12/14/14 (Part Two): The Little Garda Who Could

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auteur theory, bad cops, Bad Lieutenant, Brendan Gleeson, buddy cop films, Calexico, cinema, corrupt law enforcement, David Wilmot, Declan Mannlen, Don Cheadle, drug dealers, dying mother, eponymous characters, FBI agents, feature-film debut, Film auteurs, film reviews, films, Fionnula Flanagan, fish-out-of-water, gallows' humor, Garda, Gary Lydon, Guy Ritchie, Irish films, John Michael McDonagh, Larry Smith, Liam Cunningham, Mark Strong, mother-son relationships, Movies, racism, Rory Keenan, Sergeant Gerry Boyle, set in Ireland, small town life, stolen guns, The Guard, UK films, Wendell Everett, writer-director

Towards the end of writer-director John Michael McDonagh’s The Guard (2011), there’s a scene where Sergeant Gerry Boyle (Brendan Gleeson) solemnly changes into his traditional “Garda” uniform before heading out to face-off with the vicious drug dealers who have cold-bloodedly killed his partner. As he drives down the country-road, eyes locked straight ahead, he’s saluted by a young boy: a hero being recognized by the very people that he’s sworn to protect, an image as timeless as the very concept of law enforcement. It’s a huge, soaring moment for one important reason: for the first time in years, Sergeant Boyle has decided to actually do his job and we know, without a doubt, that the end result will be simply glorious.

Sergeant Boyle is the titular “guard” of the title but he’s also The Guard in a larger sense: every frame of the film, every plot twist, blackly comic moment and dastardly deed in McDonagh’s stunning feature-debut is completely and totally dominated by the towering presence that is Gleeson’s Boyle, a character who manages to be gleefully corrupt, yet still stands as a beacon of truth amidst those who are, you know, a whole lot worse. In a career that’s stretched to nearly three decades, Gleeson has never been better or more explosive: take a seat, Harvey…this here is the REAL bad lieutenant and you won’t be able to take your eyes off him.

We first get introduced to Gerry as he steals drugs from the bodies of a bunch of teens who just flipped their speeding car. The police officer nonchalantly drops acid, says “What a lovely fucking day” and we get the title, so big that it fills the entire screen, squeezing Boyle into the margins. The intent, as mentioned above, is pretty obvious: Boyle will dominate the proceedings, no two ways about it. Boyle might not be an honest cop, but he’s sure a helluva lot smarter than the rest of his peers: his partner, McBride (Rory Keenan) is one small step away from being a complete idiot and their superior officer, Inspector Stanton (Gary Lydon), thinks that “liquidated” people are actually turned into liquid. In this environment, can anyone really blame Boyle for looking out for number one? It’s not so much that Boyle is a bad cop, or even a lazy one, per se: he’s just so burned out on all the bureaucratic bullshit that he’s completely tuned-out…no sense getting fired-up about fighting crime if everyone around you keeps dropping the ball, is there? Better to spend one’s time cavorting with prostitutes, playing video games in a pub during the middle of your shift and getting shit-faced whenever possible.

Boyle gets shaken from his comfortable stupor, however, when his small, Irish hamlet ends up with a certifiable murder-mystery: a body has been found, shot in the head and posed in a way that seems to indicate some sort of cult activity. Despite caring so little about the case that he practically yawns his way through the initial investigation, Boyle goes through the motions, since that’s what he’s expected to do. Things really get interesting, however, when FBI agent Wendell Everett (Don Cheadle) shows up in town, investigating some sort of major drug case that involves four seriously bad dudes: Francis (Liam Cunningham), McCormick (Declan Mannlen), O’Leary (David Wilmot) and Clive (Low Winter Sun’s Mark Strong).

During Everett’s debriefing, Boyle makes a complete ass of himself after stating that he thought “only black lads were drug dealers:” Everett calls him a “racist,’ to which Boyle snaps back that “racism is part of Ireland’s tradition.” Casually racist though he might be, Boyle also recognizes McCormick as their anonymous murder victim, which gives Everett his first actual break in the case. Faster than you can say “odd couple,” Boyle and Everett are soon working together, albeit as reluctantly as possible. “I can’t tell if you’re real motherfucking dumb or really motherfucking smart,” Everett notes, at one point, and it’s a pretty valid question: Boyle is constantly working so many angles that he’s either the dumbest guy in town or the smartest, depending on whose bad side he happens to be on. When Everett and Boyle end up in the crosshairs of Francis and his gang, however, Boyle’s going to need all of his wits to survive. When the drug dealers kill one of his own, however, regardless of what an idiot he was, Boyle has no choice: it’s time for this Garda to quit messing around and get to the business of putting away the bad guys.

