7/15/15 (Part Three): Lost Swans and Hot Lead

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'90s homage, action films, action-comedies, Adam Buxton, Bad Boys, Bill Bailey, Bill Nighy, Billie Whitelaw, Blazing Saddles, British comedies, British films, Cate Blanchett, cinema, co-writers, cops behaving badly, David Arnold, David Threlfall, Edgar Wright, Edward Woodward, ensemble cast, Eric Mason, fast-paced, film reviews, films, goofy films, Hot Fuzz, ineffectual cops, Jess Hall, Jim Broadbent, Joe Cornish, Julia Deakin, Kevin Eldon, Lucy Punch, Martin Freeman, Movies, Nick Frost, Olivia Colman, Paddy Considine, Paul Freeman, Peter Wight, Point Blank, public decency, Rafe Spall, Ron Cook, Rory McCann, Shaun of the Dead, SImon Pegg, small town life, small-town British life, Stephen Merchant, Steve Coogan, Stuart Wilson, the Cornetto trilogy, The World's End, Timothy Dalton, UK films, urban vs rural, violent films, wisecracking cops, writer-actor, writer-director, Young Frankenstein

There’s something a little off in the sleepy, picturesque hamlet of Sandford, UK and it’s up to gung-ho London super-cop, Nick Angel, to figure out what it is. Sure, the inhabitants of the tranquil little village may seem impossibly friendly, the kind of small-town folks who know everyone’s names and just how many sugar cubes they take in their tea, thank you very much. Sandford may seem impossibly clean, neat and crime-free (no one in town, for example, has even heard of the “M-word” (Murder, doncha know?), let alone done the dirty deed), a peek into a peaceful township where the biggest problems are the “living statue” street performer and a “hoodie epidemic” that vexes the preternaturally polite populace something fierce.

Ask any genre fan worth their salt, however, and they’ll probably all say the same thing: small, quiet little towns like Sandford may seem like oases from the rat-race of the world at large but, dig a little deeper, and they’ll always produce more than their fair share of skeletons in the various closets. Behind every kind, small-town smile lurks a bottomless capacity for evil and down every immaculately cobblestoned pathway? Why, the very heart of Hell, itself! After all…can you really trust someone who seems so…nice?

If you’re Edgar Wright and the rest of his merry band of hooligans, the answer is an absolutely resounding “Hell no!” and the result is the second film in writer-director Wright’s “Cornetto Trilogy,” Hot Fuzz (2007). While the first film in the series, the modern classic Shaun of the Dead (2004), tipped the musty, old zombie film ass-over-tea-kettle, Hot Fuzz seeks to do the same for action-packed ’90s cop films (the final point of the trilogy, The World’s End (2013), takes on alien invasion epics). By using most of the same terrific ensemble from Shaun of the Dead and that patented zany brand of deadpan humor, Wright capitalizes on everything that made his previous film so much fun, while throwing plenty of bones to anyone weaned on actioners like Point Break (1991) or Bad Boys (1995). While the film is always a little goofy, it’s also a smart film, full of blink-and-miss-em visual references, plenty of silly action, some surprisingly bracing violence and enough witty dialogue and outrageous scenarios to keep the punters in stitches. In other words: prime Wright, through and through.

After Nick Angel is promoted to Sergeant and sent to the sticks (his always-on antics are making not only his police peers but his big-city superiors look like ineffectual morons), it looks like his eternal crime-fighting pilot light will be snuffed, never to blaze again. After he ends up in the middle of a pair of suspicious deaths that are unceremoniously labeled an “accident” by the local police force, Angel decides to do his own investigation, with the dunderheaded assistance of one PC Danny Butterman (Nick Frost), the fairly useless son of Angel’s new superior, Inspector Frank Butterman (Jim Broadbent).

As more and more “accidents” keep popping up, however, Angel begins to suspect that the sleepy town might harbor more below the surface than just an unhealthy interest in winning “Village of the Year.” As Nick and Danny butt heads with the local chamber of commerce, headed by Tom Weaver (a completely unrecognizable Edward Woodward) and slimy grocery-store impresario Simon Skinner (former 007 Timothy Dalton), they begin to get wind of a conspiracy that might, potentially, involve every resident of the lovely little town. When it begins to seem as if the pair have gotten in over their heads, however, there’s only one sure-fire fix: binge-watch ’90s action flicks and then take the fight right to the streets.

Is there really something going on, however, or is poor Nick just going completely stir-crazy in the snoozy little community? As he gets closer and closer to the truth, Nick will learn that there’s only a few things he can put his faith in: his unwavering belief in the absolute power of good over evil, his steadfast determination to rid the streets of any and all crime (shoplifters, beware!) and the universal truth that absolutely anything will explode into a towering fireball once shot. Bad boys? You better believe it, buddy!

