The Revenant (2015)

Wow, just wow! Following on from the critical success of Birdman, Alejandro González Iñárritu presents us with another Oscar-baiting film. I have never seen Birdman, but if the Revenant is anything to go by then the 2014 film must have been tremendous too.

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Django Unchained (2013)

Slightly over-indulgent and about 30 min too long Django Unchained is nevertheless a great film and hugely enjoyable.  Jamie Foxx is great as crab man Django, Christoph Waltz is fantastic as Dr Schultz and the relationship between them is perfect.  Di Caprio also turns in a pretty good turn as the unpredictable Calvin Candie, and of course the usual Tarantino favourite Samuel L Jackson is present as well as Tarantino himself making an appearance.

It's another revenge story, but unlike Kill Bill the narrative is linear and more straightforward.  Also unlike Kill Bill which is fairly fantastical, you could imagine many stories such as Django's actually happening when the Trans-Atlantic slave trade was at its height.  As such I really felt the emotion as he was whipping one of his previous tormentors.  But for all its portrayal of slavery in 19th century Southern States, (and violent revenge), there is a lot of humour.  It's OK though, it doesn’t detract from the violence and swearing!  If Sergio Leone was the first to show a gunshot and a man being killed in the same shot, then Tarantino has taken that to the next level with so much blood and lumps of flesh (from men and horses) flying about the place.

Unmistakably a Tarantino film, Django Unchained is really good, well written characters played by an excellent cast, and there is some wonderful photography giving a grand scale to the story.  I just feel (and this is a very minor point) that with a tighter script and so a slightly shorter run time is would have been truly excellent.

Inception (2010)

I had seen Inception at the cinema last year when it was released, but I had forgotten how good I thought it was. Now don’t get me wrong, I like the odd summer blockbuster. I have recently enjoyed Super 8, Cowboys and Aliens, and I’m looking forward to ROTPOTA; but Inception is a brilliant tonic to the usual fayre that we are used to digesting in the summer months. Christopher Nolan actually forces us to pay attention, think, and then apply what we have learned. We are introduced (whether we know it or not) to the concept of Lucid Dreaming; the idea that we can control our dreams, and in this case to dream within a dream. To an extent we are left questioning whether what we see is real; rather like The Matrix. What sort of a blockbuster is this? A ruddy good ‘un, that’s what!

Cobb (DiCaprio) and his associates Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), Ariadne (Ellen Page), and Eames (Tom Hardy) are mercenaries who enter people’s dreams to steal information (short version!). The film centres around a job to plant an idea into someone’s mind, a process called inception. In this case the target is Robert Fischer (Cilian Murphy), son of a powerful businessman (Pete Postlethwaite) who is on his deathbed. The man who has commissioned this job is Saito (Ken Watanabe), a businessman in competition with the Fischers, who wants Robert to dissolve his father’s entire company. This is the idea that must be planted into Robert Fischer’s mind.

To try and explain the subtleties and nuances of entering people’s dreams, what happens at each level of dreaming, and the story arc of the main character Cobb, is far too ambitious. If you have already seen the film then you know what happens; and if you haven’t, then trying to explain it will just be far too confusing. Suffice to say, you should definitely see it. Christopher Nolan has crafted a very involved, somewhat complicated, thought-provoking, yet very stylish and accessible film. The central idea that this group can enter peoples dreams to steal information is one of those simple ideas that, with a few tweaks, is just brilliant (I’m thinking also of the game “Portal”, and “Blink”, one of the episodes of Dr Who).

The cast is all great. I think Ellen Page got a bit of stick for coming across as being a bit stupid and just being there for the exposition. I think this is unfounded; she is perfectly good, and let’s face it, someone had to be there to help the exposition. She was also good as the one person who stood up to DiCaprio’s character, as she was the only one who saw the danger that his unconscious posed to the operation. DiCaprio once again demonstrates his ability to lead a film, from his action packed introduction to the heartbreaking climax of his story. Tom Hardy is very smooth as the brains of the operation as much as anything, and Gordon-Levitt demonstrates that he can do action just as well as he can be a pretty boy.

Added to this are some fantastic special effects. Arthur’s fight in the hotel corridor is absolutely brilliant; not to mention Ariadne remodelling the Paris cityscape. Cobb’s limbo world also looks amazing, helped enormously by some wonderful cinematography from Wally Pfister (who seems to be a Chris Nolan favourite). The score from Hans Zimmer is also top notch, as they tend to be.



So, a blockbuster that’s a break from the norm, definitely; the best film of 2010, most probably. Great cast, great idea, great story, amazing special effects and wonderful music. Overall, a pretty brilliant film.