The Guard is an exceptional film, no two ways about it: quite possibly one of the very best films of the last five years. So much of the film works to an almost supernatural degree that it readily brought to mind “instant classics” like Guy Ritchie’s Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998). The cinematography, by frequent Nicholas Winding Refn collaborator Larry Smith, is beautiful, making expert use of bright, primary colors and that lush, gorgeous Irish countryside. The score, by the Southwestern-based Calexico, is ridiculously rousing, all spaghetti-Western horns, steel guitar and action beats like one of Ennio Morricone’s classic scores. McDonagh’s script is airtight, full of deliciously snarky dialogue and some of the driest humor ever put to film. There’s something rather amazing about watching Everett and Boyle feint, parry and thrust around each other, testing for weak points and trying to push as many buttons as possible.

Let’s not forget about the cast, however. While Cheadle and Gleeson are the main focal points, The Guard is filled with interesting, three-dimensional characters, not least of which are the three drug dealing villains. Veteran character-actor Liam Cunningham is great as the exasperated leader of the group, while David Wilmot shares a thoroughly badass scene with Gleeson that features one of the film’s most joyous surprises. Nearly stealing away their shared moments, however, is Mark Strong’s Clive Cornell: morose, philosophical, depressed and given to metaphysical ponderings, Clive is an awesome creation, at once lethal and silly. In fact, it’s to McDonagh’s great credit that one of the film’s sneakiest ideas (that no one, including the drug dealers, are actually doing the jobs they want to do) comes across entirely through subtle character development and dialogue: no unnecessary hand-holding to be found here!

It pretty much goes without saying that Cheadle is excellent as the put-upon fish-out-of-water FBI agent but let’s go ahead and say it again, anyway: Cheadle is absolutely excellent as Everett. Long one of Hollywood’s most dependable actors, Cheadle is the kind of performer, like Ron Perlman, who can elevate any film, regardless of the amount of screen time he gets. Here, we get lots of Cheadle and I don’t that anyone would mind. His scenes with Gleeson are marvelous little jewels but the really revelatory moments come when Everett is forced to pound the small-town pavement solo: his interactions with the overly hostile, racist locals are some of the best scenes in the film, hands-down.

The unquestionable star of the show, however, the “reason for the season,” as it were, is the amazing, unstoppable Brendan Gleeson. Towering over everything like a ragged, Gaelic god, Gleeson doesn’t appear to be acting: he honestly seems to be channeling the very spirit of Gerry Boyle. Gleeson doesn’t make a single misstep in the film: whether sneaking his dying mother (an outstanding Fionnula Flanagen) into the pub for one last pint, blowing Everett’s mind by rising from the freezing ocean in a skin-tight wetsuit or telling each and every authority figure in the world to sit and spin, Boyle is never less than completely charismatic and magnetic. I dare you to tear your eyes from the epic climax where Boyle strides relentlessly through the middle of a firefight, a rosy-faced Angel of Death who knows that he’s screwed and yet refuses to admit the fact to anyone, much less himself. There are countless good reasons to watch The Guard but there’s one necessary reason: no one who considers themselves an aficionado of fine acting can afford to miss Gleeson’s performance…it really is that good.

As it stands, The Guard is another film that I feel pretty confident recommending to anyone under the sun: if you’re a fan of darkly humorous UK crime films, “cops gone bad” movies or “buddy action” flicks, this one’s definitely for you. Truth be told, I really can’t see anyone walking out of The Guard disappointed or underwhelmed: if you should find such a person, stay far away, my friends…it’s obvious that they can’t be trusted.

11/10/14: Never Mind the Bollocks…Here’s Dom!

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A Clockwork Orange, absentee father, bad decisions, bad fathers, best films of 2014, black comedies, British films, cinema, Clockwork Orange, colorful films, crime film, dark comedies, Demian Bichir, doing time, Dom Hemingway, Emilia Clarke, England, estranged family, father-daughter relationships, favorite films, film reviews, films, foreign films, Giles Nuttgens, Guy Ritchie, hedonism, Jude Law, Jumayn Hunter, Kerry Condon, Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Madalina Ghenea, Movies, Richard E. Grant, Richard Shepard, Rolfe Kent, safe-crackers, stylish films, UK films, voice-over narration, writer-director

When we first meet the ubiquitous Dom Hemingway (Jude Law), he’s framed from the waist up, delivering a lusty monologue about the incredible power of his “manhood,” all while getting serviced inside a stark prison cell. As Dom celebrates his “personal victory,” as it were, he gets the call that he’s being released: onscreen text handily informs us that “12 years is a long time” before we witness him sauntering freely down the street like the biggest badass in the Western hemisphere, all on his way to beat his ex-wife’s new boyfriend senseless. And with that, ladies and gentlemen, we’re off to the races.