Reprising their winning chemistry from Shaun of the Dead, if not their actual characters, Pegg and Frost are exceptionally bright points of light in the altogether brilliant constellation that comprises Hot Fuzz’s ensemble. Martin Freeman, Bill Nighy and Steve Coogan pop up, briefly, as Nick’s self-serving London superiors…writer-directors Joe Cornish, Peter Jackson and Wright, himself, all have cameos…Cate Blanchett stops by for an unannounced turn as Nick’s unfaithful former girlfriend…Paddy Considine and Rafe Spall show up as a couple of idiotic cops nicknamed “the Andes” (since they’re both named Andy, dig?)…the always amazing Olivia Colman (Peep Show, as well as endless other British endeavors) has a blast as snarky PC Doris Thatcher…the aforementioned Dalton (one twirled mustache removed from silent-era villainy) and Woodward (best known on this side of the pond for his titular role as TV’s Equalizer, on the other side for his landmark performance in The Wicker Man (1973)) chew miles of scenery…writer-actor Stephen Merchant gets a great bit as Peter Ian Staker (or P.I. Staker, for the punny win)…virtually every second of screentime is occupied by a phenomenal actor given free rein to be patently awesome.

The result, of course, is an incredibly immersive experience, the equivalent of Mel Brooks’ ridiculously star-studded classics like Young Frankenstein (1974) or Blazing Saddles (1974). When combined with the picturesque locations, the over-the-top action sequences and the often absurd comedy, Hot Fuzz (like the other two films in the Cornetto Trilogy) is its own self-contained universe. It’s this quality that allows moments like Adam Buxton’s outrageously gory death (his head is reduced into a fine mist via the timely application of a fallen stone block) or the unrelentingly action-packed finale to sit comfortably beside more “high-brow” comedy fare like the scene where Angel engages in a crossword duel with a cagey old lady or the one where he rides through town to the tune of the Kinks’ “Village Green Preservation Society.”

There are great throwaway jokes about the amount of damage caused by “good guys” in action movies, the tendency of small-town busybodies to focus on pointless “outrages” like hoodie sweatshirts and street performers over more important issues like corruption and justice and how small town folks in films often slot effortlessly into the “sinister locals” category (one of the townsfolk was an extra in Peckinpah’s Straw Dogs (1971), we’re told on more than one occasion). There’s great comic material here both high and low, literally something for any fan of the funny stuff.

One of the smartest tricks Wright and company utilize is the restaging of famous action movie setpieces from the likes of pop-culture phenomena like Point Break and Bad Boys. While these scenes would function just fine in a vacuum, previous knowledge of Danny Butterman’s much-loved action films makes the experience that much richer: there may be no more sublime scene in the entire film than the one where Nick and Skinner battle it out over the ruins of a scale-model version of the town. As the two punch it out, like warring Gargantua or Godzilla with a particularly stiff upper-lip, a broken fire hydrant supplies a continuous shower of water over the two: in other words, Wright goes ahead and gives us one of those clichéd old bits where the hero and villain fight it out in the rain, pounding abuse on each other as the very skies join in. And it works gloriously: somewhere in “movie heaven,” Riggs and Murtagh are looking down, fondly, I’m willing to wager.

In feel (and tone), Hot Fuzz probably hews a little closer to its follow-up, The World’s End, than its predecessor, Shaun of the Dead. Hot Fuzz, however, like the films it references, is an altogether bigger, noisier and more boisterous affair than either of the other films: while Shaun of the Dead was full of great setpieces and The World’s End managed to take a leap into much “bigger” themes, the action beats of the middle film are their own little world. Hot Fuzz is a little “dumber” and “slighter” than the other two but that’s also to be expected: you don’t wade into the fray of silly, adrenalized action movies without getting a little of it on your shirtsleeves, after all.

Despite being less than enamored with Hot Fuzz upon its initial release, the film has grown on me, over the years, in a way that I’m not sure Shaun or World’s End has (although World’s End still has plenty of time to go): once I allowed myself to get swept away by the film’s loud, Technicolor action and ferocious sense of energy, however, it became easier to absorb the more subtle, truly ingenious elements to Wright’s style.

If you grew up on ’90s actioners, harbor suspicions against the status quo or fancy yourself a bit of a lone wolf, Wright and Pegg’s Hot Fuzz practically demands another viewing. Come for the gleeful chaos and copious explosions but stay for the kind of insightful, in-depth and subtle commentary that we’ve come to expect from one of genre cinema’s most unusual visionaries. As Michael might say: “Yarp.” Yarp, indeed.

