NEXT GOAL WINS

Featuring: Thomas Rongen, Jaiyah Saelua, Nicky Salapu, Liatama Amisone Jr, Ramin Ott, Gene Ne’emia, Larry Mana’o, Rawlston Masanai and Charles Uhrle.
Directors: Mike Brett and Steve Jamison.

SCREENING AT THE 2014 SYDNEY FILM FESTIVAL ON SAT JUNE 7 AND WED JUN 11. DETAILS HERE.

Rating: 4/5

One of the smallest triumphs in world sport inspires one of the year’s most moving and entertaining documentaries in Next Goal Wins, a rousing study of dedication, soulful mateship and steely determination set against the high stakes arena of World Cup football.

In 2001, the national soccer team for the island nation of American Samoa lost 31-0 to Australia during a regional qualifying round. It would prove to be the worst loss in the history of official international matches, a record that remains to this day, and began a losing streak that would last a decade. The non-professional squad of players remained bonded by national pride, but American Samoa seemed destined to remain on the very bottom of the FIFA world rankings for many years to come.

British documentarians Mike Brett and Steve Jamison, making their feature debut, begin their chronicle of the team as it prepares for the 2014 event qualifiers. The governing body of American Samoa football reached out to their US head office and are assigned a new coach in the form of Thomas Rongen, an abrasive, occasionally ill-tempered but experienced journeyman from The Netherlands. The introduction of the ruddy-faced firebrand coach into the idyllic world of the tropical enclave fuels key moments of conflict in the film.

As the training sessions unfold and the channelling of the team spirit into a cohesive, competitive unit takes shape, Next Goal Wins succinctly diverges from the path most will assume it takes; the essence of the film emerges as the personalities and motivations of the key players. Most notable amongst them is goalkeeper Nicky Salapu, who comes out of retirement to quell the demons that haunt him from that fateful game against Australia, and Jaiyah Saelua, a roving, statuesque defender who hails from the nation’s acknowledged third gender, the Fa’afafine, and who represents the only transgender player in international soccer. Perhaps most moving will be Coach Rongen’s personal revelations and the impact the island and its people have on his fractured soul.

Having artfully engaged the hearts of their audience with insightful, compassionate storytelling, Brett and Jamison allow the three qualifying games to unfold with a minimum of filmmaking overkill. With the ultimate aim being to just not lose and, God willing, score that elusive goal, the stakes could not be lower by feel-good movie standards. That the outcome should prove to be edge-of-the-seat thrilling and so deeply affecting is a testament to the skill of the first-time filmmakers and the profound humanity of the on-screen subjects. 

GOAL OF THE DEAD

Stars: Alban Lenoir, Charlie Bruneau, Tiphaine Daviot, Ahmed Sylla, Bruno Salomone, Patrick Ligardes, Xavier Laurent and Sebastien Vandenberghe.
Writers: Tristan Schulmann, Marie Garel Weiss, Quoc Dang Tran, Izm and Laetitia Trapet.
Directors: Benjamin Rocher and Thierry Poiraud.

SCREENING AT THE 2014 SYDNEY FILM FESTIVAL ON MON JUNE 9 AND SUN JUN 15. DETAILS HERE.

Rating: 2.5/5

The scares are too few and the satire too meagre in Goal of the Dead, despite a roster of behind-the-scenes contributors who have plenty of game time when it comes to convincing genre works. Football fans may get a giddy thrill from seeing their passion filtered through the bloodthirsty mindset of a zombie apocalypse, but there is little sports action and even less genuine entertainment value in this gory Gallic romp.

Clearly inspired by the lunacy of the Edgar Wright/Simon Pegg brilliant collaboration Shaun of the Dead, this simply-plotted tale meanders along at a canter rather than the full sprint required. The pretentiously-titled top-tier Olympique de Paris football team are making their way deep into the provinces for a lopsided match against the non-pro hackers from Caplongue. For ageing midfielder Sam Lorit (Alban Lenoir; pictured, top), it is a return to the hometown that hates him, the locals furious he abandoned them for the big city lights 17 years ago; everyone from the quartet of drunk ne’er-do-wells known as The Coyotes to little children in the streets have it in for him.

