OUTSIDE THE WIRE

outside wire

Where to Watch: Netflix

Actor of the moment Anthony Mackie (The Falcon and the Winter Soldier) returns as biotech robot, Captain Leo, in the year 2036 as he picks shamed drone pilot Harp (Damson Idris) to be its accomplice on a secret mission. One that will hopefully free the planet from Victor Koval (Pilou Asbæk) and his dreams of nuclear destruction.

For fans of director Neill Blomkamp (Chappie), you’ll be right at home with Outside the Wire’s setting, as Mikael Håfström (1408) hosts a civil war clash in Eastern Europe through a rugged, futuristic type lens, that comes across as believable. As our two rogue characters smash their way through militarized terrain, while doing their upmost best to avoid an array of mega armoured Gumps – which look really neat by the way – we most notably see Damson Idris harnessing his character’s progression to a tee.

He displays an over confident drone pilot that has to come to terms with the notion that he just can’t cope with the brutality of being up close to a warzone, as much as he thought he might have. When the movie descends even further into action mayhem – with Leo destroying anything he wants to – the realistic, traumatic element that the ‘Rookie’ Harp has to go through, keeps Outside the Wire from spiralling out of control.

With a straight to the point, simplistic save the world style, that can get too drowned out with mindless action, this tag team struggle through urban warfare may not be a very memorable experience. However, that doesn’t mean it isn’t a fun one.

SAVAGE STATE

savage state

David Perrault’s Savage State has a lot going for it; a Western that focuses on a less obvious part of Civil War history, a shady gun-for-hire, and a headstrong family of young women. Unfortunately, it trips over itself once too often to make the most of this potential. This story of a French family escaping the tumultuous American way of life focuses on the wrong things and is in dire need of more pace, with a few glimpses of what could have been.

To Perrault’s credit, the scenario is enticing and the location is gorgeously shot by cinematographer Christophe Duchange, swapping from warm yet vaguely threatening home interiors to swooping shots of misty landscapes. The place is not the problem – it’s the people. So little time is spent looking at the characters in any substantial way that the film can’t help but feel lacking in depth. Potential arcs for the story regarding politics, racism, and the role of women in 19th Century USA are largely forgotten in favour of fuelling mystery man Victor Lund’s enigma. It does so with no sense of urgency, the two-hour running time in desperate need of trimming down, and with too many questions unanswered. Too many of the characters won’t stay with you for long either, Kate Moran’s baddie Bettie perhaps the only exception.

Savage State looks and sounds great, but there is not enough kindling to keep this fire burning for as long as it needs to. It is a film crying out for more detail at the expense of the lovely but time-consuming saturation in surface-level beauties. 

Release Date: January 29th (US)

SAVE YOURSELVES!

It’s fair to say that modern society has a problem – well, more than one, but stick with us here – and it’s our ‘phones. We don’t even use them as ‘phones anymore, rather they’re constant connections to a world of nonsense and news, but mostly nonsense. Su and Jack, the protagonists of Save Yourselves!, are not immune to the disease, and spend most of their time on their ‘phones or reaching for them to avoid awkward silences and actual human interaction.

After Su gets fired, they take the opportunity to spend a week in a remote cabin – with a pact to leave their ‘phones, laptops, and tablets well alone – and find out what it means to be human again. So far, so redemption story, but Save Yourselves! pitches off in an entirely different direction, and therein lies the comedy.

The debut feature from Alex Houston Fischer and Eleanor Wilson, Save Yourselves! is simultaneously a smart commentary on the frailties of modern humans, especially when separated from their devices, and a wry comedy about an alien invasion. Sunita Mani and John Reynolds, as Su and Jack, are just the likeable side of Brooklyn hipster, and their unfortunate situation reveals the humanity beneath the faux earnestness of their kind.

The ending may raise more questions than it answers, but Save Yourselves! is a lovely little film, a warm, human, slightly sci-fi drama that will make you smile, if not laugh out loud. This is the alien invasion film that we would star in, out of our depth and at the mercy of fate, and that’s what makes it such a charm.

THE LADY KILLERS

lady killers

Do not mistake this for the classic Ealing comedy The Ladykillers, or its remake – this is something entirely different, apart from having a space in the title. This innovative, dark and disturbing film was written by producer/ writer and director Phil Leirness and is a tale of abusive misogyny, betrayal, degradation, and murder – all presented in the blackest of black comedic packages that will certainly challenge the viewer, and batter their sensibilities before coming to a surprising twist ending, which is easily as twisted as the rest of the film.

