitting the antagonist, no detail is omitted from the camera’s glare. Imitating the twilight world of the killer, the film has the empty ambiance of purgatory, subdued and distanced even in the warm and buzzing climes of Costa Rica. Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross deliver a soundtrack whose eerie synthetic sounds bleed into the Killer’s dark odyssey, interspersed by samples from The Smiths as the Killer drowns out his surroundings and his actions. Fassbender gives an excellent performance in a film engineered to be a star vehicle. He exceeds the challenge set by the limitations of his character to imbibe the film with a convincing weight to a cold and ultimately evil man.

The Killer is out now on Netflix.

By Saul Shimmin

Cutter’s Way

Womanising deadbeat Richard Bone stumbles upon a shadowed man dumping something during a stormy night. Daylight breaks and Richard is both the sole witness and sole suspect in the murder of a teenage girl. Fiesta has come to the idyllic Santa Barbara and during the Founder Day’s parade, Bone sees the shadowed man as none other than a leading member of the town. Only Bone’s friend, Alex Cutter, sets about to solve the murder.

In what is the highest form of praise, Cutter’s Way is unlike any film audiences may ever witness. The film begins with a hallucinatory vision of the Founder Day’s parade. Music eerily warbles as ghostly traces of flamenco dancers twist down Main Street. The ethereal procession is a vision from the deepest fever, a sign of passing as Cutter’s Way will take the established and twist it upon its head. Time, change and subversion are the three themes which hallmark the film. The plot begins with the noir of the detective novel. In its elements, the film’s is a homage to Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe. Swap Los Angeles for Santa Barbara and Alex Cutter fits the role of the gumshoe, the flawed white knight who finds a conspiracy among the rich hiding in the pleasant hills above the valley. For its clear descent into film noir, Cutter’s Way rapidly charts onto its own course. The murder is quickly forgotten, discarded like the victim’s body, with only her surviving sister and Alex Cutter continuing the investigation. Cutter is far from the valiant detective. Cutter is a traumatised veteran, suffering from multiple disabilities and all-consuming alcoholism whose personal demons have frozen his wife Mo and best friend Bone in a stasis of co-dependency.

Beginning with pale echoes of the future parade, Cutter’s Way is an unreliable tangle of narration. A murder that matters to almost no one, while hazy memories and tenuous scraps link a terrible crime to a powerful man. Cutter’s own desire to investigate the killing is not honest. His fixation comes from panacea, not justice. Scarred by the world, Cutter uses the murder as justification for his deeply pessimistic worldview, and as a distraction from his alcoholism. The supposed murderer, an oil magnate, is a shadow whose name is mentioned by others while he is a negative space, his absence diffusing into a constant presence. The suspect is perceived as a devil by some, a community pillar by others. Events and histories pass the viewer subjectively. The viewer is allowed into an abrupt chapter of others’ lives. Details are small and personal, backstories fumbled at with little exposition while events can unfold indirectly or from the character’s perspective. Events may or may not be accidental, while different histories of the same man unfold and the intentions of Cutter, Bone and Mo in their love triangle remain murky. All that can be known is that Bone and Mo jointly mourn a man who never came home from Vietnam.

For a detective film, the story is not about the murder. The killing is a call to change, morphing into a looming death of the self for Cutter and Bone. Bone is a womaniser who never accepts responsibility for his life or his actions. Cutter is a deeply wounded man who has never accepted his alcoholism. Both are using the other to live out a puppet show of denial, with Mo caught between them, acting as lover, object of desire, and mother-figure. The crime is simply a crime, yet it stirs within each man an arc, the question to change or die. The pair’s individual confrontation with change coincides with a tide of societal transformation. The fading of the 1970’s, and with it the waning counterculture. In the place of hippie movement stands the emboldened corporatism of the 1980’s, empowering a man both Bone and Cutter are investigating.

