The Gentlemen

Guy Ritchie and Hugh Grant... Any takers?

When I saw the trailer for this movie I could see how it could be a good film but I just wasn't convinced because Henry Golding had previously been in a Christmas musical that looked dreadful and I actively avoided and Matthew McConaughey has had a very questionable career. I wanted to see Michelle Dockery take on a different role from Lady Mary in Downton Abbey (I loved her in Hogfather) but the biggest selling point was trying to work out how Hugh Grant could possibly fit in to this film.

Simple answer: This is the most un Hugh Grantish role he has ever taken on. Newspaper reporter Fletcher (Grant) attempts to blackmail a drug producer (McConaughey) for 20 million by writing a story and film script for a series of events that had previously taken place. He effectively is the narrator in this film and we get to see his adaptations and fantasies before hearing the real truth from someone else. He smokes, drinks and swears a lot without the typical upper class accent we have come to expect from him.

This film is a typical Guy Ritchie film. Action, guns, East end type of film. I loved it. When you combine the already mentioned cast with Colin Farrel then you know that you are in for a laugh and a lot of action. In some ways the plot is a little predictable but you think you know what has happened until the end and then you realise that you really don't know what has happened. All you managed to deduce correctly is that Matthew payed someone to hire someone else to steal product from his future business partner so that he could pay less when buying out Micheal Pearson (McConaughey). Everything else is a lot of fun and not what you expected. Three parties turns in to four. Dead bodies appear in the most peculiar places (such as freezers) and the means of how they arrived there is quite probably not what you were expecting.

This is one of the few films which was watched by both of us who supposedly run this blog. Esther and I both loved Michelle Dockery in this film. She was so different but not overdone in any way. Not helpless or too violent. Simple, strong and she was equally matched by her husband. She has a strong career moving forward as she displays diversity in abundance. 'The Gentlemen' is a classic example of a night in with your male adult friends. Pizza, a few beers and a lot of fun with action and drama to accompany it. The plot is solid and one of the better plots to have graced the adult world of cinema in a few years.

I recently wrote about 'Knives Out' and how I thought that it had a really strong plot and a natural feel to the film. I feel the same way about this movie. Nothing was overdone, no character was overplayed and the plot was overly complicated or overly simplified. This film has the perfect balance of known names and natural talent. The perfect balance of action and humour. Blood but no gore, gangster but not unnecessary violence. Adult because of the swearing and the gun use but otherwise it could have received a lower rating. This is one of the best Ritchie films out there. The film industry is mostly stepping the right direction. You get a few films each year with dreadful plots (Star Wars) but most of them are now focusing more on the story line and less on the visual effects.

The Gentlemen is genius and a very enjoyable film.

Dolittle

I make a point of watching all types of films for this blog. I haven't thought too much about making a list of films to watch and review and so at the moment I am reviewing films that I watched before lockdown started. This one is Dolittle and it is a children's film.

I am sure that many of you associate this title with the Eddie Murphy film. I think that I saw it once but I rarely find comedy films funny. I prefer films that aren't played for laughs and therefore come across as more natural. Generally when films are scripted to be comical they get overplayed and it becomes crass or obvious. Good script writing and good acting can create the same effect but a better film. This film is an example of what I am talking about.

Think back to when you were a child. You probably used to play imaginary games and talk to animals even though you couldn't understand anything that they said to you. This film is more or less what you could imagine as a child but with a much broader imagination. A doctor, a Gorilla and Mice playing chess? The chess scene is fantastic but it probably wasn't something that your imagination would have created. A Polar Bear that doesn't like the cold?? Some of the moments in the film are magical but it took someone to think outside the box in order to create this world. This is a word that children can escape to. It is more than just a child's world, it is an expansion of our imagination as children and it brings to life things that only certain children can picture. 

Not only are the visual effects stunning in this movie but the lack of a real 'bad guy' makes the film more enjoyable for people of all ages. A Dragon that suffers from stomach ache due to eating most of the Spanish Amada and some bag pipes... who thinks like that?! This film has everything that you wouldn't think of and everything that you would! Dolittle takes you inside your inner child's imagination and then leads you on a journey that you weren't able to imagine. It's not just the talking animals but more what they say, how what we know assume about animals isn't necessarily true. This film presents an alternate argument simply to challenge what we think and how we think it, not because there is any evidence to suggest that we are wrong; rather to present the possibility that we could be incorrect in our beliefs and assumptions.

