CINEMA: Public Enemies

Everybody loves gangsters right? From Scarface to Carlito’s Way, Goodfellas to The Godfather, cinema has spent decades and millions of feet of celluloid telling their many varied and colourful stories on screen.

For filmmaker Michael Mann who has long been fascinated by John Dillinger, the gangster who held up banks during the Great Depression, it was finally time for him to attempt to bring his story to the screen.

However, many films have been made about Dillinger over the years by many other great directors and writers, so what would make this so special for modern audiences? Well casting, mainly, with Johnny Depp as John Dillinger and Christian Bale as his nemesis, Agent Purvis.

The story follows John Dillinger as he is released from prison in 1933 where he then embarks on a whirlwind of bank robberies across the USA, angering police and authorities in every state he steals from, and winning the attention of the newly formed Federal Bureau of Investigation headed by J. Edgar Hoover (Billy Crudup) who tasks Agent Purvis and his men to hunt him down and stop him whatever the cost. The film follows Dillinger through more than a year of robberies, drama, romance and betrayal.

There is so much to write about this film as it will no doubt end up on film studies courses all over the world, as it is not only astoundingly well directed by Michael Mann but features the use of full HD DV cameras by award-winning cinematographer Dante Spinotti.

So to start with the cinematography; it’s worth noting that back on Collateral, Mann wanted to capture the night in LA in a way that contemporary film lighting and cameras could not, so he set about developing his own camera with Sony that could capture the evening and night the way he wanted. The cameras were used again on Miami Vice, and this time around Sony’s new HD cameras have been used to capture all the action and close-ups in a hand-held, documentary style.

This means that when we witness Dillinger’s first robbery, the cameras take us inside the bank from the point of view of a gang member. This amps the action up to 11 in a scene that is stunning to watch and gives the robbery in Heat a real run for its money.

But it’s not just the action that is great; the long establishing shots of dusty old prisons, to the cityscapes of Chicago are all rendered in such brilliant detail it looks like they have traveled back in time to capture it.

The sets, props and locations are littered with the real artefacts, including Dillinger’s own cars and machine guns to the actual courthouse he escaped from and the Biograph Theatre in Chicago where he was finally stopped. This all comes together with Mann’s great directing to give us something that should easily attract awards next year.

The performances are also great, with Marion Cotillard standing out as Billie Frechette. She holds the whole film together as Dillinger’s girlfriend and shows us a wealth of emotions as she is whisked up and into his dangerous world.

Depp is at times hard to crack as Dillinger but in certain scenes a mere glance and facial expression is enough to show us how good an actor he really is. Depp’s performance also casts light on Bale, but this only highlights that the English actor is not really being pushed, and in a head-to-head scene between the two men it is Depp who wins the act-off hands down.

Support is brilliant on all counts, from Stephen Graham as a psychotic Baby Face Nelson, to Crudup as Hoover. But throughout the film watch the performance of Dillinger’s right hand man John “Red” Hamilton played by Jason Clarke, as he is quietly as good as Depp and is one to watch for the future.

Overall Public Enemies is a massive rollercoaster of a film that is epic in scale and rattles along at one hundred rounds per minute and feels more like 90 minutes than its 140 minute running time. At the end you of the movie however, you will ask yourself whether you really got to know the man behind the gangster, and what – if anything – you will remember from the experience.

This is a major flaw in one of the best films of the year and something that Mann should have nailed down before he finally brought his cherished baby to the big screen.

Mark Cappuccio

CINEMA: Katyn

Based on fact, this film revolves around the atrocities perpetrated by the Red Army deep in the heart of the Katyn forest during the Second World War.

However, as what occurred there was subject to a cover up by the Russian authorities, this is not so much a straight historical account, but more an exploration of how events impinged on the families and loved ones of those involved; the mothers, brothers, sisters, wives and children of the Polish Army officers and soldiers who simply disappeared.

