The Law and other farces
Movies seen late spring 2007.
Originally written: December 2007
Death at a Funeral
Michael Clayton
300
Venus
The Last King of Scotland
Newsfront
It's not been easy finding a movie on which we can both agree and which looks like it is worth our while venturing out to attend. Added to that, the regular Coast Guard Coxswain classes have cut into our free time. I suppose that over the holiday period we can look forward to the end-of-year Oscar contenders, even if the first couple, including the Redford-Cruise-Streep film have received appalling reviews. I'm not sure if I can drag myself off to see Beowulf, given the semi-animated format that Zemeckis has chosen to use, and the promtion of it as a new attempt at 3D, although a trip to the Imax version is possible. Enchanted has had better reviews and might be worth seeing. The couple of times we've been to the flicks have proved to be good choices, and we'll continue to use DVD hire to catch up with those flicks we missed on the big screen, but the film-makers are not making it easy to be a movie fan at the moment.
CM
is the Featured Attractions Review and Criticism section.
Also in
CM
Alphabetical archive of movies reviewed
also in
Movies
Opening Credits
Critical Mess - Reviews
From the Director's Chair - Essays
Lists
Passing for a farce
The thing about Death at a Funeral is that it shouldn't really be funny at all, but yet it is. Many of the characters are over-drawn and the situations are, to an extent, unreal, yet the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. This is down to the well thought-out script from Dean Craig and the strong direction from former muppeteer Frank Oz. The story centres around the funeral in his county home of the pater familias of a British family. Daniel, the unsuccessful son, and his wife live in the family home, while Robert, his successful novelist brother, lives in Manhattan. One running gag revolves around the fact that Daniel, not Robert, is to deliver the eulogy, a speech Daniel has committed to index cards and which he is constantly rehearsing. The family is populated with as many eccentrics are you would want: from Kris Marshall's chemical cousin, through Peter Vaughan's crotchety wheelchair-bound uncle to Alan Tudyk tightly wound fiance of a cousin, whose to meet his putative father-in-law for the first time. Peter Drinklage makes a telling contribution as the uninvited guest at the affair: a vertically challenged friend of the father with a few secrets that the family would like to bury with the corpse. Holding the centre are Matthew Macfadyen as Daniel, Rupert Graves (Robert) and Keeley Hawes as Daniel's long-suffering missus. All three, and a large percentage of the supporting cast, would qualify as Hey-it's-that-guys, ie as faces you recognise but can't quite put a name to. In that category Ewen Bremner, as a self-centred friend of the family chasing cousin Martha, is perhaps the stand-out and the principal comic relief in the piece. There are elements of broad slapstick and of stage farce but, by and large, the film survives on character-driven situation comedy. Because of the absence of name players and beautiful people, who would undoubtedly have populated any Hollywood version of this story, the film works particularly well, despite the occasional lack of subtlety. Recommended.
The lawyer you have ...
George Clooney is more than just a pretty face. In fact his movies of late have become more and more interesting. Michael Clayton is a case in point. Written and directed by Tony Gilroy, who has made his name primarily as a script writer, most lately of the Jason Bourne trilogy, this is a tautly written legal drama, with references to movies like Erin Brockovich, The Verdict, The Rainmaker and A Civil Action. Only it is told from a very different perspective from the earlier films. Instead of being a court-room drama or a docudrama about how the corporate nasties are exposed, Michael Clayton looks behind the scenes at the interaction between a large law firm and the corporate crooks it is defending. The McGuffin is that the lead lawyer Arthur Edens (Tom Wilkinson, another Pommie playing a differently motivated Yank) is bipolar and off his meds. His behavior at a deposition threatens the large company's defence of the class-action suit. The eponymous character, played by George Clooney, is the law firm's fixer, sent in to fix the mess that Edens has created and to get the latter back on the reservation. His job is complicated by the fact that Edens is a mate and by his own changing attitude to the shit he constantly having to clean up. His counterpart in the client's legal foodchain is Karen Crowder (Tilda Swinton), whose concerns are solely for the company's bottom line, and her own position. As you would expect, the plot shines a light on the lengths to which corporate polluters will go to avoid having to pay for their errors, and the concerns that the defenders of such firms have in keeping them sweet, and the money rolling in. Personifying the latter is director (and sometime actor) Sydney Pollack, playing the managing partner of Clayton's law firm. He's a man who knows what is what and is determined to ensure that it stays that way. The central performances, particularly from Clooney and Swinton, are excellent. She manages to communicate the vulnerable woman underlying the hard-faced corporate lawyer. His character is much more complex than he seems at first, with financial threats that mean that he sometimes has to compromise his ideals. How their interactions play out is one of the more interesting aspects of the movie. Gilroy's script, which starts in the middle and works its way back and forward, also helps to ensure that the suspence is maintained and that the viewer is never quite sure how it will turn out and whether Clayton's conscience (he seems to be the only sane character in the piece who owns one) will overcome his self-interest. This is a brilliantly constructed and taut thriller, made better by a number of great performances from actors at the top of their craft. Highly recommended.
