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NETFLIX MOVIE OF THE WEEK: DRIVE (2011)

3/31/2017

*****
18, 100 Mins

A gorgeous, hyperviolent fusion of 70s-style action B-Movie, European Arthouse and pulpy L.A Neo-Noir.

Everyone’s hunkiest hunk Ryan Gosling – lean and mean in a sizzling silver bomber jacket – stars as the unnamed Driver. The Driver being a strong, silent, stoic loner living on the fringes of the swooning urban paradise of Los Angeles. Driver drives for a living – morning to night he simply drives. The only difference is – by day, he’s a Hollywood stuntman whizzing around in pimped-up vehicles for star-studded studio productions. By night, however, he moonlights chauffeuring a vicious variety of brutish thugs on equally brutal heist jobs.

Driver may be socially inept with almost zero contacts - not even with his criminal superiors. Not that he minds though. After all, Driver just drives the car.
That is, however, until our smouldering protagonist falls for his pretty, fragile neighbour Irene (Carey Mulligan) – a broken woman with a distant 4 year old son and an abusive past involving an imprisoned Alcoholic husband (Oscar Isaac) – who provides Driver with a rare sense of selfless neediness. This becomes particularly evident in the growing bond with son Benicio (Kaden Leos). Seeming to have discovered two people he uncharacteristically cares for, Driver decides it’s time to hang up his crooked cloak and take on the surprising role of family man.

Sadly – once a criminal, always a criminal – as Driver discovers when Irene’s reformed hubby returns home from a long jail sentence fatally indebted to a fearsome, gold-chained mobster by the name of Nino (Ron Pearlman) and on the threat of a grisly murder unless a high-profile robbery was to go ahead. In hope of protecting Irene and Benicio, Drive reluctantly agrees to one final job. Yet - when such a job goes horrifically pear-shaped – Driver finds himself having placed his newly-found family in more danger than one could ever anticipate.

Beyond such a premise instantly inviting scoffs of “seen it all before”, frankly if there has ever been a film by which it’s very own title threatens to mismarket its appeal, Nicholas Winding Refn’s ‘Drive’ (2011) 100% fits such a bill. Based on the cranked-up posters featuring a dazzlingly-lit Cadillac and an even more dazzling Mr. Gosling, any macho male movie-goer or indeed lovesick female high-schooler could be universally forgiven for expecting this visually punchy thriller to be little more than a pre-packaged, petrol-headed action flick along the lines of the testosterone-raging antics of Paul Walker and co.’s frenetic ‘Fast and Furious’ (2002-) franchise. Of course that is provided one is not an obsessive film buff such as myself and thus not aware of Danish auteur Winding Refn’s past influences upon the European Arthouse scene.

Yes. ‘Drive’ may first and foremost be – at its heart – an aesthetically pulpy B-Movie in the vein of straightforward late 1960s-70s Paul Newman/Steve McQueen-style getaway vehicle flicks (‘Bullitt’ (1968), ‘The Driver’ (1978)). However describing ‘Drive’ as such would almost entirely risk slagging the film off as mere “trash” when in fact this is something every bit more prescient.

Having divided his time between bloodthirsty English-language Exploitation efforts such as ‘Bronson’ (2008) and wildly controversial Danish Arthouse fare expressed in the ‘Pusher Trilogy’ (1996-2005), Director Winding Refn has long lingered in the minds of Cannes-visiting obsessives as a Euro film-maker with a grungy affection for Exploitation Cinema and a visceral debt to the works of early Martin Scorsese, Sam Peckinpah and Roger Corman. However - unlike the likes of Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez - whose quasi-fetishistic obsession with plasma-splattering Grindhouse has often felt fatally shallow and derivative - there’s a surreal sense of underlying heart, soul and meditation relevant amongst Winding Refn’s ultra-stylized cinematic flair. This has never felt more of the case than in ‘Drive’ – a scorchingly slick, stylishly sexy blend of Action and Arthouse which represents the culmination of Winding Refn’s career.