Cutter’s Way should also be seen for its central performances. Jeff Bridges is exceptional as smooth womaniser Richard Bone, at times both calculating yet boyishly innocent against the world. His opposite, Alex Cutter, is portrayed by John Heard in what is one of the best cinematic performances yet recorded. The character comes across as a sad stereotype, a caricature of a man who is funny yet unlikeable. Given time with Cutter, the viewer sees how wounded Cutter is, how flawed and stubborn Cutter remains despite his looming destruction. Yet Cutter also has the clearest honour of all, willing to face oblivion for his own choices. Heard’s delivery turn the character into a gripping natural force of both good and chaos which captures every ounce of the audience’s attention. Audiences of my generation may be shocked to recognise Heard as the father of the mischievous Kevin from the first two Home Alone films. Heard really should have received far more praise, and far more roles, before his death.

Czech-born director Ivan Passer created a beautiful film in Cutter’s Way. The film captures the spirit of coastal California while also examining the fraying of the counterculture. From visual effects to scene composition and framing, Passer’s visual structure uses ambiguity to make the viewer question and engage even further with events.

Cutter’s Way was given little support by United Artists on first release, but did receive critical acclaim and a second, more widespread, release. Unlike other films of the 1970s and 1980’s which were saved from obscurity by critics, Cutter’s Way remains hidden, left to flounder by United Artists. I stumbled across the film as part of a BFI season as a young Jeff Bridges presided in a thumbnail. Please do see Cutter’s Way, it is far better than my words can describe and should be up there with the greats of the genre.

By Saul Shimmin

The Many Saints of Newark

From Coppola’s The Godfather to Scorcese’s Goodfellas, pop culture has spent decades lionising the mafia man and lamenting his downfall. In the 1990’s, David Chase created The Sopranos, a seminal television series about the New Jersey underworld which became a defining part of the 2000s. The HBO show peeled back the façade of honour and restraint, revealing the mafia to be an internecine pit of the sociopathic, the psychotic and misogynistic.

Chase has returned to The Sopranos through The Many of Saints Newark. The film charts the tale of Dickie Moltisanti, father of the major Sopranos’ character Christopher Moltisanti. Never visible during The Sopranos, Dickie is a force throughout the show. The man is present through his absence on both his son Christopher and nephew Tony Soprano, the protagonist of the series. Set before The Sopranos, the new film tracks the years from the 1960’s into the 1970’s, seen through Dickie Moltisanti and the New Jersey mob. The life of Dickie is another dissection of the wise guy, peeling back the charm and splendour to reveal nothing more than greed, impulse, and violence. In his journey through the decade, Dickie hits the tolerance of his own dissonance as misdeeds mounts. Dickie’s visible struggle against his true self pulls at the viewer’s own dissonance, the projection of the self against the personal fear of being a monster too.  

In Dickie, there is also the empathy of the tragic hero. During The Sopranos, Tony remembers Dickie as his hero, a guide who set Tony upon the path into the mafia. Tony, as the series progressed, is revealed to be a force which consumes, hurts, or kills everything within his orbit.  The years pass during The Many of Saints of Newark and Tony echoes through Dickie as Dickie also harms everything around him. During Dickie’s mounting existential crisis, a young Tony Soprano grows into maturity, wavering between the “wrong” and “right” path, symbolised by his uncle Junior Soprano and his uncle Dickie. Combined with Dickie’s interaction with his father and his own uncle, Tony and Dickie are framed as men chained in a cycle of violence and crime. For in the end, Tony’s hero was the destroyer of his personal world just like Tony.

Through it setting, The Many Saints of Newark also hosts a sub-plot around racial exploitation and black liberation within the New Jersey underground. The broader themes of this sub-plot resonates in today’s world as racial violence and discrimination remain.

The Many Saints of Newark is distant enough to be appreciated as a standalone film for newcomers. However, an understanding of the first three seasons of The Sopranos is needed to grasp the deeper details and twists of The Many Saints of New York. A foreknowledge of The Sopranos shifts The Many Saints of New York into a generational tragedy, sealing the fates of Tony Soprano and Chrisopher Moltisanti. It this cascade of misfortune which reveals the mafia family as a murderous collective strangling itself through intrigue. The Many Saints of New York is a prologue to The Sopranos and it release after El Camino shows a trend of streamers raiding existing I.Ps to release new content. A spin-off or an extra chapter, set in worlds such as The Sopranos or Breaking Bad is guaranteed to provide a return both in cinema tickets and subscribers.  