7/5/15 (Part Two): A Jackrabbit in a Den of Wolves

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Andrew Robertt, Ben Mendelsohn, Best of 2015, betrayal, bounty hunters, Caren Pistorius, cinema, class systems, dark humor, directorial debut, father-daughter relationships, feature-film debut, film reviews, films, flashbacks, greenhorns, Jay Cavendish, Jed Kurzel, John Maclean, Kodi Smit-McPhee, love story, Michael Fassbender, Movies, optimism vs pessimism, outlaws, Robbie Ryan, Rory McCann, sardonic tone, set in 1860s, Silas Selleck, Slow West, the Beta Band, the myth of the Old West, the taming of the Wild West, the Wild West, UK-New Zealand films, upper vs lower class, voice-over narration, Westerns, writer-director

There’s a point in writer-director John Maclean’s instantly classic feature-debut, Slow West (2015), that just may be one of the subtlest, most cutting bits of insight into the human condition that I’ve seen in some time. As they recover from the aftermath of a particularly chaotic, violent robbery attempt at a general store, 16-year-old Scottish greenhorn Jay Cavendish (Kodi Smit-McPhee) looks past the stack of still-smoking corpses and right into the eyes of the dead robbers’ now-orphaned children. The children are impossibly young and innocent, their wide eyes seemingly unable to process the complete upending of their world, as they stand silently, gripping each others’ hands tight.

Feeling the instant onus of responsibility, Jay tells his travelling companion, hardened, sardonic gunfighter Silas Selleck (Michael Fassbender), that they’ll just need to take the kids with them. It’s the only thing that makes sense, after all: Jay and Silas weren’t responsible for the death of the urchins’ parents but they would be complete monsters if they just left them there, on their own, to die. The kids can just hitch a ride with them as they proceed on their mission across the frontier wasteland, in search of Jay’s beloved Rose (Caren Pistorius). Jay is eager to help, his eyes bright and determined, until Silas take all the wind out of his sails with one off-handed response: “And then what?” Silas, you see, is nothing if not a realist and knows one very important fact above all else: the desire to do good just isn’t enough…without the ability to follow through, it’s all just stuff and nonsense…smoke and bullshit. He accepts the fact that Jay won’t: taking the kids with them would be as sure a death-sentence as leaving them there to rot, good intentions be damned.

It’s precisely this level of insight and intelligence that makes Slow West not only the best Western to come down the pike in years but also one of the very best films of this still-in-progress year. A mature, darkly humorous and gorgeously shot character study that has little use for easy stereotypes or empty action, Maclean’s debut is the perfect antidote for overwrought, multiplex inanity, the very antithesis to the gazillion-dollar superhero films that currently clog cinematic arteries. Featuring a fantastic cast, a brilliant script and images lovely enough to frame, Slow West should be a poignant reminder of a time when cinema didn’t need to rely on shouting and CGI to slug audiences right in the solar plexus.

Plotwise, Slow West is the very definition of streamlined efficiency. The aforementioned Jay Cavendish, the son of a Scottish lord and lady, travels to the untamed chaos of 1860s frontier America in pursuit of his beloved Rose and her father, John (Rory McCann), after a terrible accident finds the father and daughter forced to leave their native land one step ahead of a lynch mob. With only the vaguest idea of where to look for his beloved, Jay sets off across the plains, so wet-behind-the-ears that he practically leaves a puddle wherever he goes.

In no time, Jay finds himself in the crosshairs of a group of miscreants hunting a fleeing Native American, one short step from getting his naive brains blown out all over his citified duds. At the last-minute, however, a mysterious gunman appears and blasts everyone but Jay straight to hell: this is the silent, contemplative Silas, a character who would’ve been played by none other than Clint Eastwood were this about four decades older. Silas knows that Jay is an accident waiting to happen, a plucky little chicken traipsing his way through an entire country full of hungry foxes, and he offers to be his bodyguard, in exchange for a little cold, hard cash. Jay heartily agrees, although he’s completely unaware of the other half of this particular coin: there’s a huge bounty out on Rose and her father (dead or alive) and Silas wants Jay to, unwittingly, lead him right to a much bigger payday.

As the two ride across the Old West, they encounter an almost endless variety of outlaws, wandering musicians, grizzled bounty hunters and foreign immigrants, each individual following their own particular path to salvation or destruction. Chief among these unique characters is Silas’ former gang leader, the extraordinarily lethal Payne (Ben Mendelsohn): Payne and his gang also have their sights set on Rose and her father and certainly won’t mind burying an old colleague, if they have to. As Jay and Silas continue to bond, they get ever closer to the beloved Rose, albeit with some suspiciously gunfighter-shaped shadows following behind. Will Silas be able to overcome his patently cynical nature in order to help his young charge? Will Jay ever reunite with Rose? Will true love really save the day or it just a myth as fanciful and false as Jay’s sunny view of this “brave new world”?