None hold more of a grudge than Sam’s childhood friend Jeannot (Sebastien Vandenberghe), who was left behind when Sam hit it big. Jeannot’s doctor father has built his lad into a mountain of vengeful muscle with illegal injections but, on the eve of the game, he goes a needle too far; Jeannot becomes a raging, bloody monster, bent on murder and mayhem as he races toward the stadium in the ultimate state of ‘roid rage’.

The great zombie works have always had one eye on potential social commentary while delivering the blood-splattered scares and it seems a no-brainer to focus on the big-business world of professional football, so ripe for taking down a peg or two. But co-directors Benjamin Rocher (2010’s undead bloodbath, The Horde) and Thierry Poiraud (2004’s comedy-horror oddity, The Return of James Battle) stumble from the set-up, dragging out character definitions and narrative elements to extreme lengths and distancing their audience in the process. A disregard for logic, even by horror movie standards, is the film’s first misstep; in one daft scene, a key player is fatefully left behind after the team bus stops, his absence unnoticed until the team is in the dressing room.

Support characters include an ambitious but naïve journalist (Charlie Bruneau), a star forward whose value is waning (Ahmed Sylla, the film’s best asset), a douche-bag player-agent (Bruno Salomone) and a pretty young thing (Tiphaine Daviot) who carries the burden of Sam’s soccer-groupie past. The elements are all in place for a ripping satire skewering football and its relationship with the media, player profiteering and the immorality of the modern sports industry machine, but its six writers (!!) and two directors conjure little more than rote jump-scares and splashy effects.

The decision to run the film as two distinct 60-minute halves (get it?) is cloying; indulging in an entirely fresh credits sequence mid film undoes what little momentum Goal of the Dead has generated. (The film was released in two parts in its homeland, but surely global distributors could have prepped a palatable cut for the international market). If non-fans think soccer can run a tad long and get dull, the 120-minute version screened at the Sydney Film Festival is not for them.

A MILLION WAYS TO DIE IN THE WEST

Stars: Seth MacFarlane, Charlize Theron, Giovanni Ribisi, Sarah Silverman, Liam Neeson, Amanda Seyfried, Neil Patrick Harris, Christopher Hagen and Wes Studi.
Writers: Seth MacFarlane, Alec Sulkin and Wellesley Wild.
Director: Seth MacFarlane.

Rating: 1/5

If there is a contender to wrestle the 2014 Worst Picture Razzie from Adam Sandler and his much maligned non-com Blended, it may well be Seth MacFarlane for his starring debut, A Million Ways to Die in the West. One of the most misguided and flagrantly self-indulgent vanity projects in recent memory, ‘The Man Who Killed The Oscars’ puts his talent front and centre with this crude, witless western spoof that reaches its comedic peak when Doogie Howser kicks over a hat full of diarrhoea. Hooray for Hollywood.

MacFarlane refuses to take a backward step from critics who label his brand of shock-schtick frat-boy level puerile; the very first joke is a misogynistic slur, followed by a steady stream of body fluid gags, some homophobic stereotyping and lots of very modern cussing. His on-camera appearance is itself a non-concession to the conventions of the dustbowl melodrama, with his pearly white teeth, gelled hair and man-scaped features entirely at odds with…well, everything. Which, as was evident from his hosting of the Academy Awards, is the essence of his comic persona; MacFarlane looks the dapper traditionalist, but only to the extent that it allows him to infiltrate the establishment  and amuse himself by setting light to a bag of poo on their doorstep. A Million Ways to Die in the West represents his latest bag of poo.  

The widescreen lensing of DOP Michael Barrett captures the landscape imagery associated the genre, yet MacFarlane does very little to engage on a comedic level with the setting. In one seemingly endless rant that feels pilfered from an outdated stand-up routine, the shrieking actor rattles off all the negatives of the frontier life in 1880’s Arizona; surely some of these could have been explored in greater depth had the script been less reliant upon the auteur’s bottomless well of faecal references.

