UNIVERSAL SOLDIER: DAY OF RECKONING

Stars: Scott Adkins, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Dolph Lundgren, Andrei Arlovski, Mariah Bonner, Tony Jareau, Craig Walker and Andrew Sikking.
Writers: John Hyams, Doug Magnuson and Jon Greenhalgh.
Director: John Hyams.

Rating: 3.5/5

There is not a solitary reason why audiences should expect a shred of fresh creativity by the fourth instalment of any film franchise, let alone the anachronistic blood’n’guts muscle-man/headed Universal Soldier series.

The story of the half-man/half-cyborg fighting unit seemed like a big deal when then-bankable stars Jean-Claude Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren kicked off the ‘UniSol’ adventures in Roland Emmerich’s 1992 original (backed by major players Carolco and Columbia Tri-Star Pictures). However, subsequent sequels (two officially, though the brand has been exploited in various guises) were mindless, ‘base element’ knock-offs that relegated the franchise to straight-to-video obscurity.

The director of sequel #2, Regeneration, John Hyams, returns for Day of Reckoning with an entirely fresh perspective on UniSol lore. Son of journeyman genre filmmaker Peter Hyams (2010, Timecop, Capricorn One, Outland), he centres his narrative on Scott Adkins’ John, a broad-shouldered ex-military man who plunges into a coma after having been beaten senseless and forced to witness the slaying of his wife and daughter; the first-person perspective of these opening scenes set the tone for what will be a gruelling, viscerally immersive experience.

The killer is Luc Devereaux (a Kurtz-like Van Damme, complete with shining, hairless dome and mumbly drawl), who soon becomes the vengeful target of John when he awakens 9 months later (his rebirth, as it were). But John is as much Devereaux’s target; surviving UniSol’s are being corralled and controlled in a cult-like underground lair by Devereaux and his 2IC, Andrew Scott (Lundgren, offering up a wild, wide-eyed take on dark-souled evangelistic fervour in his two key scenes).

Hyams’ film is steeped in the myopic lust for vengeance that fuels many B-actioners, but he brings a great deal more to the proceedings. Strobe-lit visions of Devereaux haunt John, pulsating nightmares that are accompanied by an ambient soundscape more in tune with the works of Gaspar Noe (Enter the Void) or Panos Cosmatos (Beyond the Black Rainbow). Hyams’ stages expository dialogue with sparse, precise intensity; one character-defining exchange between John and stripper-with-a-secret Sarah (a striking Mariah Bonner) is lit with dark, Lynch-ian reds and blues and played with paranoid, Cronenberg-like intensity. British-born kickboxing champ Adkins’ is no De Niro, but he handles bottled rage and dawning realisation with enough skill to make John’s plight entirely engaging.

And if all these references are lost on the aging fan returning to a favoured franchise from their youth, there is more than enough corporeal action to sate even the most demanding connoisseur. This is a low-budget work but Hyams makes every cent count; a thrilling car chase and the final, extended subterranean stand-off between John, and Devereaux’s brain-washed UniSol army are expertly shot. A blood-soaked sports-store dust-up between John and a mindless assassin known as The Plumber (Andrei Arkovski) is a brutal classic of its type.

GANGSTER SQUAD

Stars: Sean Penn, Josh Brolin, Ryan Gosling, Emma Stone, Giovanni Ribisi, Michael Pena, Robert Patrick, Sullivan Stapleton and Nick Nolte.
Writer: Will Beall; based upon the book by Paul Lieberman.
Director Ruben Fleischer

Rating: 1.5/5

‘Inspired by…’ morphs into ‘Ripped off from…’ with barely 15 minutes gone in Ruben Fleischer’s Gangster Squad, a work that so clearly riffs on plot beats and key characters from 1987s The Untouchables, one is tempted to scan the credits for acknowledgement of Brian De Palma and David Mamet. Their names aren’t there, which proves to be just two of the missing creative elements that made the Kevin Costner/Sean Connery classic so good and this B-movie claptrap so bad.

Based on a true story circa 1949 but so gussied up in modern-day film techniques as to ring patently false, Gangster Squad tells the story of rough’n’tough good cop John O’Mara (Josh Brolin, one-note), the man charged with heading up a secret squad of under-the-radar lawmen whose job it is to take down ambitious East Coast gangster Mickey Cohen (a twitchy Sean Penn, hamming it up and reminding us how good De Niro’s Al Capone was) before he establishes control out West. The misfit heroes include the smart guy (Giovanni Ribisi, in the Charles Martin Smith role) and the wise old-timer (Robert Patrick, as the crotchety Connery archetype). Because it is LA and not Chicago, Andy Garcia’s Italian-American rookie is replaced by Anthony Mackie’s stoic African-American and Michael Pena’s Mexican upstart.

