The Revenant Review

Alejandro G Inarritu, the current holder of the best director Oscar and now it looks like he’s set to win it again this year.  There has been so much in the news about the gruelling process of the making of this film, freezing temperatures, shooting entirely in natural light, climate change making continuity a nightmare, and a CGI bear that had at it with Leonardo Di Caprio. Putting that all to one side however, it has to be judged on its own merits and determine whether this gruelling process has actually led to a good film.

                Set in 1823 Montana, The Revenant focuses on Hugh Glass (Leonardo Di Caprio) a fur trapper who is attacked by a bear leaving him near death. Betrayed by one of his compatriots John Fitzgerald (Tom Hardy) and left for dead in a shallow grave, Glass goes on an epic survival journey to claim revenge against Fitzgerald. The story sounds simple enough, what elevates the film is Inarritu, his style of using long sweeping takes and making the camera part of the action is extraordinary, in an early attack sequence in the film the violence and fear really come across as men are being picked off by arrows left, right and centre. This year also looks like it’s going to be the third consecutive win for cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki who shot the film using natural light, it may have made the film ten times harder to shoot, but the result is beautiful and deeply engrossing shots that make you feel the cold in your bones.

                Di Caprio also looks certain to pick up the best actor Oscar this year, which is long overdue. His performance as Hugh Glass is a great one, a largely silent character who holds most of the screen time Di Caprio manages to convey so much using just his body, which for most of the film is broken and weather beaten. However, the character of Glass feels like an underdeveloped one, there’s not much to him that is built up over the film, it’s a great performance but the character feels underwritten, if Di Caprio was to win best actor it feels like it should be for a better character. In addition to Di Caprio there are very strong supporting performances, most notably from Oscar nominee Tom Hardy as Fitzgerald, his accent seems like an odd choice for that period but it is consistent and his performance gives off a brilliant tortured and broken vibe to it, even from his earliest moments Fitzgerald feels untrustworthy. In smaller roles there is the excellent Domhnall Gleeson as the captain of their fur trapping expedition who really feels like a genuine leader in amongst the difficult circumstances. Then there is Will Poulter who shows how he has a very promising future ahead of him, in a brutal world with brutal people the innocent nature of his character Jim Bridger feels like a warm and welcome relief.

                                Inarritu has a style that feels very modern and innovative, the start and end of the film are gripping, with moments littered throughout that evoke genuine awe. However Inarritu seems to betray his own sensibilities throughout a large part of the film. A survival story and a revenge story are simple enough, add the innovation and this really could have been something, but the decision to enter into bizarre levels of mysticism with visions and people floating and other people speaking in hushed whispers is really perplexing, those moments feel more at home in a Terrence Malick film than an Inarritu film, and its these tonal and stylistic differences that undermine the overall experience. There is no question that this really is a brilliant technical triumph, that alone however doesn’t make it a brilliant film, it’ll be great in a cinema, though it might not necessarily hold up as well on DVD. (Low 4 Stars)    

The Hateful 8 Review

If you were to believe what Quentin Tarantino told you, which would be unwise given his previous form, then The Hateful 8 means he is now only 2 films away from retiring. Hard to imagine given how big an impact his films have made that he has in fact only made 8. With classics from the 90s that broke the mould like Reservoir Dogs and possibly his greatest work Pulp Fiction, he has more recently been making an impact with historical pieces such as Inglorious Basterds and Django Unchained, so where then does The Hateful 8 fit into his body of work?

                Travelling through a heavy snow a stagecoach carrying 2 travellers comes along a man sat in the middle of the road, it’s during this scene that Tarantino introduces the first 3 of our so called Hateful 8. The first is Major Marquis Warren (Samuel L Jackson), a bounty hunter who is heading to town to claim the bounty on the heads of the 3 bodies he has with him. The second is John “The Hangman” Ruth (Kurt Russell), a grizzled paranoid bounty hunter himself; he is claiming the bounty on the head of the third hateful character, Daisy Domergue (Jennifer Jason Leigh), a foul mouthed rough looking criminal who spends most of her time being beaten by Ruth. Along the road Tarantino introduces the 4^th character in Chris Mannix (Walton Goggins), who is heading to Red Rock to be their new sheriff.  Upon arriving at Minnie’s Haberdashery to wade out the oncoming snow storm we our introduced to the other 4 hateful characters, there’s the Mexican Bob (Demian Bichir), Red Rock’s hangman Oswaldo Mobray (Tim Roth), cow farmer Joe Gage (Michael Madsen) and confederate General Sandy Smithers (Bruce Dern).