MacFarlane plays sheep grazier Albert, a whining nobody who loses his girlfriend Louise (Amanda Seyfried) when she tires of his general unmanliness. Albert finds a (very) patient ear in his virginal best friend Edward (Giovanni Ribisi) and his lovable Christian-whore Ruth (Sarah Silverman), but Albert is near the end of his tether. Things begin to brighten up when Albert saves the beautiful Anna (Charlize Theron)during a bar brawl and an entirely unfathomable romance blossoms, until it is revealed she is scouting the town for her gunslinging bad-guy hubby, Clinch (Liam Neeson, looking nonplussed). On the periphery is moustachioed creep, Foy (the film’s biggest asset, Neil Patrick Harris), who is wooing Louise and remains at odds with our anti-hero.

The solid cast is shunted aside for long passages, allowing MacFarlane underserved centre stage for most of the film’s inexcusable 116 minute running time. Deft comedians like Ribisi and Silverman are left floundering with weak, obvious gags before disappearing entirely; Seyfried’s career takes a backward step in a role that feels brutally truncated, as if the majority of it will bulk up the DVD extras package. The most awkward player is clearly Oscar-winner Theron, who good-sports herself for the benefit of her co-star’s project but is clearly uncomfortable. Broad comedy is not prevalent on the actress’ resume and her casting seems less to do with her comedic skill (despite her natural likability onscreen) and more to do with MacFarlane’s over-seer role; if given the power of veto as writer/director/producer on your first studio pic starring role, why not cast the world’s most beautiful actress, regardless of her suitability, as your love interest?

MacFarlane falls back on his well-worn trick of abstract pop-culture references, the likes of which sometimes worked in his overvalued TV series, Family Guy; the IMDb credit list spoils the surprise factor for fans of Christopher Lloyd, Gilbert Gottfried and Ewan McGregor, but there are some other A-list cameos, all affording the overall production no particularly advantage. Some druggy humour and shock-effect gore is employed, the likes of which may raise a goofy smirk amongst stoners, but the scenes are so devoid of inventiveness or context as to have no impact.

The failure of A Million Ways to Die in the West falls entirely at the feet of Seth MacFarlane and one hopes he wears the blame with the same enthusiasm with which he accepted the accolades for his surprise 2012 hit, Ted. In hindsight, the strength of that film was not the foul-mouthed CGI bear but the warm point-of-entry that its star Mark Wahlberg provided. MacFarlane’s follow-up lacks any connective tissue to human realness, preferring cartoonish coarseness and random excess; it is as if that twisted, needy sociopathic soft-toy was given a one-picture deal as reward for his success, and this is the end result.

IN YOUR EYES

Stars: Zoe Kazan, Michael Stahl-David, Jennifer Grey, Nikki Reed, Mark Fauerstein, Steve Howey, Steve Harris and Preston Bailey.
Writer: Joss Whedon.
Director: Brin Hill

Rating: 2.5/5

Indulging in the kind of starry-eyed, low-profile magic-realism project that only directing a Marvel-backed blockbuster will facilitate, writer Joss Whedon threatens to turn all his fanboy followers into diabetics should they seek out director Brin Hill’s take on the Firefly scribe’s ultra-saccharine romantic fantasy, In Your Eyes.

Core demographic devotees of The Avengers (and their parents, who fondly remember his Buffy the Vampire Slayer series) left bewildered by Whedon’s last under-the-radar effort, the modern retelling of Much Ado About Nothing, will find their fan love strained further by this twee, simple-minded love story. The hipster/festival crowd who might otherwise warm to such an offbeat idea are just as likely to react against the under-developed premise, suggesting that rainy afternoon cable viewers will be the film’s likely audience.  

The ‘delightfully dorky’ Zoe Kazan plays Rebecca, an East Coast society gal who is feeling increasingly ill at ease with the airs and graces she must put on to advance the career of her boorishly ambitious hospital administrator husband, Phillip (a slimy Mark Fauerstein). Same time, different place; pretty-boy ex-con Dylan (Michael Stahl-David) is trying to make a new life for himself as a mechanic in a seedy New Mexico town. Stahl-David gets to play his bad-boy dreamboat to the hilt, ably assisted by the production design team who have him living a loner’s life in a caravan overlooking a picturesque gorge; he is usually dressed in a white singlet and spends his free time planting a flower garden in the glow of early evening sunlight.