Seven men from varying backgrounds and professions decide to play a game that is by any measure somewhere far south of the line of political correctness. Each has to try and seduce and have sex with a random woman, and the other six will mark the attempt on the woman’s appeal, the manner and audacity of the conquest and any proof that it happened. This is a juvenile and distasteful game to say the least and the first half of the film makes for uncomfortable viewing as people are being manipulated and used purely for the gratification of these seven men and their idiotic game, and during the first half of the movie, one wonders what reaction, other than revulsion for the concept, the writer/director was hoping to elicit because the characters have no discernible redeeming qualities. However, when the players start being killed off one by one, the film starts to make more sense, and there is indeed a severe punishment coming for the players.

It’s a film that is certainly worth staying with, however much the audience will undoubtedly fail to identify with or feel sympathy in any way for the players. The ending will leave the viewer satisfied, with plenty of food for thought on society and the human condition, which could lead to this scenario. And really, who could ask for more?

The cast includes several familiar genre names, including Dean Haglund (The X-Files/Lone Gunmen), Peter Shinkoda (Daredevil/Falling Skies), Arye Gross (Minority Report) and Tucker Smallwood (Space: Above and Beyond/ Star Trek: Enterprise/Contact).

Following a series of film festivals and theatrical events in the U.S., the film was released onto a wide variety of on demand platforms as well as onto home video in November of 2018.  It is finally now available for streaming in the UK, primarily on the Vimeo app.

PROMISING YOUNG WOMAN

Written, directed, and produced by Emerald Fennell, Promising Young Woman is a smash of a directorial debut for the Emmy-nominated showrunner of Killing Eve. When first introduced, the titular character, Cassie (Carey Mulligan), is apparently too drunk to sit upright or speak clearly when a man named Jerry (Adam Brody) offers to take her home. They instead go to his apartment where he plies Cassie with more drink in the form of kumquat liqueur. As he attempts to take advantage, it becomes apparent that Mulligan’s character is in fact, quite sober, and she’s there to teach Jerry a lesson.

And so goes Promising Young Woman. At some point in the past, Cassie was in medical school when her longtime best friend Nina was raped at a party, bullied into recanting her confession, and then dropped out of school. Cassie went with her to take care of her, and now works in a coffee shop while living with her parents.

The revenge aspect of Fennell’s debut is intriguing, because rather than taking aspects of the usual rape-revenge film, wherein the audience is shown a horrific assault and then the victim’s subsequent, revenant returning of that assault upon its perpetrators, Cassie is carrying this out in Nina’s name. It’s more in the vein of a Taken or Death Wish, wherein the usually-male protagonist goes scorched-earth reign of terror on behalf of a woman.

Not for nothing does Promising Young Woman subvert multiple expectations during its runtime. The vast majority of the awful men in the film are played by actors such as the aforementioned Adam Brody from The O.C., Chris Lowell from Veronica Mars, and Max Greenfield from The New Girl, whose respective characters of Seth, Piz, and Schmidt are all known for being “nice guys.” It’s a fantastically-clever bit of casting which really drives home the film’s message that not everything is as it seems, and one would do well to believe what women tell them.

Promising Young Woman, for all its strong messaging and difficult-to-watch scenes, still manages to be at times funny and charming. It’s not as dark as one might think, but at no point does Fennell as a writer or director let the viewer off the hook. While the occasionally candy-coloured visual and sonic pallet at play might cause one to assume frippery, it’s another case of misdirection to flip everything on its head one more time.

Release Date: February 12th

BATMAN: SOUL OF THE DRAGON

soul of the dragon

Like the comic book universe upon which it is based, and the live-action films with which it shares its characters, the DC Animated Universe is at its best when it forgets about continuity. Batman: Year One; The Dark Knight Returns; Return of the Caped Crusaders; none of them worried about what the other DC animated movies were doing, and were vastly superior for it. The less said about Justice League: War and Batman’s ridiculous chin-strap, the better.

Thankfully, following the universe’s reboot in Apocalypse War, DC and WB have taken a back-to-basics approach, concentrating more on solo films and one-offs for the time being. After the charming Superman: Man of Tomorrow, it’s Batman’s turn to take the spotlight. Or at least some of it. This ’70s-set martial arts movie returns Batman to the Denny O’ Neil / Neal Adams era of crime-fighting, dropping him into something akin to a lost Bruce Lee picture. It’s Batman Begins meets Enter the Dragon. Richard Dragon, that is.

