27 Saturday Apr 2013
Director: Sofia Coppola
Stars: Katie Chang, Israel Broussard, Emma Watson
Plot: Inspired by actual events, a group of fame-obsessed teenagers use the internet to track celebrities’ whereabouts in order to rob their homes.
Release Dates: 14th June (USA), 5th July (UK)
15 Monday Apr 2013
Tags
2013, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Chloë Grace Moretz, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Jeff Wadlow, Kick-Ass 2
Director: Jeff Wadlow
Stars: Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Chloë Grace Moretz, Christopher Mintz-Plasse
Plot: The costumed high-school hero Kick-Ass joins with a group of normal citizens who have been inspired to fight crime in costume. Meanwhile, the Red Mist plots an act of revenge that will affect everyone Kick-Ass knows.
Release Dates: 19th July (UK), 16th August (USA)
11 Thursday Apr 2013
Director: Danny Boyle
Stars: James McAvoy, Rosario Dawson, Vincent Cassel
Plot: An art auctioneer gets involved with a criminal gang who consult a hypnotherapist when he can’t remember where he hid a valuable painting.
Danny Boyle’s reputation as one of the premier British directors at the moment is proven by the fanfare that accompanies his film releases. Ever since the dark Shallow Grave and the even darker Trainspotting graced our screens (both of which injected comedy at its blackest), Boyle has amassed an impressive filmography which includes A Life Less Ordinary, The Beach, 28 Days Later, Sunshine, Slumdog Millionaire and 127 Hours. While one or two of these films may have been a touch overrated, Boyle’s talent for bringing his own imitable style to the table is unquestioned. Trance continues this trend whilst simultaneously messing with your brain, quite literally.
Simon (McAvoy) works in a prestigious art auctioneers in central London, where his job is to look after the paintings during the bidding process. In the event of a heist attempt, it is his duty to take the work of art on display to a back room as per company protocol, placing it in a protective bag and down a special chute where it will be supposedly safe from harms way. as a backup, there is a small group of commandos in a van, ready to pounce into action, needs be. One day, an attack on an auction where Francisco Goya’s Witches in the Air is being bid for – masked men burst in and spread tear gas canisters around the building, causing mass panic among those attending. Simon grabs the painting and takes it to the back room, but is stopped by a member of the gang who he tasers, but is in turn beaten around the head and loses consciousness.
While recovering in hospital from his injuries, Simon learns that he has been hailed a hero for his actions. He returns home to find that his apartment has been ransacked and receives a call from a ‘friend’ saying that Franck (Cassel) wants to see him. We discover that Simon has a secret – the attempted heist was an inside job and he was expected to give up the painting to Franck (the one he tasered), so he could escape with it. But the work of art is nowhere to be found – having had surgery on his brain following the bump to his head, Simon can’t remember where Goya’s masterpiece is located. Franck interrogates him, but having not made any progress, decides to send Simon to see a hypnotherapist in order to dig up the whereabouts of the painting from the recesses of his mind. Simon chooses to see Dr. Elizabeth Lamb (Dawson), but it quickly becomes evident that this journey into his subconscious is going to be a perilous one.
Trance intends to be a twisty, bendy film with a smattering of reveals which supposedly are designed to draw gasps from its audience. However, the script suffers from trying far too hard to keep its cards very close to its chest before using a scattergun approach when peeling back what actually happens. Instead of a crescendo of revelations leading to an unbearably intense finale, by the time the storyline has made more u-turns than a politician, the feeling is more fatigue than fantastical delight. The other major flaw here is that the believability factor is constantly stretched to breaking point at various moments when we are led to believe that an amazing set of circumstances came together – dramatic licence is one thing, but there also needs to be grounding in reality. Even though we travel deep into Simon’s mind with some wonderful, emotive visuals, the substance that is needed to back it all up just isn’t really there. Strangely enough, no-one at the auction house seemed particularly bothered about trying to discover the whereabouts of the painting – you’d have thought that Simon’s employers would be just a tad concerned about it, wouldn’t you?