Be warned, however. Any ADHD-addled viewer craving a full-throttle, breakneck-paced series of explosion-clogged, kinetic car chases are sure to be bitterly disappointed. Sure, one would really have to be rather oblivious to claim the film is “boring” or like an “art installation”. Yet it would also be a lie to describe the film as a non-stop adrenaline rush of stunt-defying set-pieces.

However - for any Film geek, graduate or fanboy who worships the artistic value of the Medium and its ability to convey an imagery of messages and influences – ‘Drive’ is a swooning, genre-defying, must-see masterpiece. A film with fantastical fondness for the history of populist entertainment itself -combined with a hip, funky sensibility and a hypnotic, dream-like quality of soulful yet grimy urban beauty.

One only has to catch a single glimpse of ‘Drive’s sprawling, opening wide shots of L.A’s iridescent skyline – richly supported by an intoxicatingly electronic soundtrack – to realise that the film’s most stunningly realized and stirring character may be that of the City of Stars itself. The mouth-watering cinematography paints the heart of Hollywood as an eye-popping blue and gold feast for the eyes in every way one’s initial awe-inspired vision of such a city should be. However – unlike recent L.A efforts such as ‘La La Land’ (2016) which falsely glorify the city as being a self-indulgent metropolis of Material wealth – ‘Drive’ never holds back for one second in portraying the seedy monstrosities and cheated lives shamefully hidden below this Consumerist dream of a cityscape in a stark contrast between the production’s daylight glaze and moonlight grit.

Like Martin Scorsese’s post-Vietnam, New York-set masterpiece ‘Taxi Driver’ (1976) (unquestionably ‘Drive’s greatest spiritual predecessor), Los Angeles here is a viscerally violent, night-time nesting ground for the filth of American society’s most despicable. It’s also a city with a somewhat sickening favouritism for money-minded chauvinists and insufferable ignorance towards those who are not a poster child for Merchandise propaganda.

Majestically providing a meticulous metaphor for the lonely existential crisis faced by hundreds of everyman Americans is a sardonically unshowy Ryan Gosling as a lone wolf behind the wheel – the car’s cloudy window screen being a POV psychological insight into Driver’s disgust and disillusion with the shallowness of the society around him.

In a muscularly physical performance of passive aggressive gestures and few words, Gosling channels Robert De Niro’s Travis Bickle in his emotionally distant, Asperger’s-like portrayal of Driver as a quietly gentle individual with a borderline psychotic fire fuming beneath the silent surface. Yet if De Niro’s shaggy-haired, whippet thin, staggeringly unkempt “creepy” cab driver automatically recalled modern society’s woefully ill-judged fear of the disgustingly stereotyped “disturbed lone freak”, this chauffeur is quiff blonde, ripped and embarrassingly handsome - equipped with the heart-throbbing youthfulness of James Dean in ‘Rebel Without A Cause’ (1959) and the grizzled, seen-it-all menace of Clint Eastwood’s Harry Callaghan in ‘Dirty Harry’ (1971).

Having established himself as a “to die for” teenage girl dream in the romantic escapades of ‘The Notebook’ (2004), ‘Drive’ provided Gosling with a star vehicle that allowed him to shed his classic “pretty boy” persona and athletically exercise his meatier character actor chops - his jaw-dropping leading man sex appeal and smooth coolness utterly unscathed of course!

There’s a silently slow-burning fury oozing from Driver which would become a blistering staple of Gosling’s kickstarted A-list career in future efforts such as ‘The Place Beyond the Pines’ (2013) and Winding Refn’s Bangkok-based follow-up ‘Only God Forgives’ (2013).

With his piercing death stares and stances, Gosling terrifically encapsulates a squint-inducing notion of “I could take you out in one go” resulting in the film’s sight-gorging violence coming across as far more grounded and gruelling than your average screen-spreading canvas of comic-book gore. If you’ve always been particularly squeamish for mutilation of eyes or wrists, then all the more reason for watching through your fingers in fight scenes oozing such a blisteringly sadistic intensity that any viewer in their right mind will question going anywhere near a hammer or indeed box-cutter again. It is Winding Refn’s pumping neo-realistic direction interlocked with Gosling’s ultra-masculine bodily acting which allows the audience a grim mental picture of the bone-crunching brutality of the L.A underworld in a way utterly unexpected from traditionally “lowbrow” crowdpleaser fare.