The only characters not direct throwbacks to The Untouchables are those of smooth-talking playboy cop Jerry Wooters and Cohen’s linguist and main squeeze Grace Faraday. These parts are played, respectively, by Hollywood’s hottest young stars, Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone, though neither exhibits much interest in anything other than cheap mugging and come-hither glances to convey whatever meagre nuance their parts require. The one support player who can hold his head high is Australian import Sullivan Stapleton (Animal Kingdom), whose act of heroism in the face of Cohen and his hoods is the one thing that rings true in the film.

The film opens with some terrible violence (not a little girl’s death in a corner store explosion, but just as shocking); there is some perfunctory machismo involving a wannabe tough-guy who works for Cohen, all of which goes nowhere. From that point, the carbon-copying of hits top gear – gathering the members of the unit; a raid that goes wrong; a high-profile momentum that leads to street-level retribution.

‘Homage’ is all well and good, but when minor details are mirrored it becomes too much to bear. De Niro’s legendary rant “I want him dead! I want his family dead! I want his house burnt to the ground!” is, quite unbelievably, reproduced by a shrieking Penn, who spits and bellows, “I want them all dead! I want their families dead! I want their pets dead!” Worst of all, Fleischer tries to match De Palma’s train station steps gun battle, a sequence that brought all of the director’s technical skill to the fore, with a tinny hotel lobby slo-mo shoot-‘em-up in which tommy-gun bullets are sprayed every which way yet only seem to hit the buffet table.

What Fleischer and his team didn’t copy but really should have was the artistry on display in every frame of De Palma’s film. There is no rich Ennio Morricone score (instead, we get the man responsible for the Transformers soundtrack); no shadowy, lush Stephen Burum cinematography (this gaudy digi-mess is the work of Oscar-winner, Dion Beebe);and, there is none of Marilyn Vance’s attention to period costuming (Mary Zophres new/old fashion hybrid is jarring).

Ultimately, Gangster Squad doesn’t even try to hide the fact it is a cheap knock-off. The Untouchables grows in stature with each passing year; Fleischer’s hack-job, which some wags have already labelled ‘The Unwatchables’, will be forgotten in an instance.

JACK REACHER

Stars: Tom Cruise, Rosamund Pike, Richard Jenkins, Jai Courtney, David Oyelowo, Werner Herzog, Alexia Fast, Joseph Sikora, Michael Raymond-James, Vladimir Sizov and Robert Duvall.
Writer: Christopher McQuarrie; based upon the novel ‘One Shot’ by Lee Childs.
Director: Christopher McQuarrie.

Rating: 3.5/5

A pivotal component of the complex brand called ‘Tom Cruise- Superstar’ is the actor/producer’s innate ability to turn unremarkable B-movie dross into compelling big-screen entertainment. The most savvy and spectacularly successful actor of his generation surrounds himself with quality cohorts and lets his larger-than-life onscreen persona fully engorge each project’s innate commerciality and, mostly, integrity (let’s leave Rock of Ages to one side, for now).

Jack Reacher, Cruise’s much-discussed take on author Lee Childs’ bestselling anti-hero, ticks all those boxes. His ‘quality cohorts’ are Oscar-winning writer Christopher McQuarrie (The Usual Suspects), who steps up to direct his first film since the under-rated Way of the Gun; co-stars Rosamund Pike, Richard Jenkins and well-placed cameos from Robert Duvall and, however unlikely, German auteur Werner Herzog; and, a compelling, convoluted slice of pulpish plotting that recalls Cruise’s own equally daft but no less enjoyable hits The Firm, A Few Good Men and Valkyrie (working from a McQuarrie script).

Unlike those films, the director saves his A-list star’s big reveal until well into the first act. He opens with a wordless, nerve-shredding sequence that tracks the movements of killer James Barr (Joseph Sikora) as he settles, scopes and then slaughters five innocents in downtown Pittsburgh. The ex-military rifleman is apprehended swiftly in a breathless piece of directorial bravado that opens the film with thrilling brio; McQuarrie’s DOP Caleb Deschanel is at the top of his game, lensing a beautiful-looking, expertly-crafted piece of studio filmmaking.