James McAvoy’s casting as the lead character appears to be a sound decision at first. His delivery of Simon’s witty lines and explanation of what he is expected to do in the event of an attempted heist, opens the film well. However, such is McAvoy’s desperation to shake off his goody-goody film persona (the upcoming Filth is another example of this), that when we discover that Simon has a violent past, the merging of actor and role doesn’t really fit anymore. That’s not to say that James McAvoy is a good actor, but his insistence on becoming essentially the British answer to Joseph Gordon-Levitt may very well lead to him becoming miscast in a host of subsequent films. Vincent Cassel, a veteran of playing numerous haggard French villains is once again in his comfort zone. His portrayal of Franck provides a little more than just your average thug, but due to the fact that his character is meant to ooze a physical attraction towards the psychologist in question, this adds an extra dimension and a little heart to what could have been the most one-dimensional of characters. Danny Boyle’s direction is extremely stylish, but even he cannot save Joe Ahearn’s and John Hodge’s script from becoming overbearing.
Trance looks really glossy, but in actual fact this is no more than an artificial sheen which hides the truth – it’s all mouth and no trousers. Where Memento and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind were mind-bending triumphs, Danny Boyle fails to emulate these two excellently layered films, with an interesting premise but no real convincing point.
Rating: 
07 Sunday Apr 2013
Director: Baltasar Kormákur
Stars: Denzel Washington, Mark Wahlberg, Paula Patton
Plot: A DEA agent and an undercover Naval Intelligence officer who have been tasked with investigating one another find they have been set up by the mob — the very organization the two men believe they have been stealing money from.
Release Dates: 2nd August (USA) TBC (UK)
05 Friday Apr 2013
Director: David Ayer
Stars: Jake Gyllenhaal, Michael Peña, Anna Kendrick
Plot: We follow the daily lives of two Los Angeles police officers via a documentary-style, as they come up against a criminal gang hell-bent on revenge.
Ever since Jake Gyllenhaal blazed his own cinematic trail as the title character in the weird and wonderful Donnie Darko, he has built up quite a varied CV. Zodiac and Source Code proved his ability to play leading characters well, but he never shies away from challenging roles such as Brokeback Mountain and End of Watch, for which he spent a few months with real-life police officers while researching his role in the film, which gives us a very authentic view of life on patrol in the one of the most violent cities in the world.
A high-speed police pursuit ends in a shootout in South Central Los Angeles. The LAPD officers involved, Brian Taylor (Gyllenhaal) and Miguel Zavala (Peña), are unharmed. They return to the station where it is revealed that the two are close friends and Brian is going to film them as they go about their job for a film project. A public disturbance call leads them to the house of Mr. Tre (Cle Shaeed Sloan), who yells abuse and ends up fighting Miguel, who wins his respect for not charging him with assault. Later that night, Tre and his fellow Bloods gang members are attacked by a Latino gang in a drive-by shooting incident. The following evening Brian and Miguel are called to the Latino gang’s house where they come face to face with the leader, Big Evil.
Brian tells Miguel that he has a hunch about Big Evil and decides to stake out his mother’s house. They pull over an apparent gang member who draws a gun on them, but is disarmed – the officers find a number of ornate guns and cash in the car. After rescuing a number of children from a house fire and receiving a Medal of Valor for their efforts, the pair arrest another man linked to the gang, who is found to be holding a number of people captive in his house as part of a human-trafficking ring. Brian and Miguel are subsequently told by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent that they would be best advised to lay low due to a potential revenge attack. This significant arrest leads them on a path of confrontation with the Latino gang for a deadly showdown.
End of Watch doesn’t really know what it wants to be. We start off with a very interesting take on the buddy cop stereotype. Instead of two wildly different personalities, Brian and Miguel, despite their different backgrounds, are quite similar to each other. Following these two police officers around in a documentary style is something that most of us would be able to enjoy quite easily, especially considering that Gyllenhaal and Peña are likeable actors playing very likeable characters. Then the action switches to the so-called ‘bad guys’, who are filming their rather violent exploits on their cell phones – are we now in ‘found footage’ territory? This is never explained. Neither is the fact that the plot suddenly lurches across at certain moments towards being a standard drama – a sex scene which would fit into any drama is thrown in for good measure and to confuse its audience once again – who is filming this now? Perhaps an unseen voyeur, but again we don’t get answers. Technicalities aside, the film is terrific. The very violent world of the LAPD we are thrust into feels very genuine, even if you haven’t been anywhere near the streets of Los Angeles, the experience is very authentic – especially when the action concentrates on our two main protagonists.
Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Peña are perfectly cast. Their chemistry as both colleagues and friends is absolutely spot-on and there is need whatsoever for a delve into their respective pasts or careers to really get a taste of their characters. Almost immediately we are gladly invited to join them to see what their day-to-day lives are like and it is a true testament to both actors that the relaxed, easy-going style of Brian and Miguel is very watchable indeed. Gyllenhaal could have quite easily played the brash, heroic cop cliché, while Peña may have taken on the token Hispanic and gone through the motions. Instead what we have is a great script by director and screenwriter David Ayer, which provides the most entertaining moments in their patrol car as the two bicker and banter about each other’s families and the contrasting attitudes to life. These scenes also serve as an antidote to the particularly brutal drama that unfolds in the background to an unrelenting crescendo for the finale. Ayer’s direction, although uncertain about the approach that is meant to be taken in regards to how the film is trying to convey its message, is assured and thankfully shorn of the clunky editing that appears to have become obligatory for violent dramas these days.
End of Watch is different from your average cop drama. Superb acting, a witty yet tightly wound script and a genuine relationship between two officers which is captivating, fascinating and dramatic. Ayer could and should have stuck with the original plan – a documentary-style trip around South Central Los Angeles, purely from the perspective of the LAPD. Just this idea alone would have been enough to enjoy for a solid two hours, maybe even for three.
Rating: 
14 Thursday Mar 2013
Director: Danny Boyle
Stars: James McAvoy, Rosario Dawson, Vincent Cassel
Plot: An art auctioneer who has become mixed up with a group of criminals partners with a hypnotherapist in order to recover a lost painting.
Release Dates: 27th March (UK), 5th April (USA)
20 Wednesday Feb 2013
Director: Justin Lin
Stars: Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Dwayne Johnson
Plot: Agent Hobbs enlists the aid of Dom and team to help bring a rival gang, led by Owen Shaw, to justice. In exchange for clear records, they must put an end to their schemes, no matter how personal the cost.
Release Dates: 24th May (USA, UK)
19 Saturday Jan 2013
Director: Dean Parisot
Stars: Bruce Willis, Helen Mirren John Malkovich
Plot: Frank Moses and his motley crew of retired assassins return for a second outing.
Release Dates: 2nd August (USA, UK)
17 Thursday Jan 2013
Tags
2012, Guy Pearce, John Hillcoat, Lawless, Shia LaBeouf, Tom Hardy
Director: John Hillcoat
Stars: Tom Hardy, Shia LaBeouf, Guy Pearce
Plot: In Depression-era Virginia, a bootlegging gang comes under threat from a sheriff who wants a cut of their takings.
The prohibition film genre is an interesting one, because it can feature one extreme to the other – violent and bloody or comedic and slapstick. Arguably the best of these is The Untouchables; a fabulous cast, a magnificent script and a terrific depiction of life in 1920s America, save for Sean Connery’s appallingly hilarious attempt at an Irish accent. At the other end of the scale we have films such as Bugsy Malone – an entertaining, fun kid’s film with splurge guns and toe-tapping musical numbers. Lawless falls firmly into the former category. A stellar cast portrays a family of anti-heroes peddling moonshine who battle with a lawman who himself is so corrupt that he is more interested in power via coercion and intimidation rather than upholding the law.
