Following on from my last posting, here are four short reviews of films prominent in the awards season…
Whiplash, like the recent Foxcatcher has a premise that does not initially seem that interesting – the trials of a budding jazz drummer at a prestigious music academy. However, this exceeded my expectations much more than Bennet Miller’s film did. Miles Teller stars as Andrew, the drummer, who is picked to join the highest profile band at the school, run by the tyrannical Fletcher (J.K. Simmons).
Andrew is tremendously driven and he is not put off his attempts to impress Fletcher despite how he is treated by him. Teller is good as the broadly sympathetic youngster but it is Simmons’ film. His scary depiction of the sadistic teacher has made him hot favourite for the best supporting actor Oscar, and his expression “not my tempo” will become a classic line quoted for years to come.
Viewers may have a hard time understanding the motivation of the students to stay in the band, but the director, Damien Chazelle, in his unflashy way, drew me into the story and my scepticism soon diminished. Most pleasing of all is that the film builds to a last 15 minutes that is truly stunning. It is really refreshing to see a film with such a great ending.
Rating: 9 out of 10
American Sniper, like Whiplash, is nominated in the best film category at the Oscars. Unlike Whiplash, however, its ending is the weakest part of the film as it descends into baffling schmaltz. Doing tremendous business at the box office, especially in America, it is proving to be a divisive film. Accused by many of being too gung ho pro America and pro war, it has been seized upon by the American right as a true depiction of a real American hero.
My take on it was that the film, though deeply flawed, offers more complexity and ambiguity than many give it credit for. Chris Kyle was an expert sniper who was credited with more kills than any other soldier in US history. Here played by Bradley Cooper, he is presented as mostly a heroic figure, it is true, but some of single minded actions did put his colleagues in danger and those are depicted as well. The actions scenes in Iraq are well handled by director Clint Eastwood, especially during the stand out sequence in the movie as Kyle’s squad try to escape from the enemy whilst a dust storm rages.
However, flashbacks to his childhood are far too on the nose and the scenes of him at home between tours are fairly mundane. He is shown as clearly being affected by PTSD but seems to be able to shrug it off far too easily. Although picking up its fair share of nominations, I don’t see too many awards being handed out to this effort.
Rating: 6 out of 10
Wild stars Reese Witherspoon in an Oscar nominated performance as Cheryl Strayed. She plays an intelligent young woman whos life spirals out of control after the untimely death of her mother. Addicted to heroin and sordid encounters with strangers, she ruins her marriage, and she is probably on the road to an early death herself when she decides to undertake a redemptive hike of the 1,100 mile Pacific Crest Trail.
Along the way she encounters hostile conditions including both extreme heat and cold, and her lake of hiking experience also causes her problems. The film is at its best during those scenes, and Witherspoon is very good in the role. However, she doesn’t appear to be really suffering because of her previous lifestyle, and we only know about how bad her life got from the flashbacks that pepper the movie.
Though cleverly edited in with overlapping dialogue, there are far too many of them. Her back story is filled in pretty early in the film, and the flashbacks after that just hold up the story, especially the scenes with her Mum portrayed in a mannered and clichéd way by Laura Dern. The hiking scenes should keep you interested, though the heavy handed symbolism involving the appearance of a fox was pretty embarrassing.
Aside from Witherspoon, the other performance of note is a small one by the underrated Kevin Rankin as a fellow hiker. Oddly, this is the second film in the last 12 months telling the true story of a woman on a solo hike in harsh conditions. As good as Witherspoon is, I would say that Tracks is a better film than Wild and Mia Wasikowska’s performance in it was more nuanced and interesting.
Rating: 6.5 out of 10
A Most Violent Year is a slow burning thriller from the impressive director J.C Chandor that I am including in this set of reviews as it should be contending for awards, but it seems to have got lost in the rush of recent releases of prestigious features. Set in 1981, which is statistically, the most violent year in New York’s history, it centres of the efforts of the owner of a heating oil company (Abel Morales, Oscar Isaac) to keep his business afloat amongst allegations of financial wrongdoings, dirty tricks by his competitors and an expansion plan that is in danger of ruining him.
I have referred to this as a thriller and the basic plot plus a couple of action sequences back that up, including a great old school car chase, but this is really low key atmospheric stuff. Most of the ‘thrills’ come from Chandor’s beautifully written dialogue delivered by the accomplished cast. Just like Chandor’s fantastic Margin Call, I was completely drawn into what could have been the boring workings of the company. As well as the script that was thanks largely to the terrific Isaac, his scary wife, Anna, (Jessica Chastain) and the supporting cast, including David Oyelowo, Peter Gerety, Ashley Williams and the brilliant Albert Brooks.
Rating: 8.5 out of 10