As the Red Army moved into Poland at the beginning of the war, hundreds of thousands of Polish military personnel found themselves seized and held in Russian internment camps. At first, letters from these men found their way back home to their loved ones, but as the months went on, hundreds of the men simply disappeared leaving their families in limbo – were they still alive, were they injured or ill, were they missing having escaped from captivity, or were they actually already dead?

As the film follows both the men in the camps and the parallel lives of the women left to survive alone in occupied Poland, a rich story of hope, despair, acceptance, resistance and enduring love builds up. Director Andrzej Wajda handles a huge cast and numerous simultaneous storylines with aplomb.

The film never veers into sentimentality, nor is it brutal in its honesty, being both sympathetic and respectful. The fact it can display such humanity and decency in the face of such appalling deeds acts as a testament to those who did survive.

Dee Pilgrim

CINEMA: Gigantic

Having sprung to the public’s attention as the preacher who squares up against Daniel Day Lewis in There Will Be Blood, actor Paul Dano now enhances his reputation by not only starring in but also producing this quirky and weirdly compelling indie.

He plays Brian, a rather solitary expensive bed salesman with a supportive but highly eccentric family and a compulsion to adopt a baby from China. It’s pretty obvious Brian is never going to find a ‘normal’ girlfriend so when zany Harriet (Zooey Deschanel) arrives to collect a bed for her father Al (John Goodman) a match made in bed heaven seems on the cards, for Harriet and especially loudmouth, un-PC Al are as out there as they can possibly be.

From hereonin things slowly unfold to include Brian’s two successful brothers, his magic mushroom popping dad (Ed Asner) and a crazy tramp who seems hell-bent on killing Brian for no obvious reason. We learn that Al’s bad back means he has to remain prone for much of the movie, Harriet is very probably psychotic and Brian, although as sweet-tempered as a puppy, is capable of extreme violence when provoked far enough.

Gigantic is a bit like Marmite: you’ll either love its off the wall, totally random nature, or you’ll hate that it has no regular story structure.

Dee Pilgrim

CINEMA: Transformers, Revenge of the Fallen

Oh dear. Director Michael Bay has taken a movie that cost millions to make and took a small army of SFX experts to complete and produced a totally impenetrable mess.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is certainly a spectacle; a spectacular jumble of machines that turn into other machines that join together to form yet more machines, the problem being you won’t have a clue what they are or what their purpose is. This is because while Bay has been concentrating on creating a series of visually full-on action scenes, the plot has been totally overlooked.

Actors Shia LaBeouf, Megan Fox, John Turturro and Josh Duhamel reprise their roles from the original (although Turturro is no longer a government agent but a conspiracy theorist) but are used as mere window dressing for the showdown between the massive metal monsters. So, the action may flit relentlessly from America to the pyramids of Egypt to the ancient city of Petra, and you may applaud the sheer scale of the explosions and destruction, but absolutely none of it will make sense.

It’s not just that the action in places moves so fast your eye really can’t follow what’s happening, but also the machines’ dialogue is delivered at breakneck pace in impenetrable electronically ‘enhanced’ accents. Frankly, 90 minutes of trying to figure out who are the good and bad guys would be more than enough to try the patience of most cinemagoers, but at two-and-a-half hours Bay stretches proceedings to breaking point. Even diehard Transformer fans will find this heavy going, especially those who are au fait with the original Transformer series and story – which seems to have been ejected wholesale.

This is a perfect example of spectacle over substance and may pull the punters in first time round, but will certainly not get good word of mouth.

Dee Pilgrim

CINEMA: Doghouse, Part 2

Welcome to the low budget, English version of the summer jock schlock movie. But while The Hangover has invention and flair and loads of laughs, Doghouse is just downright silly.