In custody, Barr cops a verbal barrage from investigating officer Emerson (David Oyelowo), allowing McQuarrie’s spin on Child’s hard-boiled dialogue to take flight (“I want you in prison, where the brothers can share you around until your farts sound like yawns”). It is here Barr first asks for Reacher, presaging an entrance suitably charismatic for Cruise’s enigmatic figure. Fans of the novels are baying for blood, claiming a flagrant disregard for their hero’s defining qualities – a towering, scarred ladies man of brutal decisiveness – in the casting of Cruise. Though I am unfamiliar with the books, he seemed perfectly fine in the context of the film.

Reacher teams with defender Helen Rodin (Rosamund Pike in a performance frustratingly wavers between doe-eyed sidekick and career tough-girl) and together they begin unravelling the deeply-embedded elements of a mystery involving cold-blooded killer Charlie (Aussie-made-good, Jai Courtney) and dismembered evil-doer ‘The Zec’ (a seething Werner Herzog) that often teeters on the precipice of the ludicrous yet remains compulsively exciting throughout.

At first glance, Reacher may not be much of a stretch for Cruise. He is commanding in key action scenes (a thrilling car chase; a roadside beatdown of five thugs) and skilfully delivers some irony-free ‘80s action hero’ bon mots (“I mean to beat you to death and drink your blood from a boot”), but sometimes it seems almost too effortless. The brash cockiness that drove 20 years of blockbuster hits in which he essentially played slight variations on the same character (All the Right Moves; Top Gun, The Color of Money; Rain Man; Days of Thunder) has morphed into a singularly-focussed, self-assured middle-aged presence that borders on arrogant at times.   

But when called upon to carry some far-out elements, Cruise shows his worth; he is the personification of the audience’s cynicism, beating the film back into a warped version of reality when it is required of him. It is the empathy that he draws from his unmovable fanbase that makes Cruise’s heroic leads (and his ongoing value to Hollywood) so potent. As the melodrama unfolds, Jack Reacher might occasionally feel like a minor work in Tom Cruise’s filmography; hindsight may reveal it to be one of his most accomplished and defining characterisations.

THE HOBBIT

Stars: Martin Freeman, Ian McKellen, Richard Armitage, Ken Stott, Graham McTavish, William Kircher, James Nesbitt, Stephen Hunter, Dean O’Gorman, Aidan Turner, Barry Humphries and Andy Serkis.
Writers: Philippa Boyens, Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh and Guillermo del Toro; based on the novel by JRR Tolkien.
Director: Peter Jackson.

Rating: 1.5/5

It is not enough to merely gawk at the spectacle that is The Hobbit and bleat, “Job well done, Mr Jackson!” Afforded the budget of his dreams to revisit the billion-dollar Rings franchise, Peter Jackson should provide effects work that is nothing short of perfect; that is very least the fans have a right to expect. The much-discussed 48 frames-per-second camera technique offers a ridiculously crisp image, at times beautiful but certainly robbing The Hobbit of any real-world grounding. Ultimately, it is just another geeky tool, the kind that ‘techy’ directors like Jackson and James Cameron love to utilise just because they can. The Hobbit didn’t need it, but the look of the film is not the biggest problem with the New Zealand director’s return to The Shire.

What needs to be addressed is just how ploddingly boring The Hobbit is.

Clocking in at an astonishingly indulgent 170 minutes, Jackson bulks up Tolkien’s lean story with invented, convoluted scenes of no consequence whatsoever. Already much-discussed is the film's first 25 minutes, in which the band of warrior dwarves converge upon the home of our reluctant hero, Bilbo Baggins (an ok Martin Freeman), at the behest of the wizard, Gandalf (Ian McKellen). Much singing and eating and general dwarfish shenanigans ensue, all of which frustrates Baggins and, increasingly, the audience. There is no dramatic momentum created, no character emerges as particularly compelling. The tone of the film is set in this opening sequence – very often, a lot will seem to be going on in The Hobbit, but nothing ever really happens.

The dwarves, with Baggins in tow and Gandalf riding shotgun, set off to reclaim their rightful home, the Kingdom of Erebor, which has been seized by the dragon Smaug. They are chased by Orcs, take a time-consuming sidetrack to visit Rivendell (a passage not in the book that only serves to work LoTR favourites Cate Blanchett, Hugo Weaving and Christopher Lee into the new trilogy) and encounter the horrid visage that is Gollum (Andy Serkis, of course, riddling-off against Bilbo in the film’s best sequence).