However – for me – ‘Drive’s crucial ingredient which propels the film far above any fellow attempts at 21st Century Neo-Noir has always been that beyond the film’s epochal roots in escapism; this is a quintessential story of tortured, broken, real people struggling to stay afloat in a sun-soaked, skyscraper-clogged city of crushed ambitions. Unmistakably ‘Drive’s beating organ lies in the heart-melting central love story of Driver and Irene. There’s something bold and bravely inspired in Winding Refn’s casting of Carey Mulligan whose modestly natural, cute yet not classically “model-esque” complexion is a masterstroke of juxtaposition to Gosling’s near-flawless “movie star” image and thus much of the film’s glossed-up, caricaturish characters. Topped off by Mulligan’s endearingly timid innocence and vulnerability, Irene provides a rare inner-beauty and encapsulation of purity in Driver’s seemingly close-minded vision of the world as cold, shallow and bitter.

The scenes between the two star-crossed lovers are graceful, wrenching and utterly sincere – beautifully and reflectively capturing the status frustration and disillusionment with panache. Arguably the grandest moment to cement the ballad of Driver + Irene as one of cinema’s most beloved pairings comes in a toweringly touching montage of familial bonding and happiness – the most magically surreal moment being a haunting shot of Driver, Irene and son Benicio zooming down the racetrack in that glistening Cadillac – accompanied by the cathartic California sun and the heartstring-pulling electro beat of Desire’s ‘Under Your Spell’. It is moments like this than not only bring self-shaming tears to a film freak’s eyes, but a riveting motivation to keep up their passion forever.

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LINE OF DUTY SEASON 4 EPISODE 1 TV REVIEW/RECAP

3/26/2017

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***
Sunday, 9pm, BBC1

A disappointingly pedestrian return for everyone’s favourite anti-corrupt British cop show.

After a bullet-speeding, spectacular foot chase of a finale to last year’s explosive third season which often veered away from plausibility in favour of crowd-pleasing telly entertainment, it’s significant then that Jed Mercurio’s award-winning Police drama significantly downsizes for its fourth 6-episode instalment of deceit, lies and corruption at the heart of the British Police force.

That is despite a budget-busting leap to the primetime 9pm Sunday night slot of BBC1 and arguably the series’ most high-profile lead in the form of ‘Westworld’ (2016-) / ’Mission Impossible II’ (2000) star Thandie Newton - following in the wake of Lennie James, Keeley Hawes and Daniel Mays as this season’s troubled, potentially bent copper under a scrutinising investigation from our zealous Irishman, impulsively naïve Mockney/Cockney copper and over curious Nottingham-born policing mum of a trio that make up AC-12.

It’s a tragic shame therefore that this opening episode largely leaves a sobering impression of more of the same. Ever since it debuted on BBC2 back in 2012, telly addicts have become well-attuned to ‘Line of Duty’s ultra-realistic portrait of Policing as being grounded and gruelling with moral dilemmas and grey areas far more in line with the Baltimore-set docudrama grit of HBO’s ‘The Wire’ (2002-2008) across the Atlantic than anything to come out of the BBC’s trashy, case-of the-week, ‘Silent Witness’-style procedurals.

The show’s magnetically unknowable second season - which grappled for 6 weeks with the guilty or not loyalties of Keeley Hawe’s unpredictably unhinged DI Lindsay Denton and her suspected involvement in car-blazingly violent Police ambush – particularly hit the highest notes with it’s ‘Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy’-like tapestry of complex, untrustworthily ambiguous characters capturing the imaginations of over 6.5 million viewers and establishing Jed Mercurio as one of the most thought-provoking and socially relevant writers working in Television today.

With the altogether flashier, more ridiculous Season 3 having rounded off with a near-perfect culmination of the series’ ongoing cat and mouse saga involving the deliciously devious DI Matt “The Caddy” Cotton (Craig Parkinson), Season 4’s opener returns the series to its urban realist roots with a satisfyingly grisly prologue involving the viciously nasty kidnapping of a twentysomething Eastern European-sounding female by a balaclava-masked figure – combined with the scorching council estate fire and frenetic arrest of a surprisingly timid hoodlum suspected to be behind terrorizing the run-down neighbourhood in a sickening series of sexually-motivated murders.