Here, the occasion for all the male mates to get together is kind of a stag do in reverse: Vince (Stephen Graham) is getting divorced and so his buddies (including Danny Dyer, Lee Ingleby and Emil Marwa) take him on a drinking weekend. Unfortunately for them, they decide to spend it in the remote village of Moodley where the male population has been massacred by the local women who have turned into bloodthirsty zombies.

It’s all got something to do with an experimental washing powder and a covert army operation, but really it is just an excuse for director Jake West to indulge in lots of gore and bad make up effects. It’s a bit like Lesbian Vampire Killers, although what it really wants to be is Shaun Of The Dead, but it isn’t clever enough to pull that off. Danny Dyer ends up playing Danny Dyer yet again, while the script runs out of ideas when the guys all end up on the roof of the church with no visible means of escape.

It probably seems much funnier than it really is if viewed after numerous pints of lager and a substantial curry.

Dee Pilgrim

CINEMA: The Hangover

Seeing as this is this summer’s big jock schlock movie, the prospect of watching a bunch of sexist morons indulging in toilet humour didn’t exactly fill me with anticipation. And yes, it is sexist, and yes, some of the humour is gross, and Heather Graham gratuitously flashes her breasts, but it is also one of the funniest things you will get to see all year.

The main reason for this is the characters get themselves into so much trouble without actually trying very hard, and the more they try to extricate themselves the bigger the ditch they find themselves in – much to the delight of the audience.

Take one soon-to-be groom and three male friends on a stag weekend in Vegas; what’s the worst that could happen? They’ll all get drunk, lose a fortune in the casinos and maybe have an accident and return with a black eye. That might be the sum of it for most blokes out on a bender, but not for Doug (Justin Bartha), best mates Phil and Stu (Bradley Cooper and Ed Helms) and slightly anal Alan (Zach Galifianakis).

Things start off swimmingly enough when the group arrives at its hotel and books into the penthouse suite, but by the following morning, waking with the worst hangovers of their lives, and with their memories AWOL, they soon realise things have gone horribly pear-shaped. For a start, dentist Stu is missing a tooth, they seem to have acquired a baby from somewhere and there’s a tiger in the bathroom. But all this mayhem pales into significance when they realise they’ve lost Doug – and they only have 48 hours to find him and get him to his wedding.

It is at this point, after a rather drawn out introduction to the characters, that the fun really starts – and the laughs just get blacker and more surreal as the misdemeanours get worse. I won’t spoil the many surprises the script offers up but Mike Tyson makes an appearance as himself, there are numerous references to Rain Man, a naked Chinese guy runs amok and some cops don’t see the funny side of getting their patrol car nicked. If you’re not howling with laughter by the end of it then you’ve probably had your funny bone removed.

It’s un-PC, but definitely has a creative flair, and even though we never do find out why there’s a live chicken in the living room the end credits nicely tie up most of the amnesiac bits. Enjoy.

Dee Pilgrim

CINEMA: Looking For Eric, Part 2

Not many internationally famous footballers could reinvent themselves as successful actors but Eric Cantona has pulled it off spectacularly and you really can’t imagine anyone else playing his role in this film (Looking For Beckham? I think not).

Here he acts as muse and cod-philosopher to Eric Bishop (Steve Evets), a down-on-his-luck Mancunian postman who is losing his marbles. Eric is still in love with his first wife Lily (Stephanie Bishop) but is having to look after his two stepsons from his second failed marriage. His mates from the post office (including a delightful performance from John Henshaw) try to support him as best they can, but after smoking some of his stepson Ryan’s (Gerard Kearns from Shameless) weed, Eric Cantona miraculously appears before him, spouting words of wisdom in which Eric finds real consolation. However, it is when Ryan gets into a spot of trouble that Monsieur Cantona really comes to the rescue, helping Eric out of a seemingly impossible situation.

Once again, director Ken Loach displays the lightest of touches as he lets his actors go with the flow. He really is a master at manipulating group dynamics and the scenes where Eric’s post office mates rally round him are incredibly touching. But then there’s Cantona, spouting bon mots in that fantastic French accent – which actually proves to be easier to decipher than the Mancunian accents.

