The Courier

This is a version of a review airing on ABC Central Victoria on April 26, 2021.

(M) ★★★½

Director: Dominic Cooke.

Cast: Benedict Cumberbatch, Rachel Brosnahan, Jessie Buckley, Merab Ninidze, Angus Wright, Kirill Pirogov, Olga Koch.

"What do you mean you don't own a hat?"

The Cold War officially ended in 1989, but it keeps on giving - the pace may have slowed, but we still get a good Cold War film every few years. The best of recent times are undoubtedly The Death Of Stalin, Bridge Of Spies, and The Man From U.N.C.L.E..

And this one is reasonably good too, though not quite to the same level. Workmanlike in its delivery, it tells its exceptional true story in a suitably unexceptional manner, with a side of good old stiff-upper-lip Britishness to boot. It's a story that's been told before, but here it gets a half-decent budget and an excellent cast led by an unforgettable Benedict Cumberbatch.

The Courier is the fascinating real-life adventure of Greville Wynne (Cumberbatch), a British salesman recruited by MI6 to travel behind the Iron Curtain in the early '60s and bring back Soviet secrets from Russian war hero-turned-double agent Oleg Penkovsky (Ninidze). Wynne and Penkovsky's crucial role in changing the course of history contrasts with Wynne's problems at home, and an inevitable fate that lurks ominously on the horizon.

Cumberbatch was probably hoping for some awards and nominations to stem from his performance, and he would have been deserving. While those nods and noms haven't been forthcoming (oddly), this role finds Cumberbatch pushing himself to new extremes. There's a physical transformation to go with the seesawing emotions, confirming Cumberbatch's credentials as one of the best actors going around.

He's not alone in his endeavours. Buckley, so astounding in Wild Rose, confirms the suspicions of greatness as Wynne's put-upon and suspicious wife Sheila, bringing depths to the role that other actresses might not have found. Similarly Brosnahan sells her CIA spook Donovan as a real person and not a cliché. Both roles are solidly written, but both are taken to the next level by Buckely and Brosnahan. Along with veteran Georgian actor Ninidze, who is low-key yet mesmerising as Penkovsky, they ensure there are no weak points in the performances.

Indeed the performances are the most memorable part. There are no big scenes or killer dialogue (in fact there are a few dud lines in the mix), and the whole thing is weirdly subdued. This restrained Britishness does take some of the sting out of the tale - the peril and danger is evident, but the tension is lacking. 

And as the film progresses and things do turn grim, there's a shift in tone. The move is inevitable but the movie starts to drag, despite the stakes having finally risen to an acceptable point. It's weird, but in trying to be a quiet and un-showy story, some of the oxygen gets been sucked out of the film.

Yet, at its core there is a fascinating story of an everyman thrust into a world-changing situation, and the impact that has on his life. This, along with performances, is the thing that will stick with you the most film - not the film itself, but the story it tells. Much like Greville Wynne himself, The Courier is solid and does its job with a minimum of fireworks.

Godzilla Vs Kong

This is a version of a review airing on ABC Radio Ballarat and South West Victoria on April 16, 2021, and ABC Central Victoria on April 12, 2021.

(M) ★★

Director: Adam Wingard.

Cast: Alexander Skarsgård, Rebecca Hall, Kaylee Hottle, Millie Bobby Brown, Brian Tyree Henry, Julina Dennison, Demián Bichir, Shun Oguri, Eiza González, Kyle Chandler.

Best zoo ever.

It all started so promisingly. The 2014 Godzilla reboot was a surprisingly relevant and impressive update of the kaiju king's legacy that made us care as much about the squishy humans running around beneath its feet as the big lizard itself. 

Then came Kong: Skull Island, a not-bad Vietnam War-era adventure that was both fresh yet faithful to the 100-foot primate and his legacy. This was followed by the poorly received Godzilla: King Of The Monsters - current Tomatometer rating: 44% - but that wasn't bad enough to sound a death knell for the series.

Which brings us to Godzilla Vs Kong, the fourth film in Legendary Entertainment's "Monsterverse" and the supposed pay-off to all that has come before. 