And what a magnificent sprint writer-director Richard Shepard’s Dom Hemingway (2013) ends up being, a ridiculously bright, vibrant, colorful and alive film that comes across like an ungodly combination of A Clockwork Orange (1971) and Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels (1998). Endlessly inventive, flashy, beautifully shot and with a heart as coal-black as the night sky, Dom Hemingway is a modest marvel anchored by the impossibly feral, brilliant performance of Jude Law, a portrayal so white-hot and intense that Law absolutely deserves the Oscar nomination that he will undoubtedly be denied this year. Make no bones about it: Dom Hemingway is rude, crude, nasty and guaranteed to offend as many folks as humanly possible. It’s also (barring a slightly soggy third act), one of the single most essential films of the year and easily one of my favorites, thus far.

Dom is a man out of step with the modern world, a meat-eating, whiskey-swilling, walking hard-on, a Cro-Magnon throwback to the days when fighting, fucking and raising a ruckus were the calling-cards of the “alpha male.” He’s just done twelve years of hard time for a crime-boss, Mr. Fontaine (Demian Bichir), keeping his mouth shut the whole time like the good soldier he is. Problem is, Dom has “anger issues” and his steadfast refusal to spill his guts has more to do with lording it over Fontaine than it does with any real sense of loyalty: Dom always is and always will be loyal to but one guy and that’s the jackass in the bathroom mirror. Once he’s free and clear, Dom lays into Fontaine in a truly jaw-dropping display of “biting the hand that feeds you,” calling into question everything from his boss’ management skills to his masculinity, culminating with the jaw-dropping demand that Fontaine offer up his stunning girlfriend, Paolina (Madalina Ghenea), “with a bow on,” as payment for his silence.

Attempting to keep Dom in some semblance of control is his best friend/whipping boy Dickie (Richard E. Grant), a one-handed stooge who’s constantly between the rock and a hard place of Fontaine’s reptilian power and Dom’s raging id.  He’s the closest thing Dom has to a “friend,” which is roughly equivalent to the wolf chatting up the lamb prior to digging in to some good old shank. Dickie is fighting a losing battle, however, and when a night of drunken debauchery ends in abject disaster, Dom is sent scuttling back to the one person he hoped to avoid: his estranged daughter, Evelyn (Emilia Clark).

After abandoning Evelyn and her mother to do his prison term, Dom has been persona non grata to his grown daughter, who’s currently living with a large Senegalese family and working as a night-club singer. While he licks his wounds and plots his next move, Dom decides to try to reintegrate himself back into his daughter’s life, with predictable results: she’s managed to make it for twelve years without him and she’s perfectly happy to make it another twelve years without talking to him, thank you very much. Dom is nothing if not persistent, however, and he’s now in the enviable position of having nothing to lose, especially when he ends up on the wrong side of a youthful crime lord, Lestor Jr. (Jumayn Hunter), who still holds a grudge from the time Dom killed his childhood pet. Will Dom be able to tear into fatherhood with the same passion that he has for his vices or is this one caveman who’s well-past his expiration date?

Until the aforementioned third act, Shepard’s Dom Hemingway is damn near a perfect film: uncompromising, dazzling, joyously vulgar and exquisitely cast, I found myself with a big, stupid grin pasted to my dumb mug for the better part of an hour. It’s a film that absolutely reminded me of Guy Ritchie’s best work, with the added benefit of being a mighty fine character portrait. While Law is absolutely marvelous (more on that later), the film is stuffed to bursting with memorable characters. Richard Grant’s Dickie is a great foil for Dom and gets some of the film’s best lines, no mean feat when the script is so consistently sharp. Jumayn Hunter, meanwhile, is a complete blast as the dapper, fundamentally childish Lestor, a man-boy who’s been thrust into leadership of one of England’s largest criminal enterprises while still basing life-or-death decisions on his long-dead cat. Emilia Clarke, for her part, is a fiery presence as the estranged Evelyn: there’s a real authenticity to her scenes with Law that finds a perfect balance between long-held disappointment and anger and her inherent need to seek (however unconsciously) her father’s approval.