Shutter Island

Leonardo DiCaprio is Teddy Daniels, an FBI agent sent to a mental asylum for the criminally insane on Shutter Island to investigate the disappearance of one of the patients: the mysterious Patient #67. Teddy and his partner Chuck (Mark Ruffalo) are not exactly made to feel welcome by the warden (Ted Levine) or the prison doctor: Dr John Cawley (Ben Kingsley); but when a storm comes in they are forced to stay for a while. Having interviewed many of the patients, including one who hands him a note saying “Run!”, Teddy starts to suspect that perhaps everything isn’t what it seems.

As the story progresses and he starts to get in over his head, Teddy thinks that he has uncovered a conspiracy whereby patients are being experimented on (in a Nazi-surgical-experimentation kind of way), in a lighthouse near the prison. When he finally makes it into the lighthouse, Teddy is confronted by Dr Cawley. It turns out that Teddy has been a patient on Shutter Island for some time now (HE is actually patient #67!), and all of the FBI scenario has been a novel role-play technique used by Cawley to try and finally cure Teddy. Or is it really? The final scene shows Teddy being led off for a lobotomy.

This is a very bleak film; the ambiance of the whole movie is either very drab or very clinical. Some of the corridors reminded me of the metal institution Sarah Conner is a patient at in T2. It rains a lot on Shutter Island too, though this is mostly due to the storm that is keeping Teddy and Chuck on the island. Of course the whole feel of the film suddenly changes towards the end as it is revealed that this has all been an elaborate role-play, and Teddy really starts to break down and doubt himself. This part is left ambiguous; is it a role-play to try and cure Teddy, or have the staff at Shutter Island managed to cover up the experimentation that is going on? If the latter is true, then the film is even more depressing!

DiCaprio gives a suitably emotional performance and is very good as his character becomes more desperate as events unfold. As his character constantly thinks back to the wife that he lost in an apartment fire, he plays the desperation and confusion very well. Mark Ruffalo is fairly insignificant (that I can remember anyway) as Teddy’s partner Chuck. It would be interesting to watch him more closely on a second viewing as he is supposed to be the doctor that has always worked with Teddy as a patient. Ben Kingsley is good as Dr Cawley, on the one hand being accommodating to the FBI, on the other being quite un-approachable, but he doesn’t really get opportunity to properly explore the character.

Shutter Island is a very good film, certainly not uplifting, but good. Perhaps stylistically not the most amazing film, but Scorsese has created a story with a memorable atmosphere, and he certainly get the audience emotionally involved with the events that are driving Teddy insane (insanerer!?). Coupled with a great performance from the increasingly impressive DiCaprio this is a film that really sticks in your head for quite a while.

Body of Lies

Body of Lies is a good, solid action-thriller. Leonardo diCaprio is Roger Ferris: a CIA field operative initially based in Iraq, but then moved to Jordan. His main contact is through the Langley-based office agent Ed Hoffman (Russell Crowe). The main plot involves trying to capture a well-known terrorist leader by any means possible. This involves sacrificing various “assets”, liaising with the Head of Security in Jordan (Hani; played by Mark Strong), manipulating Hani; and then eventually Hani manipulating Ferris to get to the terrorist.

This all sounds really simple but everything is so much better than that. There is plenty of intrigue to keep us wondering what is actually going on; despite knowing the end game. Leo is really good as the main character, putting his life on the line everyday, taking it personally when he has to betray people; whereas Russell Crowe is safe in Langley not giving a shit about the trust that is being betrayed on the ground. I did initially find Russell’s accent a bit weird; I thought it was really going to annoy me, but in the end it was fine. Wow what a pointless comment that was! I really liked the juxtaposition of Leo in Jordan being shot up and knackered, swearing down the phone to Russell as he is picking his kids up from school/giving his kids breakfast etc.

Of course what really makes this film, is Ridley Scott’s direction. He shoots a lot of the action scenes very close in with the characters, giving it a very intense feeling; very similar to Black Hawk Down. He also has a very good eye for detail, as there are many bustling streets and crowded market places involved with the story (action and explosions!). There are also some great sweeping desert shots, adding to the grand feeling of the story before the satellite image zooms in to centre on diCaprio.

This was another of those LoveFilm DVDs that a friend had put on our list; so I had no idea what it was about. I think perhaps this is one of the best ways to see a film, with no preconceptions at all. So I can say perfectly analytically that I enjoyed Body of Lies. Well developed characters; twisty-turney story, and very well put together. I would recommend it to a friend!