Short review: all the stuff where Godzilla and Kong (and other spoilerific kaiju) fight is awesome. Everything else around it is rubbish.

The plot revolves around a seemingly unprovoked Godzilla attack in the US, despite Godzilla supposedly being one of the good guys following the events of King Of The Monsters. Enter billionaire tech entrepreneur Walter Simmons (Bichir), who thinks he has a way to stop Godzilla and any other titans that come along. But he's going to need the help of Kong, a team of scientists led by Kong expert Dr. Ilene Andrews (Hall), and a young girl (Hottle) with a special connection to the giant ape.

Godzilla Vs Kong has obviously been written backwards from its titular premise. It gets there via a mess of its own mythology, scientific mumbo jumbo, and whatever else stuck when it was thrown against the wall. 

There's a Hollow Earth thing going on, which is magnificent to look at and not even the dumbest idea in the film. Indeed in the film's own internal logic, it's easier to believe that titans came from inside the Hollow Earth than some of the other stuff going on here. A doctor studies Kong for 10 years but doesn't realise Kong knows sign language? Come on. A random scientist knows how to fly a super-advanced hover-jet despite no indication he can fly even a light aircraft? Gimme a break.

It's this kind of broken plotting that gets glossed over with astounding regularity in Godzilla Vs Kong. And that's not even counting the entire subplot involving Brown, Dennison and Henry's characters that is utterly, infuriatingly irrelevant. This part of the film could have been deleted with no detrimental impact on the finished product. In fact, it would have been an improvement, trimming things down to a neat 90 minutes or so.

As it is, despite the best efforts of an earnest cast, the titanic battles are the film's only saving grace. A stoush on an aircraft carrier midway through proceedings is impressive, but only an entrée for the demolition that awaits. There's a tendency to be numbed by these CG-intensive set pieces, but there's an undeniable art to them when done well, and pixel-powered onslaughts in Godzilla Vs Kong are excellent.

But it's not enough to save the film. So dire are in-between bits, you'll be begging for a super-sized smackdown to happen. Better yet, you'll be hoping a few of the top-billed leads will get squashed in the process. It's unfortunate this Part IV can't live up to the series' fine start, but the poise of balancing the human stories with the city-levelling battles is nowhere to be seen in this disappointing sequel.

Crisis

This is a version of a review airing on ABC Radio Ballarat and South West Victoria on April 16, 2021.

(MA15+) ★★★½

Director: Nicholas Jarecki.

Cast: Gary Oldman, Armie Hammer, Evangeline Lilly, Greg Kinnear, Michelle Rodriguez, Luke Evans, Lily-Rose Depp, Guy Nadon, Nicholas Jarecki, Indira Varma, Martin Donovan, Veronica Ferres, Mia Kirshner, Kid Cudi.

One man Armie.

Crisis has been an apt name for the circumstances surrounding the release of this earnest opioid drama. As if COVID-related troubles with cinemas and distribution weren't enough, the film has had the additional whammy of finding one of its stars - Armie Hammer - accused of rape and, bizarrely, a predilection for cannibalism.

All this is overshadowing what is a tidy thriller not a million miles away from Steven Soderbergh's 2000 award-winner Traffic. Jarecki's film shares a multi-threaded storyline with Soderbergh's drug-trafficking drama, but is less dynamic and flashy. This quiet approach makes Crisis feel oddly low-key, but helps it avoid a preachiness that threatens to creep in as it spirals toward its surprising conclusion.

The narrative follows three seemingly unconnected lives deeply affected by America's opioid crisis. There's a grieving mother (Lilly), a concerned scientist (Oldman) and a desperate cop (Hammer), with each character taking on the highly addictive scourge in their one way, painting a picture of a war being waged at every level of society.

Crisis bounces quickly between its three threads, and Jarecki layers dialogue over his establishing shots to help keep up the pace. This helps prevent the slow-moving narratives from getting bogged down, while simultaneously allowing each one to breathe, enjoy its occasional moments of silence, and maintain its quiet brooding tone.