When Rebecca and Dylan connect telepathically and they both (rather too quickly) cope with the fact they can talk to each other across a continent, an unlikely romance blossoms.  All the expected highs and lows that could manifest from this predicament are played with conviction by Kazan and Stahl-David, who generate a modicum of chemistry despite next-to-no screen time together. How they deal with their secret allows for some meagre comedy (she gets in his head intrusively while he is trying to woo Nikki Reed) and one saucy bout of self-love, the sensations conveyed despite the space between them.

There are a few too many ‘Hey, who were you talking to?’ close-calls with support players; it is never made clear why the pair need to speak aloud when conversing, but…well, they just do. Nor is it ever coherently explained how they can turn the ‘gift’ off (or turn it back on) or why they never connected for all the years he was in prison or she was being romanced by Phillip. The all-too predictable climax is on the back of some wildly convoluted third-act developments that puts way too much strain on the premise and audience suspension of disbelief.

However, these kinds of film’s do find a great deal of love amongst the die-hard romantics; be very careful in whose company you deride such malarkey as the Christopher Reeve/Jane Seymour weepie Somewhere in Time or Sandra Bullock’s letter-box love-story The Lakehouse, both of which awkwardly mix fantasy and romance yet have proven inexplicably enduring. The same following is likely to grow for In Your Eyes, a disposable but not entirely unlikable confection that feels like a first-timer’s passion project and not the work of an A-list writer of Whedon’s stature.

SXTAPE

Stars: Caitlin Folley, Ian Duncan, Diana Garcia, Daniel Farado, Julie Marcus and Eric Neil Guiterrez.
Writer: Eric Reese.
Director: Bernard Rose.

Rating: 3/5

Although the ‘shakie-cam’ found-footage horror genre prides itself on a style-less aesthetic, the craftsmanship of a director with highly-regarded credentials is plainly evident in Bernard Rose’s LA-set haunted-hospital shocker, sxtape. This latest addition to the Brit’s eclectic career is as far from his period dramas (Immortal Beloved; Anna Karenina; The Kreutzer Sonata) as any film could be, but is steeped in the gritty, grimy minutiae of urban decay and chillingly well-defined supernatural components that made his breakout hit Candyman an enduring cult favourite.

Like the 1992 film that introduced horror fans to Tony Todd’s iconic ‘Man in the Mirror’ boogeyman, Rose finds old-school scares in the heart of the modern metropolis. Back then, it was the Chicago projects; this time around, it is in an abandoned sanitarium in the wilds of inner-city Los Angeles. A vibrant blonde artist named Jill (Caitlin Folley) is being followed about town by her horny new beau, Adam (the barely-glimpsed Ian Duncan), who is recording her as she prepares to launch her first exhibit. Sweet time together fills most of the film’s first act, which bounces from boho-loft bonking to playful public giggles and back again; Rose’s film takes a broadminded approach to energetic and frank lovemaking that will attract tough censor attention in some territories.

Adam surprises Jill by taking her to a dingy old mansion to get her thoughts on the place as a gallery space. He surprises her further when, as some kind of bad joke, he straps her to a guerney and briefly leaves her briefly; this allows for the film’s first big scare and the beginning of Jill and Adam’s descent into the vengeful spiritual memory of the building. The plotting comparisons to The Shining grow increasingly apparent (Rose references the ‘naked hottie/old hag’ mirror moment from Kubrick’s film at one point), though it is hardly the first to do so and ultimately carves out its own satisfying narrative path.