Rented on DVD
300 is preposterous. It plays fast and loose with history and its portrayal of the battle of Thermopylae is, quite frankly, both ridiculous and counter-intuitive. And that's even before the introduction of the war rhinoceros. Topped and tailed by an overly grandiose narration voiced by David Wenham, as the 301st Spartan, the film features too many examples of over-acting, under-scripting and excessive blood-letting. Vying with the portrayal of the battle for most ridiculous aspect are the scenes back in Sparta where Leonidas' "queen" battles with the traitorous adviser to keep Leo in the field; and Rodrigo Santoro (last seen as a love-lost accountant in Love Actually) as the piercing-king, Xerxes. Zack Snyder is the auteur to be held responsible for this travesty. Ancient history is suffering more and more at the hands of the film-maker. 300 joins Troy and Alexander as appalling examples of the trend, even if they will all make terrific examples for the Ancient Greece chapter of Everything I know about history I learned at the movies.
There may never have been a better film actor than Peter O'Toole. Gone are the days when he dazzled as a gorgeous young man in films as diverse as Lawrence of Arabia and How to Steal a Million. Gone too are the films of his mature middle age, like A Lion in Winter, The Stunt Man and My Favorite Year. He even has a lifetime achievement Oscar, a sign that the Academy thought that his acting years had passed him by and that his deserved Best Actor Oscar had not been awarded despite seven nominations. But Venus demonstrates that O'Toole is as formidable in his declining years as he ever was. The part is made for him: an aging roue finding a reason to live in the taming of a young shrew, his best friend's grand-niece, a selfish and self-centred Gen Yer, essayed by Jodie Whittaker. O'Toole's Maurice is an aged actor, now more regularly cast as the corpse than in a featured part. His best friend is Ian (Leslie Phillips) and they spend their days comparing ailments and medicines. Enter Jessie, Ian's young rellie, sent ostensibly to care for him, who turns out not to be the caring kind. Maurice dubs her his "Venus" and sets about giving her the benefit of his wisdom. The beauty of the performance is in the implications of unfulfillable sexual interest that O'Toole is able to communicate to her and to us. Vanessa Redgrave and Richard Griffiths provide some strong support in featured roles and young Whittaker is able to make something of a fairly underwritten part. But this is O'Toole's film - as are most of his pictures. And another brilliant performance from the actor.
An equally brilliant performance is given by Forest Whitaker in The Last King of Scotland. The title refers to Idi Amin, the mad Ugandan dictator, and the film concerns his rule, as seen from the perspective of a young Scottish doctor drawn unwittingly, but willingly, into Amin's circle. The point of view character Dr Garrigan (James McAvoy) is a composite of a number of westerners who were peripheral to Amin's rule and is also the weak link in the film. Nothing wrong with McAvoy's performance, it is just that the character never quite rings true. On the other hand, Whitaker gives the performance of his life: he gets under the skin of the larger-than-life Idi Amin and provides us not only with the public persona, but with something of his private demons as well. He is able to communicate the charm that Amin showed on occasions, as well as the menace. The film is really only worthwhile because it contains a great performance, but it is undoubtedly that. Often the Oscar goes to an actor giving an okay performance in a great movie. Here there is no doubt that the performance itself is what was recognised.
From our DVD collection - reviews of good and great movies not previously reviewed
Newsfront may be the best film ever made in Australia; it is certainly in the top three, together with Gallipoli and The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith. It is therefore ironic that, when it first came out, the man primarily responsible for it, writer Bob Ellis, sought to have his name dissociated, believing that first-time feature director, Phillip Noyce, had 'ruined' his script. It says something about Ellis (and the film) that, by the time the movie's script had been nominated for, and had won, the AFI Writing Award, he was re-associated. The director and the film also won gongs from the AFI. Newsfront is a deceptively simple movie, chronicling the post-war ascendancy, and eventual decline, of the newsreel as a news medium, and its replacement by TV news. It follows the career of cameraman Len Maguire, played by Bill Hunter before it was obligatory to cast him in every Australian feature, and those around him at a fictional newsreel company. Maguire is a dedicated newsman, conservative in outlook but not risk averse when it comes to getting the money shot. Noyce intercuts actual footage of the events, like the Maitland floods and Blue Mountains bushfires, with the camera crews seeking to film them. He doesn't, as in Zelig or Forrest Gump, seek to integrate his actors into the archive footage. The stock footage, like the characters' storyline of fraternal conflict, marriage, divorce and death, serves to place the movie in the context of its era. Hunter is supported by a top-rate cast, including Chris Haywood, Wendy Hughes, Bryan Brown, John Ewart and John Dease, the former radio personality who was one of the voices of the 1950s' newsreels. Noyce, who has subsequently made other good Australian films, including Dead Calm and Rabbit-Proof Fence, as well as a number of serviceable thrillers overseas, achieves his success through the unifying theme of a central character around whom the story revolves. To the extent that it does so, he relies heavily on Hunter's truthful portrayal of an honest and self-effacing newsman. Ellis' script was literate at a time when Australian cinema was dominated by less cerebral fare, often starring Graham Blundell. To an extent, Newsfront has been a little forgotten since its 1978 release, unjustifiably so. It stands up with the best films from that era and has been rarely matched within the Australian cinema. To the extent that it captures a time and place and explains some of the forces that shaped Australia in the Menzies' era, it is also a highly important social document. But such documents are not good cinema unless they first succeed as entertainment. Newsfront undoubtedly succeeds on that criterion.
[Note: Information about the movies mentioned, including cast and crew lists and all sorts of trivia, is available at the Internet Movie Database (IMDb).]