After the recent flurry of awards nominated films we are in a quiet period where a lot of lower profile films are being released. Amongst those is a gem that should have been getting more attention.
Youth
This was probably thought to a film that would have got more traction in the awards race. Directed by Paolo Sorrentino, the Italian whose previous film, The Great Beauty, was critically lauded. I was keen to see it because he also was responsible for two of my favourite films of the last ten years or so: The brilliant Consequences of Love and the complex but entertaining Il Divo.
In Youth, his second English language film, Michael Caine plays – a role that would have normally gone to his regular star Toni Servillo – Fred Ballinger, a retired composer and conductor, holidaying in a Swiss hotel. Fellow guests include an old film director friend (Mick Boyle, Harvey Keitel), his daughter (Rachel Weisz) who has just been dumped by her husband and actor Jimmy Tree (Paul Dano). With the remote, slightly odd feeling to the hotel, and the eccentric guests, Youth is in some way reminiscent of last year’s The Lobster but is much more profound. A meditation on aging, the choices we make and the life we end up leading, this is a tremendously involving film.
Caine is great, and has a magnificent scene where he finally tells a visitor why he won’t perform his most well-known work anymore. Also, the revelation of what has happened to his wife is devastating. Keitel is the best he has been in some time, and Dano continues is recent good work. Unfortunately, not all performances are of the same standard, and the film loses a half mark for an excruciating appearance by the dreadful Paloma Faith unconvincingly playing herself…
Languid, and sometimes disconcerting, Youth may not be for everyone, but it touched me.
Rating: 8.5 out of 10
Ride Along 2
I only went to see this as I effectively had a free ticket or the showing before Youth. I didn’t like the first film, and found the star Kevin Hart to be frenetic and annoying. The start of this seemed to be serving up much the same in the scenes with his fiancée and the wedding planner. However, once the story moved to Miami where Hart and his future brother-in-law are trying to bring in a potential witness for a case, his performance settles down and the film becomes reasonably agreeable. Very reminiscent of an 80s / 90s action buddy cop movie, it moves along a good pace, and is enlivened by the presence of Olivia Munn as a local cop assisting them.
However, the problem is that apart for a couple of restrained chuckles there are no real laughs. It just washed over me in a pleasant enough way.
Rating: 5 out of 10
Point Break
I don’t want to give more than a couple of sentences to this monstrosity. I like the original but am not a massive fan so don’t object to the remake in theory but this is a complete mess. With no real plot, terrible acting, both the bad guys and the hero are totally uncharismatic and equally self-important and unlikable, there is pretty much nothing to recommend. Some of the effects are passable, whilst others are embarrassingly bad and the motivations for the crimes being committed ludicrous. Ray Winstone looks embarrassed as a British FBI agent, and he does all those betting ads on the TV without any shame!
Rating: a generous 2 out of 10
Dirty Grandpa
I thought Point Break was going to the worst film I’d see in some time, but I wasn’t counting on Dirty Grandpa. Whilst not suffering from the problems of technical incompetence and bad acting of that movie, this is a completely vile film. I am used to seeing Robert De Niro disappoint in recent years, outside of David O. Russell films, but he hasn’t debased himself like this before. He plays a widower on a trip with his grandson (Zac Efron) to Florida. Their getaway coincides with spring break, and I’ve yet to see any movie or TV show that features American college kids on spring break that hasn’t made me thoroughly depressed.
De Niro is obsessed with having sex with college girls to a point that made me feel very queasy. There isn’t a single likeable character in this film that is blighted by misogyny, homophobia, and bad taste. I think I smiled once at a half decent gag at the start but otherwise this is a profoundly unpleasant experience.
Unless you are itching to see a naked De Niro masturbating, I urge you to avoid this.
Rating: 1.5 out of 10