The acting throughout The Many Saints of Newark is exceptional. A veteran cast of actors deliver faithful performances for existing characters while breathing life into new members of the New Jersey underworld. Michael Gandolfini delivers a terrific performance as a younger version of his father James for the role of Tony Soprano. However it is Alessandro Nivola as Dickie Moltisanti and Leslie Odom Jr as his opposite Harold McBrayer who steal the show. Director Alan Taylor visually revives the feel of The Sopranos will also adding his own style. David Chase and Lawrence Connor have written a compelling story which neatly fits into the television show.

I highly recommend The Many Saints of Newark for any fan of The Sopranos.

By Saul Shimmin

Bullhead (Rundskop)

There is an underbelly to the Belgian cattle business, within which lies the Vanmarseneille family. Long-time users of hormones and growth supplements on their bulls; the Vanmarseneilles are pulled deeper into the complex Belgian underworld. A tentative deal with mafia and fascist elements draws painful memories for the head of the Varmarsenilles, Jacky, as both past and present crash down upon him.  

The film which brought Michael R. Roskam international acclaim and attention, Bullhead explores how people can be bound to a moment in the past. Hopped up on steroids and testosterone, protagonist Jacky is an exile in the present, disconnected from the world as his routine straddles between violence and quasi-religious suffering. The result is a haunting and unsettling display of one man’s constant suffering from a past event, while the larger community lives in a state of convenient amnesia. Having been interested in watching Bullhead since returning to Roksam’s subsequent film The Drop, the two films form into a thematic whole. Across contrasting sides between victim and perpetrator, the two films are an analysis of identity’s roots in our past and our ability to change. From the rural communities of Bullhead’s Belgium, to the blue-collar streets of The Drop’s Brooklyn, the two films underscore societal indifference to the individual’s plight. Jacky’s past is met with the amnesia he foretold at the film’s beginning. Those connected to Jacky’s past are unwilling to recognise his pain while the events of his childhood repeat once more in the film’s conclusion. In The Drop, a long-standing cold case involving a young man’s disappearance pervades the film but is met by indifference from the authorities. From colour schemes to the use of narration, Bullhead and The Drop are chiral images of each other in their structure as well.  

Bullhead slowly teases out the past as the present for the Varmansenille family slowly spiral downwards. Locked within himself for so long, Jacky’s trapped state within the past results in him eventually exploding. The subjects which Bullhead explores are truly harrowing, while Jacky himself is a tragic figure whose internal conflict drives the gnawing tension of the film. Mirroring the premise of The Drop, Bullhead focuses on characters who are desperate to escape their situation but are surrounded by callous indifference. Both Jacky and childhood friend Diederick have been shaped and remain trapped by the criminal underworld, and now exist between the mafia and the increasing attention of the police. Bullhead is difficult to endure as past and present collide, but it challenges the viewer to confront the human condition.

Matthia Schoenaerts is mesmerising as Jacky Vanmarsenille. His physical appearance has been so transformed that he will be almost unrecognisable to viewers who have watched his other films. Schoenaerts has captured the morphed physique of someone abusing hormones and steroids, while he convincingly depicts the behaviour of a deeply damaged person. Jeroen Perceval is also excellent as Jacky’s old friend Diederik. Connected to Jacky through their shared past, Diederik is a character who project both humour and pathos in equal measure. In spite of Bullhead’s dark themes, there are ample moments of black comedy comparable to Guy Ritchie’s works. Two Belgian mechanics often steal their scenes while they are providing much need comic relief.

Bullhead is available now to rent on streaming services on the U.K. Viewers who enjoyed Roksam’s The Drop in 2014 will certainly enjoy Bullhead as well.

By Saul Shimmin

Looking Back on the Drop

The Drop follows Bob Saginowski, a seemingly ordinary man who in fact works at a drop bar; a location randomly used to hold dirty money overnight. A robbery at the bar and a buried past threaten Bob’s simple life. Adapted by Dennis LeHane from his short story Animal Rescue, director Michaël R. Roskam’s subdued depiction of Brooklyn’s underbelly is the stage for a moving story about ageing, regret, and denial.