Just as fellow veteran Barry Levinson showed on his criminally-underseen handheld horror work The Bay, the format can reinvigorate a director who has spent a career grinding through the traditionally cumbersome production process. Rose held his own camera and cut his own footage on sxtape and the confidence of an old-pro given free reign comes through in every well-timed scare. He has major assets in leading lady Folley, whose all-or-nothing performance goes from darling free-spirit to bloody, shrieking banshee, and production designer Bradd Fillmann, whose vision of a hellish hospital landscape is clearly influenced by those first-person horror games that I refuse to play because they terrify me.

sxtape never fully overcomes the inherent problems that dog the found-footage film - why don’t they just leave? why would they keep filming? why doesn’t the camera battery run out? who adds the post-production elements? The film has its own unanswered conundrums, such as who would still  be running power to the clearly derelict building, although the biggest logical misstep in Eric Reese’s script comes in the form of a prologue in which a cop questions a bloody and distressed Jill; if she is seen to have survived and the fate of her companions is in no doubt, who finds and watches the footage?

Fortunately, Rose and his team generate enough goodwill with some solid scares and a truly icky final frame to overcome any shortcomings. sxtape breathes some fresh air into the handheld-horror genre via the skill of a deft, proven journeyman filmmaker who is clearly enjoying himself.                 

MINUSCULE: VALLEY OF THE ANTS

Writers/Directors: Helene Giraud and Thomas Szabo.

Rating: 3.5/5

The bigscreen adaptation of co-directors Helene Giraud and Thomas Szabo’s French TV hit is a charming adventure that only stumbles when it favours an increasingly expansive plot over its delightful six-legged stars. Which won’t matter one bit to the under 10s, for whom this unlikely, sweetly-told tale of friendship in the insect world will prove irresistible.

Giraud and Szabo stumbled upon a cottage industry when they launched the first series of six-minute shorts in 2006 chronicling anthropomorphised insect life in the French countryside (the film’s backdrop is the woods of Provence). To date, the pair has produced 78 mini-episodes; all are sans dialogue (as is the film version), ensuring easy transition into a global marketplace that now numbers over 70 territories. The step-up to cinema-sized coin was inevitable and has proven audience-friendly; Minuscule is already one of 2014’s top-earners, with Eu14million banked domestically.

The theme of family is established early, when a pregnant woman enjoying a picnic with her beau abandons her blanket of food to dash to the hospital. Jump cut to a birth, but not the one expected; instead, we are under a vast leafy frond and witnessing three ladybug eggs pop open. The new winged family set out on an exploratory adventure, only to have one little one become separated. All alone, his misadventures in survival lead him to the blanket, where he inadvertently befriends the leader of a black ant food-scouting regiment.

With the ants balancing a tin of sugar cubes and the wee ladybug along for the ride (a damaged wing renders the poor critter flightless), a cross-paddock odyssey is undertaken to return the bounty to the ant’s home. Dangers abound (including one very scary lizard, when viewed from the ant’s perspective), not least of which is a determinedly evil red ant platoon led by the film’s villain. The red ants are continuously denied some sugar (both good guys and bad almost falling victim to an ant life’s many dangers, including fish and motorcars) until they can take it no more; the reds launch an all out assault on the black ant hill.

It is this third-act/ninety-degree turn into a Lord of the Rings-style ‘castle siege’ that betrays the elegant, character-driven warmth of Minuscule; the wonderfully expressive eyes of the key protagonists and the major threats posed by minor obstacles are all the narrative needed. By the time the warring ant armies drag slingshots, fireworks and a bug-spray can into battle, audience empathy and interest has waned. One senses Giraud and Szabo were unsure of how to upscale the story as convincingly as the visuals; the narrative hiccups when our ladybug hero/heroine must travel back to the rug, becoming side-tracked into an unnecessary encounter with a spider and frog.

In every other respect, Minuscule is an enormously entertaining adventure. It effortlessly finds more engaging interplay and laughs amongst its handful of tiny, wordless characters than the entire cast of most recent smart-mouthed US animation efforts. 

THE BABADOOK

Stars: Essie Davis, Noah Wiseman, Daniel Henshall, Hayley McElhinney, Barbara West, Tiffany Lyndall-Knight and Ben Winspear.
Writer/Director: Jennifer Kent.

Rating: 4/5

The fractured, fragile mental states of a struggling widow and her clingy 6 year-old son manifest as a startling poltergeist-like possession in the nerve(and tongue)-twisting horror thriller, The Babadook.