The real star of the show, however, above and beyond anyone else, is undoubtedly Jude Law. With a performance that’s a blast furnace of raw emotion, Law is never anything less than spell-binding: until the very end (and even that’s sort of a toss-up), Dom is an intensely unlikable individual, with so few redeeming qualities as to be one pencil-thin-mustache twirl from a complete cad. Just like that other great British bad boy, Alex, however, it’s impossible to tear your eyes from Dom whenever he’s on-screen, which is pretty much the entirety of the film. Truth be told, the only complaint/criticism that I can find regarding his performance is the unfortunate tendency for his big emotional scenes to come across as a bit leaden: even this isn’t necessarily a deal-breaker, although it does turn the film into a bit of a rollercoaster as it roars through the first two acts, hits the brakes for the third as it chugs up the incline and then speeds through to a truly bravura finale that manages to match the opening in terms of sheer energy.

It’s long been said that actors have a better time playing bad guys and, if Dom Hemingway is any indication, that certainly seems to be true. Jude Law seems to be having such a great time snarling and flipping the world the bird that it becomes completely infectious: by the time the end credits roll, you might not agree with Dom but you sure as hell won’t forget him. Vibrant, utterly alive and completely show-stopping, Law’s performance as Dom Hemingway is a vivid reminder of why he’s a genuine movie star. For my money, Law’s performance as Dom is one of the very best of the entire year: fitting, of course, since Dom Hemingway is one of the year’s very best films. Take a walk on the wild side and spend a little time with a genuine scalawag: he’s not the kind of guy you want to invite home for dinner but he’s exactly the right kind of fellow to spend 90 minutes with at the multiplex. Utterly essential.

4/23/14: When Fear is Good

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A Fantastic Fear of Everything, Alex de la Iglesia, Amara Karan, based on a short story, British comedies, British films, Bruce Robinson, Bunny and the Bull, Burke & Hare, childhood fears, Chris Hopewell, cinema, Clare Higgins, comedies, crime novelists, Crispian Mills, Decades of Death, Dr. Friedkin, eyeballs, fear, film reviews, films, Guy Ritchie, Hanoi Handshake Killer, Harold the Hedgehog, Hayley Mills, horror-comedies, I Sell the Dead, Kerry Shale, Kula Shaker, laundromats, Movies, paranoia, Paul Freeman, Quentin Tarantino, serial killers, SImon Pegg, Terry Gilliam, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, The Final Countdown, The Hendon Ogre, Time Bandits, voice-over narration, Wes Anderson, Withnail and I

There’s something about an “everything including the kitchen sink” approach to filmmaking that’s always appealed to me. Perhaps it was because Time Bandits (1981) and The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988) were two of my favorite films growing up and neither of those films understood the words “restraint” or “over-indulgence.” Perhaps it’s because I developed an early love for Tarantino and Ritchie’s hyperkinetic, restless bullet-ballets: the former contorted his traditional narratives into fantastic new balloon animals while the latter never met a camera-angle, editing trick or musical cue that he didn’t love. When a filmmaker throws everything at the screen, and it sticks, the results can be some of the most thrilling, eye-popping cinema I’ve ever seen. I never tire of Wes Anderson’s immaculate miniatures-writ-large and if Alex de la Iglesia can sometimes be the model of restraint, he’s more often the device for delivering machine-gun-armed circus clowns and silver-bodypaint-adorned Jesus bankrobbers. I love small, quiet, subtle films, especially horror films, but it’s no coincidence that three of my favorite films of the past decade have been I Sell the Dead (2008), Bunny and the Bull (2009) and Burke and Hare (2010), all three of which throw so much material/effects/multi-media/razzle-dazzle at the audience that they’re almost endurance matches. While Crispian Mills debut film A Fantastic Fear of Everything (2012) may not be quite as perfect as the aforementioned classics, it’s just close enough to deserve a place with the pack.