Released in 2014 and containing James Gandolfini’s last performance, The Drop received largely positive reviews. Yet Roksam’s English language debut has remained on the fringes of the noir genre, largely forgotten and denied popular acclaim. The problem for The Drop is its own subtlety. Opening with a commiseration to a man long presumed dead, the world and characters of The Drop are bound by an ever-present past. This shared history also looms over The Drop’s storyline; seeping into the background through references and conversations until eventually shaping The Drop into a narrative loop. Submerged in an ever-constant past, The Drop also sits in the hazy Brooklyn underworld where nothing is what it seems. The unreliability of what the viewer witnesses in The Drop is reflected in Bob who acts as the film’s narrator. Proclaiming himself a simple bartender, Bob’s words ring hollow as he handles dirty money at his cousin Marv’s bar, which the Chechen mafia now controls. The world of The Drop is a brutal land loaded with mystery and intrigue, where the viewer must crack the film’s puzzles alone as events spiral downwards.

From the unnamed driver in Drive to H.E.A.T’s Neil McCauley, a trope within crime films is the outsider. An individual who is completely closed off and whose involvement with crime is a sign of their social disconnect. Bob’s simple routine of work and mass at his local church is devoid of any warmth or connection. Bob’s life, as hinted by his refusal of the Sacrament during Mass, is an act of penance. Yet Bob’s penance is a form of self-denial. Unable to accept his past, Bob has shut himself off from a normal life. The relationship between Bob and Marv fleshes out their history of running a crew together before being squeezed out by the Chechens. Marv longs to return to a time when he was respected and feared, while Bob has moved on. Yet Bob has not accepted his past or his present, as The Drop shows Bob’s quiet state of denial. Marv’s struggle to reclaim his prime is reflected in The Drop’s other characters. Bob’s love interest Nadia grapples with a past of addiction and abuse, while Nadia’s former boyfriend Eric Deeds compensates his street image by claiming responsibility for a cold case murder. Wrapped up in his own denial, Bob is the only one not scrambling against the past.

The film’s strength stems from Roksam’s direction and its characters. From the colour scheme to establishing shots and scene location, Roksam convincingly renders blue-collar Brooklyn and its criminal underbelly. Roksam’s persistent use of close-ups also befits the more physical performances of the cast. Speaking to the Boston Herald during the film’s release LeHane states that his stories are built around their characters and this focus imbues The Drop with a believability. Removed from the criminal underbelly and The Drop’s characters are ordinary people, experiencing regret and frustration towards their lives. The same believability even applies to the detective who begins to investigate both Bob and Marv. Apathetic towards the robbery, Detective Torres is not motivated by a mix of curiosity and anger towards Bob; the quiet man who refuses the Sacrament at their local church.

The casting for The Drop was perfect. Both Gandolfini and Hardy are renowned physical performers which suits their respective characters. Gandolfini was LeHane’s choice for the role of Marv and he exudes the same menacing charm which immortalised Gandolfini’s performance as Tony Soprano. Combined, Gandolfini and Hardy are electrifying as they both convey so much to each other while saying little at all. Throughout The Drop Hardy slowly changes as events spiral downwards and Bob’s true personality resurfaces. Returning to The Drop, Hardy projects a constant sense of restraint, containing Bob’s true nature except for a few cracks as the pressure ratchets up. Noomi Rapace and Matthias Schoenaerts are equally excellent in their supporting roles. Both should be commended for fitting into Roksam’s depiction of Brooklyn despite neither being Anglophones.

If you have the patience for it, The Drop is worth watching. The film is a slow burn thriller which demands focus, but it boasts an engrossing depiction of a criminal underworld fleshed out with believable characters. Roksam deserves more praise for creating one of the best modern noir films to date.

By Saul Shimmin

Calm With Horses

Former amateur boxer Douglas, nicknamed Arm (Cosmo Jarvis) now works for Dympna Devers (Barry Keoghan) and the Devers clan, a local crime family in an unnamed Irish coastal town. Arm’s reluctance at being the Devers’ enforcer pits him against the crime family and threatens to engulf his young son and former partner.