Richard Dragon (Mark Dacascos) is an expert martial artist in a team which consists entirely of expert martial artists, founded by the Dark Knight’s mentor, the wise O-Sensei. Re-uniting with classmates Lady Shiva (Kelly Hu), Bronze Tiger (Michael Jai White) and… yes, Batman (David Giuntoli), Dragon hopes to stop a sssinister crime lord from unleashing an ancient evil upon the world. The Gate is a silly Maguffin, and none of the villains are afforded enough time or characterization for us to take it seriously. All Soul of the Dragon really cares about is the fighting. This, it does well, nipping from one snappily executed battle to the next with scarcely time for breath. It looks good too; although the animation suffers from that same blandness which has infected most of DC’s animated movies, its character design, retro outfits and slick moves set it apart from the rest.

Boldly, it positions Batman as the least competent fighter of the gang, getting his ass handed to him in almost every fight we see. It’s a neat change from the omnipotent Bat-god we’re used to seeing, positing a Bruce Wayne who is nothing without the cape and cowl. Batman’s true strength, it realizes, is his stubbornness and drive – not his being the toughest and smartest guy in every room. This isn’t really Batman’s story though, and one wishes that writer Jeremy Adams and director Sam Liu had reserved some time and character development for Dragon and the other fighters.

Soul of the Dragon is one of the most unusual DC animated movies so far. This is a Batman movie that doesn’t need Batman at all; a fun backdoor pilot for its cool and colourful supporting cast. Can you dig it?

Release Date: February 15th

HUNTED

hunted

As the live-action, English-language, and solo directorial debut for French filmmaker and comic artist Vincent Paronnaud (Persepolis), it’s unsurprising that Hunted is, from the very opening moments, an atmospheric and visually-appealing film. Sadly, the storyline – referred to as a modern and radical take on the Little Red Riding Hood fable – doesn’t live up to the imagery on display.

The character of Eve (Lucie Debay) wears a red hoodie, which is very much on the nose, and the eventual villain, known only as ‘The Handsome Guy’ (Arieh Worthalter) is appropriately shaggy and louche. There’s even a grandmother in whose clothing the wolfish villain can wear. It’s far too clever by half, but the particulars are so eye-rolling in their absurdity that the film feels less like a fairytale and far more like a parody of extreme entertainment.

At its heart, Hunted is essentially a cross between Joel Schumacher’s 1999 snuff investigation 8mm and bits and bobs of every revenge thriller, but most notably, I Spit on Your Grave. Much is made of the wilderness setting in which much of the film takes place, and it’s well-utilised, but the concept at the heart of the film – set out in the opening scene of a grandmother telling the tale of a young woman who ran with wolves – of supernatural powers utilised against those who would attempt to take advantage of women is only half there.

The other half of the film sees the brutal Handsome Guy and his accomplice treading the path of every sleazy predator with camera from here to Henry Lee Lucas. It’s scenery chewing at its best, and blatantly exploitative at worst, especially when grainy video is used to give this pair some backstory. By the time the redemptive conclusion comes about, it’s all been a brutal slog that can’t seem to make up its mind as to whether it wants to be a mystical tale of revenge or a grittily nasty sleazefest. Were that it to choose one path and lean in, Hunted could’ve been something special or interesting. As it is, it’s just a well-lensed mess.

Where to watch: Shudder from January 14th

BLITHE SPIRIT

BLITHE SPIRIT

Where first-time feature director Edward Hall’s retelling does not depart from Noel Coward’s Blithe Spirit is spiritualist medium Madame Arcati (Judi Dench) holding a botched seance at the home of writer Charles Condomine (Dan Stevens) and his wife, Ruth (Isla Fisher). Madame Arcati doesn’t know she’s part of Charles’ research; he doesn’t know she’s genuine and about to accidentally summon the spirit of his first wife and muse, Elvira (Leslie Mann).

Hall achieves the right tone of joyful chaos to make this story of misrule a natural holiday watch. However, with a perfectly selected cast and a script that holds so much cultural affection, there’s a strange sense of apology in this reimagining of Noel Coward’s play as there is celebration of it. Hall’s eye for cast and setting allow a great sense of place while giving the actors due space to shine, but his background in theatre and television make it a particularly strange decision that rather explore the warmth and darkness, both are consistently upstaged and undermined by a tinkly soundtrack to remind us what is happening is light comedy, losing all sense of emotional connection even in the darkest and most intriguing moments. Elvira’s plans for getting Charles back, and how they backfire as the dear departed’s influence over the living grows, is too lightly presented for emotional investment, making for a particularly awkward ending in which rather than rise above the past, Charles is brought to their level in a pseudo-feminist final exit that does not sit convincingly and feels like a choice imposed on characters and world rather than coming through them.