This is a sweet story of friendship and support and triumph over a near tragedy and if it doesn’t launch Cantona on a new career path as dazzling as his football days, well then I’ll eat my chapeau.

Dee Pilgrim

CINEMA: Looking For Eric

When it was announced that football legend Eric Cantona was looking to make a film with social realist director Ken Loach people were a tad surprised and a little intrigued.

And what we have here is the realisation of this bizarre relationship in what is one of the best British films this year by a long mile. It tells the simple story of postman Eric Bishop (Steve Evets) whose life is slowly falling apart around him. His wife has left him with two out of control stepsons, he is falling behind at work and has a deep secret yearning for the one that got away, his first wife Lily the woman of his dreams who he walked out on years ago leaving her to raise their daughter alone.

So one evening after nicking his stepsons’ dope he lights up a spliff and begins to talk to the life size poster of his hero Eric Cantona and amazingly he appears in his room and talks back! Cantona tells him he has to pick his life up and take control and that he will help him. What follows is an amazing journey with hilarious consequences for Little Eric, as he is known.

Loach has a reputation of making informative and intelligent social dramas tinged with humour, tragedy and great human stories and this is by no means due to his regular writer and collaborator Paul Laverty, who again takes script duties here after Sweet Sixteen and The Wind that Shakes the Barley.

Laverty’s script is astounding, not only packed with great one liners and a fantastic story of little Eric but also providing all of Cantona’s little nuggets of wisdom himself (with Cantona’s approval of course). The story starts simply but builds up in layers and went in a direction I was not expecting that avoided cliché and sentiment in what could have become mawkish and cheesy.

Lots will no doubt be written about Cantona in this film who may surprise you in that he as already been acting for years in France and here is not that challenged as he is playing an extension of himself albeit an exaggerated one. However, it is Steve Evets who holds the ensemble cast together and is brilliant in his role, growing from depression to anger to calm control with the help of his hero. The supporting cast are excellent too and again seem so authentic as to create an air of a fly-on-the-wall documentary.

The stand out is probably John Henshaw as Eric’s best mate and Post Office boss Meatballs; he is funny to watch and provides a real support for his mate that is touching and sweet right up to the hilarious and unforeseen finale.

This is a wonderful film that is a joy to watch and will make you genuinely smile at its great heart, story and brilliant performances. It’s a real goal for Loach and crew.

Mark Cappuccio

CINEMA: Summer Scars

Being stuck in the woods with a bunch of sarcastic teenagers is no-one’s idea of a good time. In fact, in Eden Lake two people found out just how bad it could really be for them. Now this year sees a similar storyline emerge in the new film from Julian Richards, director of the excellent The Last Horror Movie.

In this film a group of school kids decide to bunk off school on a hot summer’s day with one of them stealing a moped to bring along. Deep in the woods they hang out, take the piss out of each other and eventually take turns on the moped, but when two of them crash into a dishevelled drifter who introduces himself as Peter things begin to turn from a laugh into something far more sinister.

Before we start I should say that the comparisons to Eden Lake are apparent from the start but this film was made in 2006, and in fact director Richards states that the crew of Eden Lake actually visited him on set to ensure that the two films would not be too similar.

However the real themes and ideas behind Summer Scars do share a similarity with the later film but this is told from the perspective of the children themselves and their performances are mostly excellent here. Writer and director Richards crafted the story from a real life experience from his youth when him and a friend were terrorised in the woods near his home town by man with an air rifle and it is this very real idea that makes the film so compelling and down right scary.

He has used children from a local drama group as they are not the usual drama-school types (for that see Tormented) and because of this they really imbue the film with an air of almost documentary believability that carries you along from their first encounter with Peter (an excellent Kevin Howarth) who at first seems to be their mate, showing them a couple shagging in the woods and teaching them to stand up for themselves when some other older boys come into the woods and bully a few of their crew. But things get gradually stranger and you begin to question Peter’s motives, why is he in the woods and where is he from?