First off, let’s make one thing clear: Slow West is just about as perfect a film (certainly as perfect a full-length debut) as I can recall seeing, the kind of movie that hits you immediately and keeps you rapt right through the closing credits. From the genuinely stunning cinematography (if Robbie Ryan doesn’t get nominated for an Oscar, I’ll punch a hole in a wall) to the often whimsical score to the utterly thrilling action setpieces, Slow West is one exquisitely crafted piece of art. Add in a truly smart script, full of great dialogue and surprising doses of humor (the scene where Jay and Silas come upon the skeletal body of a logger crushed beneath a tree, ax still in hand, is one of the single greatest sight gags ever) and one of the best casts in some time and I’ll be honest: I can’t really find much fault here. At all.

Fassbender and Smit-McPhee are absolutely perfect as the unlikely partners, each playing off the other in ways both expected and truly surprising. The aforementioned Eastwood reference is not stated lightly: as someone who worships at the altar of everything Eastwood (at least through the ’90s), I found plenty of nice parallels between Fassbender’s performance, here, and my squint-eyed childhood hero. His is a low-key performance, as much about what’s not said as what is. While I’m usually not the biggest fan of cinematic voice-overs, Silas’ narration throughout is an integral part of the perfection, leading us to one of the most perfect endings I’ve seen in some time.

For his part, Smit-McPhee finds the perfect balance between Jay’s inherent helplessness and the steely determination that allowed him to make this dangerous trek in the first place. At any point, the character of Jay could have slipped into either obnoxious comic relief (look at the silly Scottish wimp!) or complete irrelevancy (why focus on this yahoo when you’ve got badass Silas over there?). It’s to both Smit-McPhee and Maclean’s tremendous credits, however, that Jay is always sympathetic: we want him to succeed because he seems like a genuinely good, hopeful and positive person. This pie-in-the-sky optimism is absolutely critical to the film’s underlying themes and Slow West wouldn’t be nearly the overwhelming success it is without his able participation. My advice? Get Fassbender and Smit-McPhee into another film, stat!

Like the best films of Jim Jarmusch, however, the supporting cast gives as good as the leads do. Pistorius is perfect in a relatively small role, imbuing her character with such a co-mingled sense of joy and unbearable sorrow that she makes every second of her screen time count. Mendelsohn, who might be the very definition of an actor who really needs no introduction, absolutely shines as the gang leader, turning in one of the coolest, most fun and vile villains to hit the big-screen since the glory days of Peckinpah films. In fact, much of Slow West recalls Peckinpah’s work in style and theme, if not necessarily unmitigated bloodshed. With his odd fur coat, droll manner and reptilian coldness, Payne is an instantly iconic creation: my only complaint, here, is that we don’t get nearly enough of him.

Production-wise, Slow West is at the absolute top of its game, no two ways about it. What really tips the film into classic territory, however, is how smart and insightful it is. This isn’t the stereotypical Western, full of flinty men blowing other flinty men to Kingdom Come. In many ways, Slow West is about the disparity between intent and action, between wanting a better world and actually doing something about it. Time and time again, Silas points out the difference between his and Jay’s personal philosophies: Jay sees the Wild West as a place of endless promise, full of hard-working people doing their best to overcome the elements (and themselves), carving out their own spot in an unforgiving landscape, while Silas sees the frontier as a no-man’s-land full of outlaws, dust, murder and drudgery. To accept Jay’s worldview is to invite absolute destruction, as far as Silas is concerned: let your guard down just once and you’re wormfood. To accept Silas’s worldview, however, is equally destructive: if no one is good, if no one can change and if the capacity for peaceful coexistence is a myth, what, exactly, do we have to live for?

As smart as it is beautiful, Slow West is an absolute treasure, the kind of film that the Coens thought they were making with their True Grit (2010) remake, only to fall short of the mark. As apt to make you chuckle as stare in awe, Maclean has established himself as one of the most exciting new filmmakers operating right now: the fact that the writer-director is only on his first film (after a pair of shorts) is even more extraordinary. The fact that Maclean comes to us not through the film world but the music world is that much more astounding: erstwhile music fans might recognize him as one of the driving forces behind Scottish indie heroes The Beta Band.

To restate the very obvious: I absolutely loved Slow West. From the craft to the message to the absolute perfect synthesis of form and meaning, Maclean’s debut is nothing short of a revelation. At 84 minutes, there isn’t one wasted scene, shot or motion, no sense of pandering, hand-holding or dumbing-down. This is cinema at its very best, the kind of movie that makes you feel glad to be alive. As a lifelong movie fan, I look for films like this all the time but it’s like finding a needle in a field of haystacks. Good thing, then, that Maclean is all needles and no hay: when I’m looking for a quality film in the future, I have a pretty good idea where to look.  If you enjoy quality movies, too, I suggest you do the same thing.