As was the case with The Lord of The Rings trilogy, there is a great deal of walking, running and climbing in The Hobbit. The dwarf army travels an interminable distance, encountering horse stealing trolls (a terribly written sequence that plays like a bad Monty Python sketch); duelling giant rock monsters (affording a glimpse at the darker vision that Gullermo del Toro may have employed); and, the underground lair of the Goblin King (Barry Humphries) and his minions (which the dwarves must flee, traversing an elaborate maze of ladders and bridges that start to resemble a game of Donkey Kong). The peril is evident, but there is not a whisp of tension in any of these adventures. Knowing The Hobbit is merely the beginning point for a new trilogy, there is no threat to any of the lead characters and, even after 2 ½ hours, we don’t get to know any of the support dwarves enough to care in they live or die.

Given the source material is so beloved and the last three films were bathed in Oscar and commercial glory, The Hobbit carries with it inherited cache. And Jackson knows that all too well; there is a lazy smugness at work here, a mood that has deadened the director’s instincts. For thousands, the Lord of The Rings trilogy was an emotion-filled spectacle; The Hobbit, by comparison, is all pixels and no pulse. The Lord of The Rings was heroic cinema bolstered by new technology, a new generation’s Lawrence of Arabia or Braveheart; The Hobbit is only new technology. The trilogy it most resembles is not the past Tolkien adaptations, but the bloated, plotless Transformer films.  

THIS IS 40

Stars: Paul Rudd, Leslie Mann, Albert Brooks, John Lithgow, Chris O’Dowd, Jason Segel, Megan Fox, Charlene Yi, Maude Apatow, Iris Apatow and Melissa McCarthy.
Writer/Director: Judd Apatow

Rating: 4/5

Judd Apatow’s first stint in the director’s chair since 2009’s under-appreciated Funny People isn’t quite the classic middle-class American comedy/drama he might have made, but it’s as close as Hollywood has gotten in a long time. With perfect chemistry between stars Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann and lots of funny/sad moments, This is 40 is a winning work from a director who remains the heir apparent to James L. Brooks’ crown as Hollywood’s contemporary feel-good comedy maestro.

The instantly-recognisable idiosyncrasies of an indebted suburban family are captured by Apatow, whose casting of real-life wife Leslie Mann and their two daughters would suggest the personal pressures featured in the film are (or, given Apatow’s A-list paycheque status, once were) drawn from his own existence. So convincing is the family dynamic, all other plotting and support roles begin to seem forced and extraneous. At 134 minutes, the trimming of at least two undernourished support-player subplots would not have done the film any harm at all.

Rudd and Mann play Pete and Debbie, a West-coast couple with two daughters, early-teen ‘Lost’ obsessive Sadie (Maude Apatow) and still-sweet Charlotte (Iris Apatow). Pete runs a retro-themed recording label, their financial hopes pinned on a resurgence in the popularity of Graham Parker and the Rumours (all playing themselves); Debbie oversees a fashion retail outlet, where clerks Jodi (Charlene Yi) and Desi (Megan Fox) may or may not be ripping off lots of cash. Further tensions arise when Pete’s secretive financial support of his deadbeat dad Larry (Albert Brooks) is revealed; Debbie is largely estranged from her snooty surgeon father, Oliver (John Lithgow).

Apatow is most at home at home; the scenes in the kitchen, bedrooms, backyard and, most hilariously, the bathroom of Pete and Debbie’s home are the film’s best. When his script tries to incorporate their broader interactions, it is less successful. The stunt-casting of Jason Segel (as Debbie’s sexed-up personal fitness guru) and Chris O’Dowd (as Pete’s record company offsider) wastes both talents; the bulk of their roles could have been dispensed to the DVD-extras bin. The narrative becomes unwieldy in the third act; a birthday-bbq in which all the characters come together is over-played and awkwardly constructed when compared to the breezy pace employed prior.

Apatow’s heart is clearly in exploring the brutal honesty of life for the modern, married 40-something and in his leads he has found the perfect foils. Mann, American cinema’s most under-utilised screen talent, is wonderful; Rudd, the boyish charm first glimpsed nearly 20 years ago in Amy Heckerling’s Clueless still front-and-centre, is as likable as ever but also shades Pete in a darker, sadder light. The drama between the two is played out with precision; the comedy is sublime (a weed-fuelled weekend away for the two is a laugh riot).