The cast takes the material to a higher plane, easily nudging it out of any slow patches or repetition. Lilly is outstanding in a demanding role that has her either in tears or on the verge of tears most of the time. Oldman is also excellent - his subtle behind-the-eyes acting is a joy to watch, and yet another reminder of his greatness.

As for the soon-to-be-cancelled Hammer, he's fierce in a role that could easily have toppled into over-the-top territory. It's a strong, steely performance that mixes enough humanity amid its tough guy desperation. Not so great is his cop partner, played by Jarecki, who is out of his depth alongside Hammer and might want to stick to writing and directing in the future. 

Jarekci's acting aside, he's done a fine job helming this. The story dovetails into a neat ending that blends hope and dread, and is nowhere near as preachy as it could have been, which is a blessing. He also instils a bleakness into every pore of the film, aided by the stark wintery Quebec and Michigan settings. 

Crisis isn't electrifying but it's thoughtful and told in a straight-forward manner. Its broad brushstrokes on the issue paint a quietly compelling portrait of a problem not easily solved. Ironically, this worthy film has been overshadowed by other events in the world - much like the opioid crisis itself.

The White Tiger

This is a version of a review airing on ABC Radio Ballarat and South West Victoria on March 19, 2021 and ABC Central Victoria on March 29, 2021.

(MA15+) ★★★★

Director: Ramin Bahrani

Cast: Adarsh Gourav, Rajkummar Rao, Priyanka Chopra Jonas, Mahesh Manjrekar, Vijay Maurya, Kamlesh Gill, Swaroop Sampat, Vedant Sinha, Nalneesh Neel.

No one was aware that one does not simply drive to Mordor.

There's a sly dig at Slumdog Millionaire in this gritty Indian drama that perfectly sums up the key difference between these two rags-to-riches films. In Danny Boyle's Oscar-winning gem, it is fantastical luck courtesy of a miraculous TV program that eventually allows its "slumdog" hero to escape his horrible life in India's underclass.

But in The White Tiger, our low-caste protagonist has to use cunning, ruthlessness and flexible ethics to drag himself up from the bottom. "Don't think for a second there's a million-rupee game show you can win to get out," he narrates at one point. He knows that to escape the slums of India, you can't wait for a fairy godmother, unless your plan is to rob them.

This world-weary hero is Balram (Gourav), born into poverty and destined to stay there. But after watching his father work himself to death, he decides to escape his fate, wrangling a job as a driver for a wealthy family. From the front seat of their air-conditioned cars, he witnesses the corruption of India and comes to the realisation that corruption is the only way to truly escape from the underclass.

Much like Slumdog Millionaire, The White Tiger is based on an award-winning book that examines the poverty and inequality entrenched in Indian life. Faithfully adapted by writer-director Ramin Bahrani from Australian-Indian writer Aravind Adiga's wonderful Man Booker Prize-winning novel, it's a fascinating story starring a hero that struggles to stay on the right side of likeable, but who is all the more compelling for it.

Bahrani's direction captures the dirt and the glitz of its seesawing story with equal fidelity. There's a crackling energy in places and a quiet menace elsewhere as we follow Balram through his seemingly impossible mission to break his own coding - the idea, reinforced every day by his society, that he was meant for nothing more than servitude.

In Gourav, Bahrani found a perfect Balram. It's a multi-faceted performance that ranges from gurning humour and facile subjugation to brooding rage and emotional complexity. It's a career-making role, and Gourav is flawless.

The key supports of Rao and Chopra Jonas are also impressive, particularly the latter, who brings great steel and passion to her role as Pinky, the driven woman who has as little tolerance for India's caste system and outdated social mores as Balram. 

The White Tiger is a little slow and repetitive in places, but this is a minor quibble. For the most part, it's a ferocious takedown of India's shadowy secrets, seemingly aimed at Westerners, but with a tone and sensibility that feels honest. Bahrani has outdone himself with the adaptation (a worthy Oscar nom) and the direction, and Gourav is a revelation.