The Devers’ code is a series of hollow words. Family and honour are a pretext to exploit each other and their soldiers. Arm himself is treated like a hound by Dympna and a fool by Dympna’s uncles. Despite bold talk the Devers turn on their own once their survival is even vaguely threatened. In spite of his brooding physicality, Arm is shown to be a sensitive loner whose only connection to the world, both in his past life and his current one is violence. From the violent outsider beautifully epitomised by Drive, to the rotten core of the crime family underscored by The Godfather, Calm With Horses explores well-established themes within the Crime genre. It is the morality of the film, embodied by Arm’s conscience, which distinguishes Calm With Horses from its fellow Crime classics. What the audience witnesses are horrible people, unrepentant in their actions and afforded no excuse. Regardless of rewards or threats, Arm is the unwavering good in an otherwise dark world, stamped into the narrative by his internal disdain with what he now does. Past the film’s grittiness, it is a tale of good versus evil.

An abandoned police station opposite the Devers’ home, empty commuter trains left at their final stop on a patch outside the town’s limits; the film’s unnamed town has been abandoned by both order and industry. It may not have been as extreme, but I grew up in an English town that was slowly crumbling in the same way, its zenith decades passed and content to fall further. The anonymous town of Calm With Horses could act for many places in the West, unwanted in the post-industrial age where the likes of the Devers family could easily and brazenly fill the vacuum. The concept of the Devers mirrors tales from my parents, both of whom grew up in inner-city Liverpool. From their recollection of the city during the 1960’s and 1970’s there were criminal families just like the Devers where nearly every member was a professional criminal.

Following from past work in television, Calm With Horses is a triumphant directorial debut by Nick Rowland. The film, based on the short story of the same name, was a longstanding project for Rowland since his days at film school. It is evident throughout the film that Calm With Horses was a labour of love. Filmed over 28 days, Rowland strove for a realism in his film making which also comfortably verges into the surreal and the almost fantastical through his use of perspective, lighting and a pulsating soundtrack. Rowland’s former involvement in rally car racing results in an unexpected but gripping car chase which is one of the film’s highlights. The cast also give fantastic performances. Cosmo Jarvis, a London native, completely transforms himself as Arm, while Barry Keoghan, Ned Dennehy and Niamh Algar are also exceptional. Adapted by Joe Murtagh, Calm with Horses’ story invokes its setting while sporting moments of humour and sensitively handling Arm’s reaction to his son’s autism.

Released 3 days before the lock-down curtailed cinemas in the U.K, Calm With Horses really deserves your attention.

By Saul Shimmin

For the trailer, see below:

The Gentlemen

Looking to retire, Mickey Pearson (Matthew McConaughey) seeks a buyer for his profitable weed empire, but his attempts to cash out become a far more dangerous move than imagined. 
A cacophony of clashing sub-plots and overlapping elements, inhabited by larger than life characters in the imagined and exaggerated fiefdom of London’s underbelly, The Gentlemen is Guy Ritchie at his finest. Ritchie returns to the crime genre and his layered narratives, weaving Faulknerian circles through time, vice and violence until coherently knotting into one final twist. Sporting all the wit and complexity which is Ritchie’s hallmark, The Gentlemen is one puzzle from its abrupt beginning to enigmatic end as London’s underworld churns underneath the new battling the old, pitching expatriate American Mickey Pearson against threats to his empire. In spite of its setting, The Gentlemen is essentially a conversation between two men, sleezy Private Detective Fletcher (Hugh Grant) and beleaguered consigliere Ray (Charlie Hunnam). Their dialogue, spliced by other events and electrified by Grant’s dark charisma, morphs into an engrossing meta narrative about Crime films and Ritchie’s own style. 

The premise of an American turned British gentleman come drug lord, alongside the inner workings of Pearson’s empire, stretch disbelief to a thin opaqueness, but it never truly breaks. Probably contrived to harbour a bankable American star for funding, Ritchie’s writing, alongside McConaughey’s performance, keeps the viewer convinced. The Gentlemen’s depiction of marijuana as a harmless and honest drug is a device to keep audiences routing for Mickey, rather than any real attempt at advocacy. In large part this works thanks to McConaughey, his cockney wife Rosalind (Michelle Dockerty) and Mickey’s other allies who are the better men in a dark world. The Gentlemen’s sub-plot around the tabloid press is a hilarious swipe at the paparazzi institutions which have plagued both Hugh Grant and Guy Ritchie over the years. 