As Hollywood loses its grip upon the 20-something audience, the 13-25 year-old movie-obsessed teens of the 1980s are emerging as Hollywood’s most dedicated audience. Which means This is 40 should be a big hit, but let’s hope not for those reasons alone. It’s a little blue but generally a warm, human comedy, the likes of which used to be de rigueur back in the 70s. Then, Mum and Dad were still the key decision-makers when it came to weekend movie-going. It is good to see this (ie, my) age group being catered for once again.

LIFE OF PI

Stars: Suraj Sharma, Rafe Spall, Ayush Tandon, Adil Hussain, Irrfan Khan, Gautam Belur, Tabu, James Saito, Jun Naito, Andrea Di Stefano and Gérard Depardieu.
Writer: David Magee, based upon the novel by Yann Martel.
Director: Ang Lee

Rating: 3/5

Ang Lee’s adaptation of Yann Martel’s much-loved tome Life of Pi represents a line-in-the-sand moment in the relationship between the role of old-school practical effects and the illusion of new-world CGI.

Movies have always been fake – by the very definition of the storytelling art form they are a manufactured reality – but with the Oscar-winning director’s latest ambitious work, a film narrative asks of its audience a level of emotional involvement while being so patently false in its construction. The technology of film-making infuses the entire production, ultimately building a damn near insurmountable barrier between the viewer and the film’s dramatic heart.

What does this mean in terms of deriving the hinted-at profundity from Life of Pi? For many viewers and to varying degrees based upon the individual’s willingness to suspend disbelief, Ang Lee’s film will be either an emotionally engaging work of profound humanity or the latest show reel for Hollywood’s desktop wizards.

Named after a French swimming pool before adopting the mathematical equation via a lovely sequence, the inquisitive young Pi (Ayush Tandon) confronts some pat theological dilemmas as his younger self only to have his world disrupted when his father (Adil Hussain) decides to ship the family zoo to Canada. On route, the cargo ship is upended in wondrously-realised monsoon-storm.

The only human survivor of the tragedy, the late-teen Pi (Suraj Sharma) is set adrift in a life raft with a zebra, an orang-utan, a hyena and a Bengal tiger, known as ‘Richard Parker’. All are CGI creations that represent the very best the latest FX whizzes have to offer; the clunky creatures of Jumanji are a distant, dated memory. But, undeniably, the animals are not real, the threat they pose or the emotions they exude no more believable than any other manufactured entity. (Many viewers may already be of a mindset that near-enough is good-enough in terms of effects work; if so, up the star-rating to suit).

The bulk of the film’s second act is given over to Pi’s existential struggle with ‘Richard Parker’, who must learn to share the confines of the small boat. Much of Lee’s second act recalls significant beats in Tom Hanks’ 2000 survival tale, Cast Away. While ‘Wilson the Volleyball’ never posed the fatal threat Richard Parker does, both clearly represent the lead characters’ yin/yang mental struggle (something Lee tries to spin to profound third-act effect a bit unconvincingly).

Every single frame (pixel?) of the films’ world is the realisation of a visual design team that must have spent the duration of the production drooling uncontrollably. In this regard, the other recent work that The Life of Pi recalls is Vincent Ward’s 1998 dream-world vision of after-life struggle, What Dreams May Come, itself widely considered a technical wonder hamstrung by a style-over-substance plot thinness.

The one constant in all Lee’s works is his skill with actors and he exhibits a refined understanding of his cast’s craft here. Most of the emotions are under-stated, the use of words economical; there is no denying the conviction of all the performances.  Sharma, a non-actor unearthed by the production, is wonderful.

The film riffs on the theme of imagination and storytelling in a kind of ‘insanity as a defence for murder’ denouement; truth be told, the convoluted ending is confusing. Bookended by an enquiring author (Rafe Spall) interviewing the adult Pi (Irrfan Khan) about his mythical adventure, the notion of fanciful fiction wielding the might of literal fact never fully resonates. The wonder of Pi’s sea-going struggle (phosphorescent whales; swarms of flying fish…it’s all there in the trailer) is convincing; the framing, structure and impact of Pi’s emotional and mental struggle, somewhat less so.