Chaos Walking

This is a version of a review airing on ABC Radio Ballarat and South West Victoria on March 19, 2021.

(PG) ★★★

Director: Doug Liman.

Cast: Tom Holland, Daisy Ridley, Mads Mikkelsen, Demián Bichir, Cynthia Erivo, Nick Jonas, David Oyelowo, Kurt Sutter, Ray McKinnon.

He had the weirdest case of headlice she had ever seen.

Sometimes a great premise is enough to get a film across the line, even when other aspects of the movie fail. Chaos Walking is one of those films.

Even as the inconsistencies pile up and the story sputters out via a couple of underwhelming confrontations, the ideas at play and the committed cast bringing them to life manage to bring this unwieldy beast home in a vaguely enjoyable way. It's like that pilot who landed the plane on the Hudson - it wasn't pretty but it got there (although, perversely, the film version of that story is a fine example of a solid premise failing to get a film home satisfactorily).

Based on the first book of Patrick Ness' YA series of the same name, Chaos Walking is set in the future on a new world colonised by humans. Into this world crashes Viola (Ridley), who discovers two alarming things upon arrival - all the women on the world are dead, and the unfiltered thoughts of men are always on display due to a phenomena known as the Noise.

The Noise is the film's strongest aspect, although the full capabilities of this power could have been better represented earlier in proceedings to save some head-scratching moments later. Displayed with a fair amount of visual (and audio) flair, it's a hook that helps keep the plot rolling.

It's also timely. It's hard to discuss this without spoilers (though you probably know where this is all going), but in the real world, the filtered thoughts of many men are bad enough, without all their unfiltered thoughts also being on display. It's a terrifying prospect, and a compelling premise.

The setting and story are solid enough too. Working from a script co-written by Ness that deviates a long way from his own book, the film unfolds as a journey to find not only safety but the truth. Some of those truths are unsurprising, some raise more questions than they answer, and some make no sense, but somehow the whole thing holds together, even as it promises to fall apart. Just enough of the world and its happenings are compelling.

Credit is due to Holland, Ridley and Mikkelsen, who give strong, believable performances. Ditto to the bit players - Bichir, Erivo and Oyelowo - who are all fully invested to this world and help it overcome its inconsistencies. Ridley particularly does so in the face of an underwritten character who is unfortunately more plot-instigator than fully-fleshed-out person, while Oyelowo's firebrand preacher is similarly under-developed.

Another saving grace seems to have been the reshoots (which unfortunately explain Holland's changing haircut throughout, and apparently made the film's title all the more fitting). That this long-delayed and troubled production has finally seen the light of day and isn't as unwatchable as it was purported to be is probably a minor miracle.

Chaos Walking isn't great, but it's good enough thanks to its premise and its cast. It falters as it approaches the finish line, but it's not as bad as many would have you believe.

Raya & The Last Dragon

This is a version of a review airing on ABC Radio Ballarat and South West Victoria, and ABC Radio Central Victoria on March 15, 2021.

(PG) ★★★★½

Director: Don Hall & Carlos López Estrada.

Cast: (voices of) Kelly Marie Tran, Awkwafina, Izaac Wang, Gemma Chan, Daniel Dae Kim, Benedict Wong, Sandra Oh, Thalia Tran, Lucille Soong, Alan Tudyk.

Lovely day to take a weapon or a hat for a walk.

Disney princesses ain't what they used to be, which is a good thing.

In the past decade or so we've had the rebooted Rapunzel, Wreck It Ralph's Vanellope (she's totally a princess... of the track!), Frozen's Elsa and Anna, and islander warrior Moana - all strong yet complex characters that aren't merely waiting to be rescued by a prince. These ladies are more likely to be doing the rescuing.

Add to that list Raya - a fierce fighter, racked with guilt, who won't rest until she has restored her kingdom to its former glory. And there's nary a prince in sight.

Raya's quest is a pretty significant one - she needs to rid the land of the ghostly Druun, a wave of evil spirits which have turned the majority of her land's population to stone. To break their curse, she needs all the pieces of a mystical artefact called the dragon stone. Unfortunately the leaders of the neighbouring countries aren't keen to give up their pieces of the stone because they help keep the Druun at bay.