Representing a stunning debut for writer/director Jennifer Kent, this truly chilling vision is steeped in the nightmarish lore of fairy-tale storytelling while at the same time reconstructing familiar haunted-house tropes within a modern suburban setting. Exhibiting the same love of and fresh vision for the genre as fellow Australian James Wan did recently with The Conjuring, Kent pushes beyond the trappings usually associated with its kind and plunges thematically into the corrosiveness of grief, guilt and loneliness as they exist within the already difficult role of single parent.

Central to the film’s profound impact is Essie Davis as Amelia, the actress taking her character and the audience to the abyss of fragile despair before being reborn with a supernatural ferocity. The on-screen chemistry she shares with Noah Wiseman, the child actor playing her trouble son Samuel, is utterly convincing; when the horrors take shape and the shadowy pall of physical violence hangs heavily over their shared suburban terrace, the acting from the pair captures the threat with a razor-edge intensity.

Where Kent excels is in her handling of Amelia’s descent into mental instability. With her terrific editor Simon Njoo, she adopts the technique of clipping early scenes by a just a few frames, resulting in a disconcerting narrative trajectory that effectively leaves her main character behind at times. As Amelia is loosing grip on her mind, so is the character struggling to keep up with her own story (it helps that the naturally beautiful Davis foregoes all vanity in the role, often appearing to be barely holding it together physically and emotionally). The film works as great horror fiction thanks entirely to the believability afforded the protagonist’s psychological state.

Equally impressive is the titular spook, brought to life from the pages of an ominous bedtime book and given resonance by a child’s imagination before dining off the inky, colourless misery of the home environment. Kent knows exactly the power of the ace she has up her sleeve; she confidently inches forward for almost the entire film before a final reveal that delivers a visceral jolt of terror.

Despite a relatively meagre budget (reportedly little more than Aus$2million), The Babadook is an expertly crafted film, with all tech contributions (notably Alex Holmes’ production design and Radoslaw Ladczuk’s cinematography) of the highest standard. The darkened home is often cast in shades of grey, echoing the black-and-white origins of Kent’s vision; The Babadook is a feature-length adaptation of Kent’s 2005 short, Monster, an equally effective frightener with the terrific Susan Prior screaming up a storm in the role of ‘Mother’.

3D NAKED AMBITION

Stars: Chapman To, Josie Ho, Candy Yuen, Yui Tatsumi, Aoi Tsukasa, Louis Koo, Nozomi Aso, Anri Okita, Maiko Yuki, Derek Tsang and Tyson Chak.
Writers: Chan Hing-ka, Ho Miu-ki and Chou Man-you.
Director: Lee Kung-lok.

Rating: 3/5

There is certainly enough curvy, nubile flesh to have mainland Chinese censors reeling but in every other regard, director Lee Kung-lok’s enjoyably silly Naked Ambition offers only minor titillation. It’s strengths, however minor, are in maintaining a giddy comedic air despite a plot as flimsy as lingerie; any controversy conjured by the puritanical brigade should prove a storm in a D-cup.

A sequel-of-sorts to Dante Lam’s more seriously-minded 2003 hit, Lee’s high-energy romp is ostensibly a vehicle for ageless comic Chapman To, cutting a dashing figure as Wyman Chan, the Hong Kong everyman who inadvertently becomes an AV (adult video) superstar in the lucrative Japanese market.

Part of a friendship clique who bemoan the dwindling quality and profitability of DVD porn, the group head for Tokyo to hook-up with their adult industry connection, go-between Shidaiko Hatoyama (a foul-mouthed and funny Josie Ho, returning to the franchise in which she made her screen debut over a decade ago). Here, they set about making their own skinflick, only to offend the leading man with their demands on the first day of shooting and leaving the production with no good wood to film their opus.

Stepping up when no one else has the…well, you know, Chan allows his female lead (real-life AV goddess, Yui Tatsumi) to dominate – an unwillingness that pays off when Japanese women warm to his ‘shy guy’, submissive man persona and turn him into a top-selling AV industry superstar (after a very funny 'training' montage with Tako Kato, an AV legend with over 5000 credits). To's ‘reluctant Romeo’ archetype has always been popular with audiences – Australian readers will recall the bawdy Alvin Purple misadventures of the 70’s; British audiences had Confessions of a Window Cleaner (1974) and its sequels.