When you see the name Robert Downey Jr you tend to expect a certain type of character. This wasn't it. This role is one of the most surprising and different roles that I have seen him take on as a lead actor. He was perfect for this role and because of that the film flowed and felt natural. Not once did his performance feel flawed or did you ever question why he was cast. Each character was thought out carefully and cast to perfection. Emma Thompson as Polly was again a perfect cast. Other names such as Antonio Banderas and Ralph Fiennes were cast and neither character was over played or stereotypical. I am always sceptical of child actors and so I wont comment because as far as I was concerned, the child acting was probably the weak link. 

Whale power... It takes a certain type of person to come up with these ideas and then another type of person to bring them to life for the rest of us to see and enjoy. I think that this is the best children's movie since Despicable Me and Megamind were released. Every adult has an inner child in them and secretly every adult enjoys a good children's movie which doesn't have a really cheesy ending. I can proudly say that I enjoy watching this movie on a Friday night as much as I enjoy watching a film like 'The Gentlemen' or 'Knives Out' on a Friday night. I appreciate good movies, good scripts, thought out animation or visual effects and clever casting. I don't care what age the film is aimed at if it ticks all of those boxes then I enjoy it. No need for extra villains or a 'dark' feel to the film. This movie wasn't written with a sequel in mind and it wasn't left for an obvious sequel which is even more pleasing. It starts, it has a middle, it has conflict and resolution and it has an ending. Simple yet effective and yet most script writers seem to forget the resolution or ending in favour of a sequel which almost always leaves them with a terrible movie and not the success for a sequel. A good script can do a lot more than good effects (as proven by Avatar and Star Wars 7-9).

Take your kids, sit down one evening and watch this film. If you don't have children then sit down alone or with friends/family and watch this film. It doesn't matter how old you are, you can enjoy this film if you appreciate imagination and a well written script.

All the President's Men

For those of you who watched 'The Post' a few years ago when it was released (Starring Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks), this is the other side of the story. Some people will say that 'The Post' is a remake of this film but having now seen both films, it isn't.

Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman star in this film about the Watergate Scandal. I will say right now that unless you were living at the time of this scandal, the film doesn't really make sense. 'The Post' revealed that Nixon knew that they couldn't win the Vietnam War. Documents were leaked and The Washington Post amount other papers had to fight the legal system to publish the documents. This film seems to be more focused on money that was paid from the presidential election campaign fund to high up members of the senate in order to keep Watergate a secret.

The film starts with a break in. 5 men are arrested for breaking in and attempting to locate and steal documents. A lawyer is provided for these men even though none of them called for one and that leads the reporters from The Washington Post to start writing a story on it. They discover that one of the burglars had a name of someone from the White House written in his diary and they go from there. Redford and Hoffman work together and spend the entire movie clutching at straws. They don't get any positive confirmations and they cannot reveal their sources. The film doesn't really end and when the closing credits roll you sit there thinking... then what?

After they publish a story stating that five high up members of senate or even higher were involved in paying off people and shredding documents they discover that they have been bugged from the start and that whilst they weren't wrong, they also weren't correct in everything that they wrote. Nixon gets reelected and you can't help but feel like they have wasted their time, money and effort and that you as the audience have also done the same thing.

The stars in this movie guaranteed it to be a box office hit. The plot was probably impacted by what they could say and write at the time. This movie was made in 1976, about 2 years after this scandal had taken place and therefore was still very much on people's minds. The problem is that if you didn't live through it, watching this film doesn't give you any concrete knowledge about anything that took place. I can see why 'The Post' was made. That film is a lot clearer about what was going on and what the papers were trying to achieve and write. Once you combine them with 'Frost/Nixon' then you can start to form a clear idea of what had taken place, if, like me; you were not born at the time of this scandal and did not learn about it in school history.

I still sit here wondering if I actually managed to work out the plot from this film just by watching the film. If there is anyone out there reading this post who can explain the plot of this film to me then please comment on this post and explain it to me.

Until next time.

The Good Liar

Helen Mirren and Ian McKellen are the names advertised on the trailers, posters and social media promotion. When you see these names you start forming an idea of what type of film you are expecting to see. Light-hearted and more like RED than what you actually get.