Between Charlie Hunnam and Hugh Grant, Hunnam is the weaker of the film’s supporting pair. Despite being the right-hand man in a criminal empire, Hunnam lacks any exuberance of toughness or menace. Hunnam, who has shown his mettle in The Lost City of Z, is not to blame for what may be weak character construction. Henry Goulding excels as rising Triad member Dry Eye, while both Jeremy Strong and Colin Farrell inhabit brilliant secondary characters.

The Gentlemen is a great Crime flick, if you can keep pace with its twists and rough, expletive charm. It is definitely Guy Ritchie’s best film since the Sherlock Holmes series. 

By Saul Shimmin

For the trailer, see below; 

Knives Out

The morning after his 85th birthday, famous crime novelist Harlan Thornby (Christopher Plummer) is found dead from an apparent suicide. Private detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) arrives to the Thornby home, ardent in his belief that Harlan’s death was no suicide. Adopting Harlan’s nurse Marta (Ana de Armas) as his impromptu assistant, Blanc’s investigation disturbs the harmonious facade of the Thornby family.

From the polemical Star Wars: The Last Jedi to the time-bending Looper, Rian Johnson is willing to take risks and champion interesting ideas. Tragically Johnson’s body of work so far has been a collection of unrealised potential. Johnson’s prior major films have been bogged down in their complexity and exploration of character arcs. Adorned by a retinue of leading actors and sporting a lengthy run-time Knives Out bears the hallmarks of a director who, buoyed by commercial success, has learned nothing from past films. Appearances, like everything else in Knives Out, are deceptive. The film is a restrained affair as Johnson bends the tropes and structure of the murder mystery and ultimately fashions a new and refreshing thriller. Expectations will certainly be subverted by the twists and jumping timeline within Knives Out, but Johnson’s decisions are neither incongruous nor insulting to the audience.

The references to Trumpian policies may falter in ages to come, but Knives Out will stand for posterity as a commentary on wealth’s ability to enslave its holder. Harlan is beleaguered by the fortune he has amassed and the dependency it has instilled in his family. The two generations of Harlan’s progeny, from an alt-right youngster to a Paltrow-esque diva, each represent a facet of privilege’s warping pull. Blinded by expectancy, the scions of the Harlan family are grotesquely ignorant and apathetic to the concerns of the common man, represented by the diligent and honest Marta, a first generation American of Latin roots.

Striving for the feel of a dark comedy, the humour of Knives Out is a middling success. The more overt gags, drawn from American humour, fall flat compared to the subtler visual jokes which litter the film. Both Marta, Benoit Blanc and Trooper Wagner (Noah Segan) bring a certain flavour of comedic relief which does not jar with the more serious overtones of later scenes. The extensive cast, itself a red herring, give an excellent collective performance. Viewers will enjoy Chris Evans as Ransom Drysdale, a yuppie scoundrel who starkly differs from the pure-hearted Captain America which made Evans’ career. Knives Out rests upon the performance of Daniel Craig and Ana de Armas as the film largely follows the pair. Ana de Armas, who wowed audiences in Blade Runner 2049, shows her potential as an actress throughout Knives Out. Trying his hardest to imitate a Southern accent, Daniel Craig does his best impression of Foghorn Leghorn as sleuth Benoit Blanc. Despite the excesses of his performance, Craig remains both funny and believable.

From its slow panning introduction into the mist shrouded Thornby house to the clues which straddle the film, Knives Out is beautifully directed. The epic scale of The Last Jedi is replaced by a more intimate and gothic visual language which fills the viewer’s mind as potently as the best detective novel.

Knives Out is a great crime thriller which will appeal to both fans of the genre and newcomers alike.

By Saul Shimmin

For the trailer, see below;

 

Motherless Brooklyn

Set in 1950’s New York, private detective Lionel Essrog (Edward Norton) searches for the killers of his boss and father figure Frank Minna (Bruce Willis). Lionel’s quest to avenge Frank embroils him in a vast conspiracy headed by the enigmatic political boss, Frank Moses (Alec Baldwin).