THE IMPOSSIBLE

Stars: Naomi Watts, Ewan McGregor, Tom Holland, Oaklee Pendergast, Samuel Joslin, Johan Sundberg, Geraldine Chaplin, Marta Etura and Sönke Möhring.
Writer: Sergio G. Sánchez
Director: Juan Antonio Bayona

Rating: 2.5/5

Juan Antonio Bayona’s filmic recreation of the 2004 tsunami is a viscerally torrid spectacle that captures with remarkable precision the scope, scale and force of one of nature’s most frightening displays of power. That it should be so dramatically inert makes The Impossible one of 2012’s most frustrating film-going experiences; you should feel so much of the anguish and suffering endured by the young family at the centre of the story, so universal is their pain. But you just don’t.

Why you don’t is something your critic struggled with as the third act of Sergio G. Sánchez’s maudlin screenplay played out (and for several hours post-viewing). This disaster was human tragedy on a biblical scale, but you would never know that from the film. Occasionally, bodies wrapped in makeshift shrouds are glimpsed or silhouettes of corpses floating in the cloudy mass of seawater that surged inland are captured; hospital scenes are crowded but the patients are blurry background extras. Bayona’s film is not about a nation’s suffering.

It is based on the true story of one well-to-do young Spanish family (Anglicised here) who travelled to a Thai resort to spend what would be a fateful Christmas holiday. Dad Henry (Ewan McGregor) and mum Maria (Naomi Watts) oversee a loving clan of three conflict-free boys under 15 (the script’s first nod to non-realism). They are all relaxing by the resort pool when the worst tidal surge in modern history strikes; it is an extraordinarily impactful take on real-life events with effects work and live-action/CGI integration utterly seamless.

The family unit is fractured, the key thematic element that perhaps explains Bayona’s involvement in the project; he directed the arthouse horror hit The Orphanage. For close to an hour we follow the plight of Maria and eldest son Lucas (Tom Holland), who barely survive the film’s most terrifying re-enactment of the tsunami’s force before finding sanctuary, first in the arms of the locals then in a crowded hospital ward. Then, the film abruptly shifts focus back to Henry, staggering around the remains of the hotel, and the journey he undertakes to reunite his family.

Watts, who spends much of the film bruised, bloodied and in a state of prone near-unconsciousness, has some terrific scenes with Holland, who emerges as the films standout star. Exhibiting remarkable resilience after his young life is inverted, Holland’s resourceful, soulful performance recalls the young Christian Bale in Steven Spielberg’s Empire of the Sun. McGregor is less convincing, his father act reduced to hopping rides from survivor-camp to survivor-camp yelling his family’s names; the two youngest boys, Simon (Oaklee Pendergast) and Thomas (Samuel Joslin), are cutesy moppets of no dramatic consequence.

Sánchez’s decision to focus on the family of five was risky. No single experience was greater than the immensity of the disaster; one unavoidably wonders throughout the entire film, “What happened to that villager’s home?” or “Where is that doctor’s family?” or “Whose son is that?” The same nagging sense that cinema failed to capture the inherent vastness of despair also befell Oliver Stone’s World Trade Centre, even though he tried to circumvent it by focussing on those heroic icons, the firemen, who lost their lives that day.

Bayonas was no doubt aiming for tragic, romantic grandeur, the likes of which James Cameron captured in his forbidden-love take on the Titanic disaster. But coming 100 years later, with that distant event evoking its own mythical sweep, Cameron could lay on the movie-star cheese with little fear of retribution. The Impossible adopts similar tactics, asking us to believe that pretty film stars and their disaster movie plight captures what it was like during and after that horrible event. But the moment is too fresh in our minds.       

AMERICAN MARY

Stars: Katherine Isabelle, Antonio Cupo, Tristan Risk, David Lovgren, Paula Lindberg, Clay St. Thomas, John Emmet Tracy, Twan Holliday, Nelson Wong, Sylvia Soska and Jen Soska.
Writers/Directors: Sylvia Soska and Jen Soska.

Rating: 4/5

It may be student loan repayments that drive our anti-heroine Mary Mason into the dark underworld of body-modification surgery, but it is her greed and growing sense of vengeful power that keeps her mired there in American Mary, the icky but supremely effective sophomore effort from Canadian twin-sister filmmaking team Jen and Sylvia Soska.

Played with an understated but ever-present fetishistic glee by the stunning Katharine Isabelle (star of the Ginger Snaps trilogy), Mary is introduced being harshly motivated by her professor, Dr Grant (David Lovgren). She holds her own, even exuding a certain compulsion for the attention being given her. But she is cash-strapped and, in the first of several bad decisions she makes, applies for a hostess role at strip club run by Billy Barker (Antonio Cupo). Having revealed her training in her resume (“We don’t get given a lot of CV’s here, Mary” says Billy), her first night sees her earning unexpected dollars when called upon to perform illegal surgery to save a roughed-up customer.