After a truly dynamic animated opening sequence, we’re introduced to our hero, Jack (Simon Pegg), a children’s author who has decided to expand his horizons with a book about serial killers. Unfortunately for poor Jack, he has a tendency to be…well…afraid of everything and he quickly begins to obsesses about the various Victorian slashers, such as The Hendon Ogre and Crippen, that he researches. Even worse, he begins to think that insidious killers are actually after him, leading him to superglue a large kitchen knife to his hand. After his long-suffering agent gets Jack a meeting with the mysterious Harvey Humphries (Kerry Shale), a film producer interested in turning his research on serial killers into a movie, Jack must get over his intense agoraphobia and prepare to actually leave his house. After his usual laundry method (washing in the sink, drying in the oven) goes horribly awry, Jack must venture out to that most dreaded of public places: the laundromat. Not only have laundromats always been at the secret center of Jack’s endless phobias but there’s also a new killer nicknamed The Hanoi Handshake Killer running around. As Jack leaves his home, knife glued to hand, he must come to grips with the source of his childhood trauma, solve a local mystery and figure out whether he wants to stick with the hedgehog that made him famous or follow his dreams into the true-crime stories that haunt his dreams. Along the way, he might just find love. He also might get into an argument with a serial killer about the validity of The Final Countdown and hair metal vs gangsta rap, of course, but he definitely might find love.

Although it may seem overly reductive, perhaps the best “easy” descriptor of A Fantastic Fear of Everything would be Wes Anderson directing a Terry Gilliam film as envisioned by Guy Ritchie.   From the opening credit sequence to the closing one, AFFOE never sits still, spinning endlessly like a perpetual motion machine. Director/writer Mills (the son of actress Hayley Mills and member of Brit-rock band Kula Shaker), along with cinematographer Simon Chaudoir, have managed to craft a film that both visually and aurally inventive, hyperkinetic and fast-paced, yet inherently human and character-driven. This is no mean feat when there’s this much stuff flying around. At various points, we get super-stylized camera shots (the opening close-up of Pegg’s eye, which rotates out to make it seem as if he’s on the floor, yet is finally revealed to him by the wall, is nothing short of genius), nifty animated sequences (the paper-doll murder explanation is super cool and the claymation Harold the Hedgehog sequence is good enough to be its own short) and inventive use of sound (there’s a great moment where the sound begins loud and non-diagetic before becoming cracked and tinny as Jack walks into the launderette). The colors are all gorgeous and vibrant, looking like nothing so much as one of the aforementioned Anderson’s candy-colored epics.

In the pivotal role of Jack, Pegg is as reliably solid as ever. He manages to bring just the right amount of nice-guy restraint to balance out the bottomless ocean of neuroses that is Jack: too much in either direction and the character would be either insufferable or as bland as milquetoast. As such, however, we get some truly great Pegg moments, including the scene where he gives change to begging children, via used sock, through his mail slot or the aforementioned bit where he argues with his potential killer about whether hair metal or gangster rap was the more valid cultural entertainment. The rest of the cast, particularly Alan Drake as the daffy “community support police officer” Tony, are all excellent but this is truly Pegg’s show: he gets the most screen-time, by a yard, and relishes it.

There are a laundry-list of reasons this film shouldn’t have worked. For one thing, this kind of hyper-kinetic storytelling can easily dissolve into mush when done wrong: just look at Ritchie’s post-Snatch filmography (including Sherlock Holmes, please and thank you) or the brain-dead Shoot ‘Em Up (2007) for proof. Mills is a new, untested director coming from not only a famous family but a famous rock band: there’s no reason this shouldn’t have smelled and tasted like a vanity project. The actual plot (guy is afraid of everything, must get to meeting) is pretty thin and the final twist wraps things up in such a stereotypically happy, upbeat ending that it threatens to make everything before it seem like subtle parody, like a Jack Handey aphorism taken too far.

Against all odds, however, A Fantastic Fear of Everything works. And it works spectacularly well, if I might add. The script is sharp and clever, full of laugh-out-loud scenes, dialogue and ingeniously clever plot details. The animated sequences are all fresh and fit in perfectly with the rest of the film, as well as contributing to the overall themes of the film (how one’s imagination can imprison one, if not careful). The acting is uniformly top-notch and the cinematography and sound design are exemplary. Truth be told, short of a truly embarrassing scene where Pegg mugs along to a rap song (this is almost as nerve-gratingly mortifying as the worst moments of The Office) and some minor issues with structure, there really isn’t much wrong with the film. If you can handle a little silliness and some self-referential moments, A Fantastic Fear of Everything is actually a pretty smart peek into the issues that make us all the stupid little humans that we are. For my money, I’m more than willing to give Jack a place on Simon Pegg’s Character Wall of Fame and I’m more than eager to find out what Crispian Mills comes up with next.