Lee’s film settles into a series of set-ups capturing on-set wackiness and featuring topless girls giggling a lot and bouncing up and down on top of the increasingly smug and smarmy Chan (a persona that will be pleasingly familiar to longtime fans of To, who played a similar character most recently in Ho-cheung Pang’s Vulgaria). Fans of Eastern erotica will find an extra giggle or two in the soft-core depiction of cultural references such as the mega-monster genre, pink-haired Harajuku nymphettes and crowded train-carriage fantasy. 

That is about it plotwise, until studly upstart Naoki Nagasaki (Louis Koo, another 2003 alumni) challenges him to a nationally broadcast ‘sex-athon’ to see who is indeed the AV alpha male. It is all preposterous, of course, as befits a film set in the ludicrous world of garish pop-porn, but it is played with a spritely energy by a cast that seems to be having a good time (in one scene, a stand-by woodsman accidentally ‘sprays’ To’s character, a splash to the temple for which the actor was clearly not prepared and which sends him out of frame, giggling).

If anything leaves a bad taste in the mouth, it might be the thinly veiled line in racial humour that creeps through the script by co-writers Chan Hing-ka, Ho Miu-ki and Chou Man-you. The Hong Kong ensemble utter several observations at the expense of their Japanese hosts, at one juncture ranting about their superiority over the local population. It reveals a mean-spirited streak that is out of place in such lightweight fare.

As expected, the third-dimension is predominantly used to assault the audience with close-ups of large breasts and provide extra-sensory immersion within the bedroom scenes. The Lumiere Brothers must be rolling in their graves, although Russ Meyer would love the new technology.

ICEMAN 3D

Stars: Donnie Yen, Baoqiang Wang, Shengyi Huang, Yu Kang, Simon Yam and Hoi-Pang Lo.
Writer: Fung Lam.
Director: Wing-cheong Law.

Rating: 1.5/5

Despite the one-two warning klaxon that director Wing-cheong Law’s Iceman is both a remake and a first instalment, there must have been, at some point in the film’s long and troubled production history, the glint of a vast and involving action epic.

But the spark of inspiration that ignited this messy update of Clarence Fok Yiu-leung’s 1989 cult hit is extinguished with barely a frame unspooled. Law’s lame-brained concoction aims to be, in equal parts, a martial-arts opus, low-brow crowd-pleaser and mystical history lesson; what emerges is an often incomprehensible mash-up that plays murky, amateurish and puerile.

The silliness kicks in from the opening scene, in which three cryogenically frozen warriors from the Ming dynasty – surely the greatest scientific find of the century – are being transported in what looks like a rental truck, driven by a sandwich-eating slob, with a single cop-car escort. When the truck hits a rock and a random plastic shopping bag becomes entangled in the undercarriage, the resulting crash frees the frozen soldiers.

Senior amongst the escapees is He-Ying (stunt superstar Donnie Yen, on double-duty as action director), who sets out amongst the modern nightlife of Hong Kong with an ancient artefact (more specifically, the petrified penis of the deity Shiva) that will kickstart an ancient time-travel device called the Golden Wheel of Life. He befriends drunken party girl Xiao Mei (a likable Huang Shengyi) and spends most of the film dodging idiot police officials and his thawed Ming warrior enemies, Sao (Baoqiang Wang) and Niehu (Yu Kang), who are out for revenge fuelled by what they believe was an act of betrayal 400-odd years ago (the flashback scenes, set amongst some stunning scenery and featuring a terrifically realised avalanche, are the film’s saving grace).

The misguided creativity of all involved hits rock-bottom with a SWAT team siege that finds He-Ying trapped in a lavatory; his method of escape, which begins with Yen smugly grinning straight to camera before faecal matter is sprayed over those gathered (in 3D, no less), proves an apt metaphor for the film as a whole. Ill-considered scatological humour proves a fallback option on several occasions, not least of which being the warrior’s odd skill of being able to pee like a water-cannon.