 Word gets around that Mary is not above illicitly plying her skills, a valued rarity for those with a penchant for bizarre surgical enhancements. Most prominently featured is Beatress (Tristan Risk), whose ‘alterations’ reflect her Betty Boop obsession, and who introduces Mary to Ruby (Paula Lindberg). Ruby wants to be an anatomically accurate real-life Barbie Doll and the film does not shy away from the details of the procedure (and begins to recall in tone David Cronenberg’s Dead Ringers, its iconic red surgical-garb referenced later in the film).

All the while, Mary remains focussed on her career and is thrilled to be invited by her hospital mentor Dr Walsh (Clay St. Thomas) to a late-night party. But things go horribly wrong and soon Mary, with the help of the strip-joint’s soft-hearted, hard-knuckled bouncer Lance (Twan Holliday), unleashes her medical prowess upon those that have exploited her.

 The Soska Sisters (who make an extended cameo appearance as the ultimate bod-mod aficionados, The Berlin Twins) have progressed their storytelling skills immeasurably since their 2009 debut, Dead Hooker in a Trunk. American Mary reflects a far sleeker European aesthetic and technical proficiency; the pair cite Thomas Alfredsen’s Let the Right One In as a major influence (as well as the gruesome Asian thriller, I Saw The Devil). The film is beautifully framed and shot in a manner that reflects respect and fascination for the practices of bod-modders, however grotesque (be prepared for forthright depictions of split tongues, devil-horn implants and genital mutilation...for starters).

Narratively, the film stumbles occasionally. The Soska’s seem bound to some tropes that never amount to much – the perfunctory trajectory of Det Dolor (John Emmet Tracy); dream/fantasy sequences that pull the viewer out of Mary’s real world, which is sufficiently nightmarish in its own regard. Also, that a top-tier med-student should immediately leap to a sordid fleshpit to make quick cash is a bit much, her actions necessitated by story and not logic.

But American Mary soars when The Soska’s play to their strengths. With their up-for-anything leading lady totally synched to their vision, they have crafted a shocking, slyly funny work of baroque modern horror. Delving thematically into myopic vengeance and soulless immorality as motivating forces, it is a vivid slice (no pun intended) of slow-burn, visceral terror and signals the arrival of Jen and Sylvia Soska as much-watch genre auteurs.

CONAN O'BRIEN CAN'T STOP

Stars: Conan O’Brien, Andy Richter, Jeff Ross, Steve Kroft, Eddie Vedder, Stephen Colbert, Jon Stewart, Jim Carrey, Jack White, Jack McBrayer, Jon Hamm, Kristen Schaal and Mike Sweeney.
Director: Rodman Flender.

Rating: 4/5

Having apprenticed his way through the early-dawn timeslot as he waited out his rightful position next-in-line for the Holy Grail of American television – host of NBC’s The Tonight Show – Conan O’Brien assumed the mantle...for seven lovely months. But when his predecessor Jay Leno wanted the hosting gig back after the failure of his 10.00pm variety show experiment, the brass called in O’Brien, cut him a big cheque and ushered him off the lot. Sure, it was more convoluted and all parties lawyered up, but the impact and outcome was the same; Conan O’Brien had been screwed and the showman was devastated.

As captured in Rodman Flender’s sad, insightful yet very funny documentary Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop, the Boston native, with his prodigious talent and towering red mane (he jokes he looks like Jimmy Neutron by way of Tilda Swinton), took his schtick on the road to battle the anger and depression that congealed within him following the brutal betrayal. Though it is essentially a performance piece filled with backstage insight, this compelling work refuses to skimp on the man’s motivations for getting back in touch with his people. He hates NBC; he hates Jay Leno (at one point, he imagines a telegram from Leno that asks, “What’s it like to have a soul?”). But O’Brien loves his audience; he loves performing. The film captures the exhaustive healing process he had to endure to emerge (relatively) cleansed.