The set-piece was terrific Mercurio material. Exhausting, grim and – most of all – unflinchingly real with its Paul Greengrass/’Jason Bourne’-like “shaky cam” filming techniques pulsatingly conveying a dizzying sense of day-to-day constable work.
Of course seeing over all this was Ms. Newton’s DCI Roz Huntley – a glamorously successful detective who appears to share some of DI Denton’s disregard of officers with opposing views yet far more popular with her immediate superiors and a seemingly devoted family woman in an undeniably similar vein to Season 1’s DCI Tony Gates (Lennie James).

Either way Huntley’s a little stressed yet pretty relieved as you can imagine having orchestrated the rescue of a sexual assault victim from a burning flat and at the end of months of searching for a sleazy serial killer. Of course she’s rightfully hailed a hero by Paul Higgin’s slippery, insufferably RP-accented Chief Superintendent Derek Hilton (returning from the opening season). Yet why then does Roz seem to be continuously on edge? Perhaps it’s just being shell-shocked, but it would foolish not to at least ponder whether she’s up to something seriously dodgy.

Still, no reason for our “rats” at AC-12 to get involved, right? And here we are back again with our beloved three anti-coppers. So where have we been, guys?

Well, Vicky McClure’s feisty Kate Fleming seems to be enjoying herself rather a little too much in her most recent promotion to Detective Sergeant – albeit with yet ANOTHER change of haircut (this time surprisingly suiting her!). Of course this all comes with the grand annoyance of her charisma vacuum of a male colleague. Yes. It’s Martin Compston’s sexually overactive, baby-faced DS Steve Arnott who – despite having the hilarious facial expressions of a baffled badger wondering whether it’s passed wind – still succeeds in consistently pulling every vaguely attractive lady who passes his desk!

Oh Steve! Why do you have to be such an insufferable fun spoiler?! There’s no question that the blandly jaw-clenching Compston has always been the show’s weakest link in failing to capture the script’s obvious archetypes of the “rebellious rookie” – particularly out of hid depth in any attempt at angry responses which come across like a spoilt 2 year old throwing a hissy fit over his yucky food!

It’s unfortunate then that Steve’s infuriating arrogance and jealousy was brought directly into the fold this episode as Steve whined and winced so much that the ever-reliable Kate’s in-series referential jab at Steve having nearly brought about the collapse of the department almost felt too kind. If I was Kate, I’d have whacked him around the head with a fire extinguisher!

Thank heavens then that Adrian Dunbar is gently on-form to keep the peace as the steel-minded Belfastian figurehead DSI Ted Hastings. In a force resembling a snake pit of slimeball schemers and conniving, career-minded bureaucrats, Hastings has timely provided a rare beacon of moral hope - even if he never really seems to get any credit for it. Perhaps one of this episode’s greatest strengths was playing on Hasting’s unbiased father figure-like quality – refusing to pick sides between the two bickering kids (Kate and Steve). It’s likely without this much of the interaction would have played out little more than like brother and sister toddler squabbling over their latest Thomas the Tank Engine train!

And then we had arguably the season opener’s most deliciously creepy saving grace encapsulated by the supremely talented Jason Watkins as giant foreheaded forensics officer Tim Ifield – a man so skin-crawlingly peevish he makes ‘Dexter’s Dexter Morgan look like lovely Emma Stone!

Watkins chews up the dreary Police station scenery like a piranha devouring its prey in a chilling performance that leaves the audience to deceptively decide for themselves just whose side he’s on. From the episode’s outset, Ifield was depicted as being the single mere sole to see through Newton’s DCI Huntley and her presumed façade of a white Knightess in shining armour. Clearly even AC-12 don’t seem to find her blatantly melodramatic reactions anything to ponder about. Good thing therefore that Ifield was on-hand to discreetly point out to Steve a tad of inconsistency in Huntley’s conclusion that scared, emotionally vulnerable Michael Farmer (Scott Reid) is a malicious sexual predator - on the basis of him being “retarded enough” for her to frame. It certainly seems like Ifield might be onto something - especially with his theory that a lack of DNA matching the belongings of the killer’s victims suggests they were very likely to be planted.