Worthless subplots abound (He-Ying’s saccharine-sweet connection with Xiao Mei’s ailing mother; some North Korean gangster violence that takes the film beyond the realm of family entertainment), none of which warrant what seems to be an interminable 105 minute running time. A largely CGI-rendered final reel confrontation atop the Tsing Ma bridge offers too much too late; a hurriedly-staged coda, designed to set-up Part 2 of the narrative (due in theatres Christmas 2014), merely serves to remind audiences of how anaemically unsatisfying Part 1 has been. 

SUNSHINE ON LEITH

Stars: Peter Mullan, Antonia Thomas, Freya Mavor, Jane Horrocks, George MacKay, Kevin Guthrie, Jason Flemyng and Emily-Jane Boyle.
Writer: Stephen Greenhorn.
Director: Dexter Fletcher.

Reviewed at the Gold Coast Film Festival, Sunday April 5.

Rating: 3.5/5

Given his first two featuress deal with the emotional intricacies of working class family life, one might assume that director Dexter Fletcher feels bound by particular themes. Surely the veteran character actor accumulated a vast storytelling toolbox after four decades of guidance under the likes of David Lynch (The Elephant Man, 1980), Derek Jarman (Caravaggio, 1986), Ken Russell (Gothic, 1986) and Guy Ritchie (Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, 1998)?

And, of course, he did. His debut effort, the tough-minded father/son crime drama Wild Bill is the polar opposite of this follow-up, the sweet-natured musical drama, Sunshine on Leith. Having made his first on-screen appearance in Alan Parker’s 1976 musical, Bugsy Malone, Fletcher exhibits an affinity for the genre; his adaptation of the hit stage play is to Scottish audiences as Mamma Mia! is to The Me Generation and  and Rock of Ages is to Gen X-ers – a bigscreen jukebox jam very loosely held together by a hoary plotline as old as cinema itself.

Essentially the story of three romances that all take place within a single family in Edinburgh (or Leith, to the locals), we meet the two key protagonists Davy (George Mackay) and Ally (Kevin Guthrie) as soldiers, deeply embedded in Afghanistan. Fletcher dazzles with the opening sequence, in which the lads platoon chants a traditional chorus of courage as they surge further in to enemy territory, with tragic results.

Two months later, the best mates have returned to their hometown having been honourably discharged, determined to rebuild their lives. Davy’s mother Jean (a terrific Jane Horrocks, employing all the musical brio that brought her international fame in 1998’s Little Voice) and father Rab (an against-type Peter Mullan) are raising their college-graduate daughter, Liz (Freya Mavor); Liz has a history with Ally, who hopes to consolidate his future with her. Davy needs a lovelife and is soon wooing Liz’s friend, Brit beauty Yvonne (Antonia Thomas).

As is the way with all feel-good films, the key characters must hit rock-bottom before scaling the musical mountaintop, and so it goes. The secret daughter Rab never knew he had resurfaces (in the form of the lovely Sarah Vickers), threatening his otherwise stable marriage; Ally and Liz stumble when her ambition overrides his romantic dreams; and, in the least convincing love hiccup, Davy and Yvonne hit a rough patch when he can’t put aside his hatred of her homeland to make it work with her.

Perhaps the biggest surprise the film offers to audiences outside of Scotland is that the brotherly pop duo The Proclaimers, who disappeared into trivia contest oblivion after their late 80’s hits ‘I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)’ and ‘I’m On My Way’ faded, are national treasures in their homeland and had enough songs to fill out a stage-to-screen musical (the pair, Craig and Charlie Reid, make a fleeting cameo). The arrangements are ideally suited to the cast and expertly worked into the narrative, even when it creaks with sentimentality and stretches credibility.

Angry-man icon Mullan warbles through his tunes with a gravelly intensity, ala Tom Waits, all the while totally convincing as the troubled patriarch; character actor Jason Flemyng enlivens with a rockin’ rendition just when the film needs it. The thick brogue and local dialect (what is havering?) is occasionally distracting, but the inherent pleasure derived from a good movie musical is always present. Fletcher doesn’t offer up a genre-bending Luhrmann-esque redefinition of the genre, but nor does this sweet, simple material require it.