Across benighted streets, empty cityscapes, and raked by the melancholia of Tom Yorke’s haunting score, the viewer becomes one of the lost in America, stuck in the belly of a beast which cannot be stopped. The memory of Frank quickly forgotten by his wife and colleagues, Lionel struggles on alone in an uncaring city. Suffering from  Tourette’s syndrome, Lionel is an isolated outsider, pilloried and misuderstood by many. Yet Lionel’s affliction is also his strength. The syndrome’s anarchic persona, dubbed ‘Blakie’, results in Lionel’s fixation upon order, granting him a prodigious memory for detail and a compulsion to explain Frank’s death.

What unfolds after Frank’s death is an intricate mystery of shadowy power deals and kickbacks, culminating in the forced removal of poor and minority communities from Brooklyn. In his investigation, Lionel becomes pitched against Moses Randolph, a man of unfettered ambition and power. His command of Brooklyn’s political machine is symbolised by his almost disembodied presence upon introduction. Moses, his back to the camera like the voyeur looking in, is able to halt the public baths and cajole the inaugurated mayor when it suits. The resulting David versus Goliath battle between Lionel and Moses is a tense affair as Lionel sinks ever deeper into Brooklyn’s political underbelly. Yet Motherless Brooklyn, like any good detective story, retains its central mystery until the very end while every twist slots into the film’s narrative.

Directed and adapted by Norton himself from Jonathan Lethem’s novel, Motherless Brooklyn is a faultless film which testifies to Norton’s many talents. His direction captures the isolation of urban life and perfectly embodies the noir themes of the film’s source material. Norton’s performance, alongside the rest of the cast, is fantastic as their collective enthusiasm for the film shines in every scene. Besides Norton, Alec Baldwin, Willem Dafoe and Michael K. Williams stand out in particular.

Beyond its 1950’s setting, Motherless Brooklyn grasps at a deeper truth. No matter the reigning ideology or the flag that hangs upon the pole, beneath the boot print of History lay the crushed bodies of the different, the poor and the weak. They are the toll at the booth for the shining future of tomorrow which they will never see. Frank Moses is just an iteration of that unbreakable History, as much as Lionel is the perpetual little man adrift in the uncaring churn of society. The events of Motherless Brooklyn may be fictionalised, but the reality it uncovers persists in America, according to a recent investigation into the theft of African American land.

Ignore what other critics may say about Motherless Brooklyn and watch one of the best films of 2019.

By Saul Shimmin

For the trailer, see below;

Destroyer

Rating: 5 out of 5 (classic)

Washed up detective Erin Bell (Nicole Kidman) begins a hunt for Silas (Toby Kebbell), a bank robber from Erin’s past who haunts her present.

Director Karyn Kusama and writers Phil Hay and Matt Manfredi have created a brooding detective film through L.A spanning loss, love, regret and revenge. Bristling waves of momentum push Erin towards Silas across the grime and glamour of Los Angeles’ many faces, becoming a circular loop in time of obsession and pain. Beautifully directed and accompanied by a score full of sombre organ bellows and moaning bass cries, Destroyer overflows with urban alienation and melancholy.

Nicole Kidman delivers her greatest performance as Erin Bell, whose life both past and present, personal and professional is vivisected before the audience. Erin transcends from rough cop to victim and then to something entirely else. Kidman’s gruff demeanour, stooped shoulders and limping gait meld with her prosthetics into a character crippled by the pain of the world. Kidman propels Erin’s fixation with Silas into something mythical, with flashes of  his visage transforming him into a supernatural figure.

The story is an intricate enigma that buries a dark truth. The plot’s layers and revelations naturally melt away into an unforeseen twist which changes the film’s perspective. It is a testament to Phil Hay and Matt Manfredi that despite its complexity, Destroyer always feels like one woman’s ceaseless desire to absolve her past choices.

Kidman is complimented by an astounding cast of actors, both known and unknown to most audiences. Sebastian Stan as fellow undercover cop Chris, and Bradley Whitford as scuzzy lawyer diFranco are Destroyer’s best supporting actors.

Nothing akin to Destroyer has been seen in American crime films since Heat. This truly is one of the best films of 2019.

By Saul Shimmin

For the trailer, see below: