Here is a quick round up of other new films I have watched at home this month.
Transfusion
Sam Worthington plays Ryan Logan, a former sniper for the Australian Army who is struggling to adjust to normal society and look after his teenage son, after his wife’s sudden death. This is intended to be a slow burn thriller, but it never comes to life. The performances are dull, the score soporific and the pace leaden. Available to rent in the usual places.
Rating: 3 out of 10
On Amazon Prime…
Bandit
Bandit is based on the true life story of Gilbert Galvan Jr (also known as The Flying Bandit), who holds a record for the most consecutive robberies in Canadian history. Josh Duhamel stars as Galvan who has escaped jail in Michigan and fled to Canada. Unable to provide for his girlfriend, played winningly by Elisha Cuthbert, he starts travelling round the country robbing banks.
This starts well enough with Gilbert’s initial bungling robbery and then his ingenious and successful later heists providing a lot of entertainment. It is clear that director Allan Ungar and writer Kraig Wenman see Galvan as a charming, Robin Hood figure. But, despite a Duhamel’s natural charisma, the more time I spent with the criminal, the less I liked him, especially when he became close to a vicious crime boss, played unconvincingly by Mel Gibson. As a result, the film runs out of steam before the inevitable capture and incarceration.
Rating: 5.5 out of 10
On Sky Movies…
Marlowe
Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe has been brought to the screens many times. There have been a number of successful adaptations of the books featuring the private investigator, including two all time classics in the Big Sleep (1946) and the Long Goodbye (1973). Marlowe, directed by Neil Jordan, is not based on an original Chandler work, but instead on The Black-Eyed Blonde by Benjamin Black.
Liam Neeson plays the title role and is hired by glamorous heiress Clare Cavendish (Diane Kruger) to find her missing lover, Nico Peterson (François Arnaud), a prop master at Pacific Film Studios. Despite not being based on a Raymond Chandler story, the plot is a typically twisted one, with nearly every character being not what they originally seem.
Neeson fits the role well and Kruger makes for an impressive ice cool femme fatale. The period detail is spot on with 1930’s Los Angeles brought to life by Jordan, cinematographer Xavi Gimenez and Production Designer John Beard. It does, at times lack the sharpness of dialogue that Chandler would have provided and it will not rank alongside the adaptations mentioned earlier, but it is a commendable effort.
Rating: 7.5 out of 10
I Viaggiatori
Scientist Beo Fulci (Gianmarco Saurino) disappears during an experiment. One year later, while visiting the laboratory, his brother Max (Matteo Schiavone) and his friends activate a machine that allows people to travel in time, ending up in Rome in 1939. The period that they are stranded in adds a little bit of originality to this otherwise by the numbers time travel story.
Rating: 4.5 out of 10