Early scenes, many shot with O’Brien’s wife and family in their home as the concert tour comes into focus (caustically title ‘The Legally Prohibited from Being Funny on Television Tour’, mocking the conditions of his payout arrangement), portray a man struggling to keep hold of that spark that has driven his creativity to date. His humour has always been biting*, yet his genuine warmth has kept him onside with audiences; in 2010, Conan O’Brien is a bitter man and he struggles with concert content that he is determined to not let become a surrogate psych-session. He also finds the role of ‘celebrity’ challenging, with several scenes depicting just how annoyed he can become when the sacred seal of backstage privacy is broken.

The bitterness over his high-profile shafting never fully melts away (having arrived in an all-but deserted Eugene, Oregon for his first live gig, he wryly observes, “I should be talking to Barack Obama now, or playing guitar with Springsteen...”) but nor does the obvious affection for the die-hard fans who clearly adore him. Surrounded by a well-established professional circle (notably his committed if long-suffering PA Sona Movsesian and sidekick Andy Richter) and driven to provide a unique high-energy concert experience smothered in lashing of meta self-mocking, Conan O’Brien clearly both can’t and won’t stop.

*I became a fan after this monologue classic from Late Night, circa 2006: “News is that Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt have broken up, mostly because one of them wanted to have kids. Same reason The Jackson Five broke up.”

HOUSOS VS AUTHORITY

Stars: Paul Fenech, Jason Davis, Elle Dawes, Kev Tuamata, Vanessa Davis, Kiri Schmitt, Angry Anderson, Garry Who and Barry Crocker.
Writer/Director: Paul Fenech.

Rating: 2/5

The word that comes to mind over the course of Paul Fenech’s Housos vs Authority is ‘relentless’. There are more specific adjectives that describe, in greater detail, particular elements of this big-screen adaptation of a TV show only a small but dedicated viewing audience tuned in for. But for now, let’s stick with ‘relentless’.

It is a film that, for every single second of its utterly over-stretched 108 minute running time, refuses to waste a single frame on stillness. Whether it might be for an anticipated laugh, a much-needed breath or a glimpse of warmth, Fenech’s frantic ode to white-trash Australia is one of the most…well, relentless films ever to assault a mainstream audience. And assault its audience, and just about every cow held sacred by middle-class Australia, this film most certainly does.

Fenech’s Franky, a brash, juiced-up boy-man who scores threesomes and outruns cops on a daily basis, agrees to take his posse of cartoonish, crass buffoons to Ayers Rock. Packed into an RV they have stolen from a local bikie gang (headed up by rock icon Angry Anderson), Franky’s crew consists of Islander idiot Kev (Kev Tuamata), Kev’s nympho girlfriend (Vanessa Davis) and Aussie roughheads Dazza (Jason ‘Jabba’ Davis) and Shazza (Elle Dawes). Dawes is the film’s rough diamond; underneath her vulgar facade, she takes Shazza on a (comparatively) strong emotional arc and, to her credit, somehow manages to engender audience empathy.   

There are no traditional 1-2-3 punchline set-ups in Fenech’s shock-&-awe approach to humour. Instead, you are expected to find laughs in quick cut-away shots of cops being beaten with rubber thongs, dwarf dope-dealers in souped-up wheelchairs, gangs of skeletal drug addicts who rip off anything not nailed down, the graffiti tagging of Uluru and the implication that Prime Minister Julia Gillard surfs internet-porn in her office.

None of these elements are inherently funny, but the writer/director hurls crudity and tactless imagery at his audience at such a breakneck pace, whether any of it sticks is irrelevant. One must assume that broad, big caricatures of just about every ethnicity (with particular attention paid to white Australians and their iconography) is what Fenech’s fanbase is after; in that regard, Housos vs Authority sticks to its guns with a veracity that can’t be discredited.

The mainstream media will (and has) gotten all uppity about the Fenech’s physical splat-stick  and reliance on expletives. But Bruce Beresford kicked off his career with the Barry McKenzie films; Housos vs Authority is not so far removed from those bastions of Ocker bad taste (Beresford’s leading man, Barry Crocker, makes a telling and well-judged cameo). Also, debate can rage on as to whether social satire that makes broad fun of class stereotypes is done out of respectful understanding or downright meanness; it is a stance I argue when downplaying the worth of The Castle or Kath and Kim.

Did I find Fenech’s foul-mouth assault on political correctness funny? Not really, and I’ve scored it accordingly. But it’ll play well to those that know and live the housing commission lifestyle and films that understand their target demographic are rare, so it is not without merit.

In a heartfelt gesture, the film dedicates itself to the memory of Australian enetertainment industry icon Ian Turpie, who starred alongside Fenech in the project's original small-screen incarnation.