This movie is slightly darker than what you would expect. From the opening title sequence you can see that they are both liars and probably cons but who is pulling the bigger con?
If you grew up around the Teddington and heading towards Surrey area then you will have recognised Teddington Station, the pub next to the station and somewhere that looked suspiciously like Eggham throughout this movie. I will state now that Great Western Railway to Paddington does not run from Teddington as Teddington is on the southwestern train line and not the Great Western line. It's been a while since I recognised the surroundings of a film as well as I did for this movie and that comforted me a lot.

The plot goes like this:

Roy (McKellen) and Vincent (Jim Carter- Downton Abbey) are con men. They run schemes that convince well off, unknowing men and women to invest in joint accounts so that Roy can transfer all the money out of the account once the investment has been made and disappear to a new part of England, a new person to con and a new flat. Bettie (Mirren) appears to be a widowed but well off woman who is suffering from ill health and is completely charmed by Roy. Her grandson Steven (Russel Tovi) is the only obstacle to Roy's plan as he is ever present and very suspicious of this old man. Bettie lets it slip that she is worth something like 3 million pounds and Roy decides to attempt to get her to invest all of her money. They take trips to Germany, Paris, Venice etc as Bettie's health appears to be deteriorating rapidly. When in Munich, Steven takes Roy and Bettie to a house and manages to get Roy to explain who he really is and why he speaks German (even though he pretends that he doesn't). At first Roy lies and says that he was an English soldier who was injured in this house when he came to arrest someone after the war with a German man named Hanz. After he gives his account, Steven makes him admit that actually, he is Hanz who in fact was not killed in the accident. Roy was killed in the accident and Hanz came to London after that mission, already speaking English and changed his name, thus assuming the identity of Roy. He has been living a lie and a con ever since.

Bettie manages to convince Roy to put in all of his money in to the savings and Roy attempts to pull off the scam as he normally would, only to discover that upon his return to London, he has forgotten his key pad and cannot transfer any money. He returns to Bettie's house to find it completely empty with only Bettie in it and after a long time she explains to him that she was the girl that he Raped when he was 15 and living in Germany. Her sisters had turned him down and so he took advantage of a younger girl whom he was supposed to be teaching English to. After that even he was thrown out of the house and never permitted back. In retaliation Hanz reported them to the Nazis for something and they were forced out of their house and their lives were ruined. Bettie has been planning her revenge for a long time. The house was a show, although she does have a lot of Grandchildren, did teach at Oxford and is widowed. Steven is not her Grandson but rather the partner of one of her grandchildren. She takes almost all of his money, leaving him with just enough to repay one of the men that he conned at the start of the film and she leaves him to face a few of the people that he wronged throughout the movie.

End of plot.

This movie is darker than first imagined. I was glad that it was the first part of a double screening for me and that Knives out followed it because I needed something to make me laugh.
I don't want to take anything away from this film. It is very well written and balances a serious topic with a bit of humour. I feel that the making of this film will really help a lot of victims. Mirren's character states in the movie that she needed to face him and I think that this is true for a lot of victims. In order to be totally free from it, you need to face your oppressor but she does it in a way that means that she gets the better of him and therefore can close the case. I wouldn't suggest that every victim attempt to pull off something like this but being able to close the event is important and isn't something that can be given to every victim.
Mental health and abuse are things that have only been shown on the screen to depict someone as crazy or in an act of violence to depict a villain. The world that we are living in is now a lot more focused on mental health, talking and making music to help people verbalise what they are feeling. A lot of people will relate to this film in some way and I wont say that this film will have helped them but it is a step in the right direction for women to be able to see that they could continue living, have a happy life and marriage, have children and grandchildren etc and make something of their lives.

I think that the choice to focus on an older woman helped as it showed what can be achieved and didn't show the destruction and damage caused by the initial attack. I think that the casting was perfect. This film showed a slightly different side to all of the cast involved. Violence isn't something that we would normally associate with McKellen and this type of serious role isn't a typical Mirren performance either. For Jim Carter, I enjoy every performance that he gives and his character was much more likeable as he showed a sense of concern and conscience. He was a con artist yes but one who had limits and rules. To criticise the acting in this film would be wrong and unfounded. What I would say about this film is that you probably only need to watch it once. It isn't what you were expecting when you sat down to watch it (unless you have read this post before hand) and it sticks in your memory for a long time. There isn't a real need to buy a copy of the film because you probably wont watch it again for another ten years or so. Rent it so that you can avoid letting it take up space in your film cabinet. Save that space for a film that you will watch on repeat.

A good film. Serious and important. Memorable but so memorable that it doesn't need to be rewatched in a hurry.