However – throughout the episode – I found myself pondering rather repetitively whether we should really be trusting this sinister-looking analysist – not least given Film/TV stereotypes tend to have a slightly too conspicuous dislike for fiftysomething blokes with balding high foreheads!

It’s all very well that Ifield may believe there’s more to Huntley than meets the eye, but his constant crawling and darting in and out of corridors took fethishistic stalker vibes to an entirely new level. I was almost expecting Watkins to utter the chuckle-worthy phrase of “KHALEEEESI!” in the fashion of Jorah Mormont from ‘Game of Thrones’ (2011-).

Ah well, turns out I was pretty darn spot-on as the episode’s chainsaw-wielding ‘Dexter’-style cliffhanger most certainly indicated. Sadly though the same can’t be said about my emotional investment. Will Roz Huntley live to tell the tale? Or will she follow in the lines of ‘Line of Duty’s previous established series regulars and meet the chop within one hour of their introduction?

The crushing truth is that, frankly at times, one struggled to care. It’s easy to understand the average Rioja-sipping arm chair viewer’s complaints that the once punchingly down n’ dirty drama had been overshadowed by shrapnel-blowing attempts to burst into the mainstream. However – in returning to ‘Line of Duty’s office-based origins – I couldn’t help, but feel a clogging air of familiarity to the whole affair. There’s something worryingly ‘CSI’ about this season’s hyper-stylized, Gotham City-lit cinematography and design that slides dangerously close to procedural. This unmistakably felt evident in the opening hour’s plethora of plastic sheets and ladies and gents in astronaut-looking outfits as they picked out tiny specimens from the mutilated crime scenes. Do we really need yet another serial murderer case?

After all, ‘Line of Duty’ has always thrived in its seasonal whodunits surrounding the guilt of the white-collar investigator’s themselves rather than that of it’s street criminals. I also found myself deeply struggling to identify with Newton’s slightly one-note shady copper. Any long-standing followers of the series would never dare to question the fact that any of the show’s yearly lead antiheroes have been underdeveloped in the slightest. Whether you resented DCI Gates’s toxic arrogance or DI Denton’s compulsive lying, Writer Mercurio never failed to give his audiences a tantalising insight into their pathetic or indeed sympathetic motivations.

While it’s entirely possible we are yet to see the best of Huntley, this first ep was strongly lacking in any notion of a way into her clearly tormented psyche beyond Newton’s death-piercing glares. Thanks to a mix of Newton’s quiet performer act and some rather ambiguous exposition, we were left with a frustrated feeling of one holding back.
Of course perhaps that simply comes down to being in the nature of a standard season premiere, but Mercurio is going to have to come up with something radically fresh if he is to sustain one’s wavering attention span over the likely next 5 Sundays.

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LIFE (2017) FILM REVIEW

3/26/2017

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***
15, 110 Mins

For trashy B-Movie fans, ‘Life’ provides passable popcorn entertainment – unless you’ve seen ‘Alien’ or ‘Gravity’.

Set against the backdrop of the International Space Station on a mission to successfully capture a Mars-landing space probe with a newly-found soil sample, ‘Life’ builds it’s premise around a six-human crew consisting of a “pretty boy” medical officer (Jake Gyllenhaal), a frustratingly uptight feminist Quarantine officer (Rebecca Ferguson) and a hunky pilot (Ryan Reynolds) – alongside the film’s token black British scientist (Airyon Bakare), a wise Japanese engineer (Hiroyuki Sanada) and a calculating Russian Commander (Olga Dihovichnaya). Upon the discovery of a bizarrely nicknamed specimen known as “Calvin” which could be mankind’s first major contact with an extra-terrestrial kind, the crew are left fascinated by this squid-like object. That is until such a creature turns out to be a little more snappy than cutesy and the team find themselves quickly diminishing as a predatory being wreaks havoc within the claustrophobic air vents of this lonely voyager.