This is a tightly shot and plotted little film that uses its simple woodland locations well and creates a real and palpable sense of claustrophobia and tension and as we learn a little about all of the children involved you begin to actually feel for them despite their social standing as at the end of the day they are just teenagers and at the mercy of an adult. Howarth as mentioned is great in his role here, creating a mystery in Peter as it is never explained where he is from and why he is doing what he does, it is kudos to Richards that he is intelligent enough to let the audience decide about him.

Overall, Summer Scars is an excellent film that raises some interesting questions about the youth in Britain today, and also about mental healthcare in the 21^st century. See this as an antidote for all the other clichéd horror out there at the moment!

Mark Cappuccio

CINEMA: The Last House on the Left

Horror remakes have become big business again in the last few years, especially the work of Wes Craven.

Now, while the Nightmare on Elm Street remake is in production, the new version of his very first film The Last House on the Left, hits cinemas. The original was banned in the UK for years and has only only recently been released onto DVD completely uncut.

The film poses the simple question of how far would parents go when confronted with the killers of their children? Would they turn them over to the police or take things violently into their own hands and exact bloody revenge?

Craven’s 1972 debut film offended many with its brutal murder of two girls and the revenge taken by one of those girls’ parents when the criminals seek shelter in the parent’s house after a car accident. Watched now it is not in the slightest bit shocking, has aged appallingly and is so cheaply shot as to be laughable. However, the simple message behind it is as relevant today as it was 30 odd years ago.

This time it is debut director Dennis Iliadis and screenwriters Adam Alleca and Carl Ellsworth who have managed to craft a film that is not only better than the original but delivers true moments of horror and fear and a believable backstory for the three criminals which was lacking in the old film.

The Collingwood family of dad John (Tony Goldwyn) and mum Emma (Monica Potter) are having a summer vacation in their remote lake house with daughter Mari (Sara Paxton) and her friend Paige (Martha MacIsaac). The girls are bored and go out for a drive but are kidnapped by a psychopathic escaped prisoner called Krug (Garret Dillahunt), his mad girlfriend Sadie (Riki Lindhome), his sadistic brother Francis (Aaron Paul) and Krug’s weakling son Justin (Spencer Treat Clark). The crew are mean, bad and downright evil as they torture and kill Paige and leave Mari for dead in a river. A severe storm causes them to take shelter at a nearby house, which unbeknownst to them is the home to Mari’s parents, and things start to get a lot more bloody and serious.

From the gruesome start where we see Krug violently escape from being escorted to prison and brutally killing the two cops with him you know that this is something that will not only shock and scare you but does something that many new horrors do not and that is actually ‘horrify’ its audience.

There is a palpable sense of tension and impending horror in the excellent set up towards the inevitable final confrontation between Krug’s sick crew and the Collingwood Parents that is played out in some scary and exciting set pieces that not only keep you guessing but carry you along with the story. The performances in horror films are not usually that good as there are so many clichés thrown in that distract from an actor’s work, but here all the cast members (MacIsaac aside) are excellent. Dillahunt makes Krug truly sick and horrible and is ably backed up by his co-stars Lindhome and Paul who have an onscreen chemistry that makes their actions truly frightening. Potter and Goldwyn do well in showing a human side to the parents and carrying us along with their fated decisions, and Paxton is also good in her role as Mari. However MacIsaac is a tad annoying as Paige and Krug’s son Justin played by Clark is a little clichéd and stereotypical.

But these are minor quibbles in a film that is genuinely disturbing and horrific and one that will have many of you covering your eyes in many scenes and having deep conversations afterwards about what it all meant. This is an excellent and intelligent adult horror film that deserves to be seen on the big screen and will stay with you long after it ends.

Mark Cappuccio