                Setting the film almost entirely in one room really allows Tarantino room to stretch his dialogue to new lengths; the film is in 2 halves, which dramatically works quite well. The first half is about a group of very different people being forced into a room together and watching the paranoia and fractures creep in. They clash over race and profession and everything else they can, but there is constant sense that nothing is what it seems. The interval comes at a crucial turning point when the tensions finally boil over, then by part 2 everything lets rip. The performances are by in large pretty brilliant, Marquis Warren being the closest thing the film has to a lead means that Samuel L Jackson gets a lot of the films best moments, and this is definitely his best performance for a long time. Kurt Russell is brilliantly mean and surly as John Ruth and Jennifer Jason-Leigh fully deserves her Oscar nod for making Daisy Domergue so particularly hateful in a room filled with utter bastards. Walton Goggins is very enjoyable as the racist but somewhat affable Mannix, he’s in essence the comic relief of the film and he carries that burden well. Madsen, Bichir and Dern are decent but given less to do. At first it feels like Tim Roth is playing the British Oswald a bit over the top, but later revelations make the character seem more interesting than first thought.

                For the first time in a while this film feels like it’s actually about something, in the past Tarantino has been very good at making individual scenes but he fails to pull them together as a whole film, Hateful 8 does suffer from moments of this but for the most part it does feel like an actual narrative of sorts. Also, it does feel like Tarantino is actually trying to comment on racial relations post-civil war and though it is done in fairly broad strokes its effective. In addition to the usual Tarantino tropes, for the first time his film has an original score, provided by Ennio Morricone no less, it’s a brilliant dark score that captures the tone of the film but is used rather sparingly which feels like a waste. There has been much written about the film being shot in 70mm, which as impressive as it looks in the opening scenery shots, in particular the opening credits, It surprisingly works just as well in the claustrophobic setting of Minnie’s Haberdashery.

                The problem, as ever with Tarantino films, is Tarantino being his own biggest fan. There are few films which you can come out of and say that they would be improved if you removed 45mins of footage, but Tarantino is so self-indulgent that his films are nearly always far too long. What The Hateful 8 needs is someone with a greater sense of urgency, not so that it has to be fast and free with its editing, it just needs someone to say that maybe there doesn’t need to be so much time spent getting to the haberdashery to begin with.

                Problems aside though, there are so few filmmakers who make films like this, there’s an energy to this that seems like it’s only found in the work of Tarantino, it’s not his best by any means, but it feels like his best for a while. (4 Stars)

Star Wars: The Force Awakens Review

Disney spent big, $4.5billion big in fact, add to that the budget of The Force Awakens, this latest Star Wars outing had a pretty substantial number hovering above it, so it’s a credit to JJ Abrams that he even took this on.

                The Force Awakens set roughly 30 years after the events of Return of the Jedi, focuses on the disappearance of Luke Skywalker, who has gone into hiding. The void left by the collapse of the Empire is filled by the new evil-no-gooders The First Order. The Resistance (essentially the Rebels from the original trilogy) are led by former princess, now general, Leia Organa. Both sides seek to find a map that leads to the location of Luke.
                The premise for the film is essentially the exact same as the original Star Wars, there’s good and evil, a bad guy who wears a mask, a droid with secret plans who finds a noble young helper on a sandy planet, and of course there’s an heroic attack on a giant space station. What really works for the film though is how well it executes this formula, and adds something to it for films further on in the saga.

                Probably the films greatest strength is its new additions, Rey who is a young woman who discovers the plans on the droid unit (the adorable BB-8) is an intriguing character who is smart and courageous and also really inventive, and she embodies a lot of the spirit of the Leia character only she seems to be leading the pack rather than assisting. Oscar Issac’s Poe Dameron is really enjoyable and charismatic, used sparingly in the film his cocksure nature and personality feel strong enough to take up the Han Solo mantel. Then there’s John Boyega

’s Finn, a Stormtrooper whose conscience leads him to desert the First Order, he’s sort of an affable clown, heroic but feckless, Boyega is brilliant at the comedy and his performance definitely makes this the funniest Star Wars outing yet. Over in the villainous corner are some great new additions also, Domhnall Gleeson caps of a brilliant year as the snarling General Hux, think of him as Peter Cushing’s Grand Moff Tarkin only better and given much more to do, including a spine tingling speech to his troops. Then there is Kylo Ren. There’s the obvious Darth Vader comparison, he’s an evil Sith lord who wears a black mask and wields a red lightsaber, however what separates him from Vader is the depth the character is given. Whereas Darth Vader was a disembodied voice coming out of a big black plastic head, Kylo Ren feels like a petulant child whose prone to tantrums, he feels he is more powerful than he really is, and in the same way Luke resisted the dark side, Kylo Ren fights the lure of the light, he’s a great creation helped by Adam Driver’s brilliant performance.
                Abrams has essentially done everything he had to do, reset the franchise after the disaster of the prequels and make sure the film took a heap load of money. Yes it doesn’t feel very original, even within its own universe, and there does feel like some missteps, but what The Force Awakens has done is put the franchise back into a good position to move forward with. It makes new fans of 8 year olds and makes old fans feel 8 years old, and with it smashing all sorts of box office records it won’t be long before that $4.5billion feels like a drop in the ocean. (High 4 Stars)