Yes. You heard it right. Stereotype-breaking characters? A fearsome feminist? A controlling ice queen? Most of all, the underlying, unsettling analogy of a road trip gone bad upon the discovery of a murderous, psychopathic passer-by? I’m talking about ‘Alien’ (1979), right? Nope. I’m referring to ‘Life’ – a pre-packaged, populist crowdpleaser rife with the spirit of Ridley Scott’s seminal “haunted house” space horror combined with the vertigo-testing intensity of Alfonso Cuaron’s deep-space rollercoaster ride ‘Gravity’ (2013). Right from the film’s opening title crawl, one would really have be a cinematic know-nothing not to realise that this is copiously a shameless rip-off of earlier such Sci-Fi efforts. Yet it’s also one that unquestionably shares their unbashed, gloopy air of big-budget B-Movie sensibility. For better or for worse, ‘Life’ does exclusively what it says on the tin.

Directed by Daniel Espinosa (‘Easy Money’ (2010), ‘Safe House’ (2012)) – a perfectly efficient Exploitation Movie helmsman, the film dizzyingly concocts a series of suitably nauseating spacesuit set-pieces that not only demand IMAX viewing, but provide a deliciously delirious sense of space disorientation.

There’s also plenty of sweat-dripping suspense and gut-churning gore to be found in the gradually sustained build-up towards enjoyably nonsensical deaths and a grotesquely slimy creature design enough to make even the most unfazed movie-goer consider puking over the front of their preceding cinema seat!

So few surprises in store, but a solidly flimsy dose of mid-week movie fun for the unsuspecting viewer. Hardcore Sci-Fi geeks craving weightier fare are best off saving their bucks till’ May, however, when ‘Alien: Covenant’ (2017) rolls in!

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NETFLIX MOVIE OF THE WEEK: DRIVE (2011)

*****
18, 100 Mins

LINE OF DUTY SEASON 4 EPISODE 1 TV REVIEW/RECAP

***
Sunday, 9pm, BBC1

LIFE (2017) FILM REVIEW

***
15, 110 Mins

Meet Roshan Chandy

Follow Me on Twitter

Rating System

*** 2 Thumbs Up
Thumb Up
* Waving Thumbs
** Thumb Down
* 2 Thumbs Down

Archives

FILM OF THE WEEK

Saint Maud
(15, 84 Mins)

DVD OF THE WEEK

Back to the Future: The Ultimate Trilogy
(PG, 341 Mins)

TV MOVIE OF THE WEEK

Get Out (2017)
(15, 102 Mins)
Sun 11th Oct., 10.55pm, Channel 4

NETFLIX MOVIE OF THE WEEK: DRIVE (2011)

*****18, 100 Mins

LINE OF DUTY SEASON 4 EPISODE 1 TV REVIEW/RECAP

​*** Sunday, 9pm, BBC1

LIFE (2017) FILM REVIEW

***15, 110 Mins

Meet Roshan Chandy

Follow Me on Twitter​

Rating System

***** 2 Thumbs Up**** Thumb Up*** Waving Thumbs** Thumb Down* 2 Thumbs Down​

Archives

FILM OF THE WEEK​

Saint Maud​(15, 84 Mins)

DVD OF THE WEEK​

Back to the Future: The Ultimate Trilogy (PG, 341 Mins)

TV MOVIE OF THE WEEK​

Get Out (2017)(15, 102 Mins)Sun 11th Oct., 10.55pm, Channel 4

*****
18, 100 Mins

***
Sunday, 9pm, BBC1

***
15, 110 Mins

Follow Me on Twitter

*** 2 Thumbs Up
Thumb Up
* Waving Thumbs
** Thumb Down
* 2 Thumbs Down

FILM OF THE WEEK

Saint Maud
(15, 84 Mins)

DVD OF THE WEEK

Back to the Future: The Ultimate Trilogy
(PG, 341 Mins)

TV MOVIE OF THE WEEK

Get Out (2017)
(15, 102 Mins)
Sun 11th Oct., 10.55pm, Channel 4