There is a formulaic "hunt the McGuffin" element to Raya & The Last Dragon that makes the film feel a tad predictable, especially when held up against the more adventurous film-making of studio buddies Pixar, but this is the only downside to this otherwise wondrous adventure. 

The story assemblies a fascinating array of characters along its journey - Raya and her pet Tuk Tuk (a Disneyfied pangolin), erratic dragon Sisu, 10-year-old entrepreneur Boun, con artist infant Noi, and the mighty warrior Tong. All are broken by grief and are seeking in Raya's attempts to re-assemble the dragon stone a way to re-assemble themselves, and indeed their whole nation. It's a Wizard Of Oz-style trip to make oneself whole again, but instead of flying monkeys, there is an army of warriors led by the equally fierce "Disney Princess" Namaari - a character just as fractured and interesting as the "good guys" of the tale.

Each of these players is beautifully animated, cleverly written and perfectly voiced by an all-star cast of Asian heritage. Tran and Awkwafina are spot-on in the leads with the latter stealing the show, Chan adds great humanity to Raya's nemesis Namaari, while Wong is an excellent mix of tough, funny and fragile as the massive mighty Tong.

With its impressive fight sequences and action-packed diversions, plus a healthy dose of comedy, Raya & The Last Dragon is great family fun, filled with enough heart and soul to overcome its more familiar plot moments.

The Little Things

This is a version of a review airing on ABC Radio Ballarat and South West Victoria on March 5, 2021.

(M) ★★★

Director: John Lee Hancock.

Cast: Denzel Washington, Rami Malek, Jared Leto, Chris Bauer, Michael Hyatt, Terry Kinney, Natalie Morales, Sofia Vassilieva.

The police needed to work on their social distancing.

David Fincher looms large over the serial killer thriller. With Seven, Zodiac and TV series Mindhunter, he's got the subgenre covered, meaning all new entries into the field are judged - for better or worse - against these amazing works.

The Little Things shares some elements with those Fincher films, including a character-driven focus, a moody atmosphere, and a strict procedural approach. But it lacks key components, namely tension, a growing sense of dread, and a feeling of urgency. While it cleverly subverts convention in places, it does so at the expense of the film's vibe, which waivers and eventually wanes, leaving behind an atmospheric thriller with few thrills. Fortunately there is a killer cast to save the whole thing from being a complete waste of time.

Washington stars as Deke, a homicide detective-turned-beat cop drawn into a murder investigation that bears an uncanny resemblance to an unsolved case from his past. Along with aspiring detective Jim Baxter (Malek), he zeroes in on resident weirdo Albert Sparma (Leto), convinced that he's the culprit. But is he? 

The characters are both the reason to watch this and the reason it doesn't totally work. Deke and Baxter are fascinating, but the film is more a portrait of men being pushed over the edge in their effort to do the right thing, rather than a tense thriller about a killer. The Little Things is asking "how close to the edge they will go?" and "what happens if they go over it?". As for Sparma, well, he's a strange cat, and that's displayed in a wonderfully creepy "is he/isn't he" way, but the thrills give way to some slower paced and monotonous as the character studies take over.

Thankfully the three key performances are delivered by three amazing actors, who all disappear into their roles beautifully. Leto is especially impressive, making Sparma believably weird - unforgettably so. The Little Things is at least worth watching for Leto, Malek and Washington.

But the story is so entranced by its characters and their internal struggles that it skips past the external ones. The stakes feel too low, and the much-needed escalation is lost in the slow haunting atmosphere. When the film finally gets to its series of late twists, they're met with an "oh - ok" as opposed to a feeling of genuine shock, surprise or horror. 

The Little Things is a brooding and interesting film, but it never clicks into a higher gear, leaving its performers carrying the load of a story that unravels gently, rather than with the kind of jolts we need or expect from such a movie.

In trying to subvert the genre and focus on the little things, The Little Things forgets the big things.