There’s a pervading sense of the ghosts of versions of this rewritten story this film could have been: the eloquent visual opening that introduces Charles’s world of wealthy writer’s block could have created a world of its own, but having shown its teeth doesn’t continue to use them. The Condomines’ maid Edith (Aimee Ffion-Edwards) is an underused delight, her sense of the strained relationships poised on the edge of permanent disaster setting up the drama and most responsible for sustaining it. But the wit, danger, and dark humour of those first few minutes is sacrificed for self-conscious lightness that leaves us wondering what would have come through if it were less afraid of the dark.

 

WHAT LIES BELOW

What Lies Below

CERT: TBC| PLATFORM: DVD, AMAZON PRIME VIDEO | RELEASE DATE: 22 FEB 2021

There are some things that look really simple to do,  but are actually very easy to get wrong.  Anyone who’s tried singing one of ABBA’s songs for karaoke can confirm this. Another thing that’s very easy to mess up is Lovecraftian horror.  That mix of the mundane and the impossible seems cheap and easy to do on the surface; after all it’s more about what you can’t see and understand than what you can. All you need to do is leave enough hints for the viewer and they’ll do the rest. Simple.

Except it really isn’t, as countless low budget horror movies will attest. What Lies Below is the latest to join this long list. The set-up is pretty straight forward; Ema Horvath plays Liberty, a young girl who is highly suspicious of her mother’s hot new boyfriend. Liberty is socially awkward and apparently quite naïve. The boyfriend is appropriately hot and easily sways the rather dim Liberty. Then when it turns out that her mother’s new chap really is a beast, it all goes horribly wrong.

One of the central issues is that none of the characters are particularly interesting and they’re certainly not very sympathetic.  Liberty is dull, the boyfriend isn’t that hot and the mother barely seems to have anything to do except fail to generate tension. There are some interesting performance choices throughout. The director clearly intends the feature to feel mundane and then steadily grow weirder. Instead, what we get is something that is both boring and gross at the same time.

The pacing is truly terrible. We go from dull drama to incredibly creepy and then to something more akin to body horror. So slow that it feels like padding at the start and then rushed at the end, we were surprised to discover that this movie was only 80-odd minutes long; it feels much longer.

For a movie like this to work, the performances need to be very strong and the premise unforgiving. Lovecraft was terrified of many things and this fear created some compelling (and repulsive) stories in a slow and steady way. This is a film that plays it’s hand too soon and then tries to fix this by adding increasingly unpleasant set-pieces.  The result is highly disappointing.

What Lies Below is a movie that looks like it ran out of ideas, money, and talent halfway through it’s production. Utterly forgettable and unless you collect bad movies that aren’t any fun to watch, one to avoid.

 

RELIC

Relic-starburst-review

CERT: 15 | RELEASE DATE: JANUARY 8TH (HD DIGITAL), JANUARY 18TH (DVD, BLU-RAY)

For all the monsters and masked axe wielders horror creates, the most frightening things of all are inevitable truths. Director Natalie Erika James’ Australian feature Relic, sees such truths play out in the most haunting and affecting way imaginable, in a sensational debut feature that has the enveloping feel of Hereditary, but is like The Taking of Deborah Logan meets The Babadook, by way of David Cronenberg.

Relic sees Kay (Emily Mortimer) and her daughter Sam (Bella Heathcote) alerted that their mother/grandmother Edna (Robyn Nevin) has not been seen by the neighbours in a few days. As they arrive to investigate, they find the house in a messy state but when Edna mysteriously returns days later, signs increase that all is not well.

Despite the aforementioned comparisons, and some asian horror influence, you will still be unprepared for what Relic truly is. An original horror story, which is chilling, slow-building, sustained and confined, as Natalie Erika James and Christian White’s screenplay harnesses its terror from the cruel reality of watching those we love wither away before us, losing all that they are and were. This overpoweringly shadowy film conjures some unsettling imagery, as Brian Reitzell’s sometimes Guðnadóttir-esque score builds, with Relic’s central ‘monster’ really being a metaphor for the affliction of degenerative conditions and the pain in their wake.

Mortimer is fantastic as the daughter facing her mother’s loss, just as Heathcote is as a daughter/granddaughter witnessing her family crumbling, while Nevin captures the feral and helpless sides of such suffering. Relic is a tormentingly emotional experience but come the gruesomely unexpected, unusual and shattering conclusion, you’re left reeling by an ending that will stay with you long after and perhaps forevermore. A powerful, moving film, that sets in, like a rot, on your soul.