The Bondurant brothers, Forrest (Hardy), Howard (Jason Clark) and Jack (LaBeouf) produce moonshine in Franklin County, Virginia during the height of Prohibition in 1931, aided by their friend Cricket Pate (Dane DeHaan). Jack witnesses a shooting at the hands of notorious gangster Floyd Banner (Gary Oldman), who spots him watching but drives away. Forrest hires dancer Maggie Beauford (Jessica Chastain) to be their new waitress at the petrol station the brothers use as a front for their illegal activities. They are visited shortly afterwards by a new Special Deputy by the name of Charlie Rakes (Pearce), a ruthless cop from Chicago, who informs them that he wants a percentage of the profits they make as bootleggers. Forrest at first refuses, but is forced to back down when his fellow associates fail to help him.
Meanwhile, Jack encounters the daughter of the local preacher, Bertha Minnix (Mia Wasikowska), but he attends church in a drunken state and ends up staggering outside to vomit. Jack then goes to see Cricket, only to find Rakes ransacking the house in an effort to find distillation equipment and shut down their entire operation. Rakes brutally beats up Jack as a message to his two brothers – Forrest tells him that he must learn to stand up for himself. Forrest and Howard arrange to meet a couple of potential customers from Chicago, but Howard gets drunk and doesn’t show. The two men who turn up intimidate Maggie, so Forrest beats them, although they later slash Forrest’s throat and rape Maggie. Once it is learned that they worked for Rakes, the brothers swear a bloody revenge.
As with any film set in a well-known era, there’s always the danger that the plot will slide into cliché and predictability – and that’s exactly what happens in Lawless. The challenge with making the main protagonists anti-heroes is that they need to be likeable, but sadly the Bondurant brothers receive our (limited) empathy purely because their sworn enemy is a classic pantomime villain who makes them look positively angelic by comparison. Prohibition may now look rather pointless and draconian and many cinematic portrayals of bootleggers has been more often than not sympathetic to their plight, but the brothers are nothing more than thugs making money out of people’s desperation and the corruption of the police. Not only this, the screenplay lifts many of the Western genre clichés, complete with shootouts and poor dialogue you would expect to get in a standard John Wayne feature film. There also seems to have been little effort in trying to convincingly recreate 1920s Virginia. A visit to the city is usually made in the dark (very smooth), while most of the action takes place in safe, wooden sets and anonymous countryside – a fine example of lazy filmmaking indeed.
On the acting front, Shia LaBeouf is actually not bad at all, although by his standards, he really is trying hard. For so long one of the most overrated actors in Hollywood, he still doesn’t manage to impress, but at least he doesn’t have Megan Fox (even more overrated in every department) loitering around to make him look good. Tom Hardy is at the centre of everything, even if he mutters a lot of his dialogue, he makes a decent go of his character Forrest, whose name still has connotations of a simpler personality which is at odds with his rugged, macho persona on show here. Guy Pearce, whose snarling Deputy Rakes turns up the caricature knob to eleven, just doesn’t elicit the kind of disgust with his character as he should – being this downright nasty needs to either have a witty line or two (which he doesn’t), or have an air of fear around him at all times (ditto). Pearce is a fine actor, but the script just won’t allow him to go beyond looking ridiculous trying to frown continuously, sans eyebrows. Director John Hillcoat adds nothing special to the proceedings, preferring not to make full use of the landscape, which though perhaps done many times before in similar films, may have at least kept us interested.
The best thing about Lawless is Jessica Chastain’s rack. Besides that there’s lots of mumbling, shooting, beatings and er, more mumblings. It’s entertaining in fits and starts, but look elsewhere if you’re after something daring and original.
Rating: 
15 Tuesday Jan 2013
Director: Taylor Hackford
Stars: Jason Statham, Jennifer Lopez, Michael Chiklis
Plot: A thief with a unique code of professional ethics is double-crossed by his crew and left for dead. Assuming a new disguise and forming an unlikely alliance with a woman on the inside, he looks to hijack the score of the crew’s latest heist.
Release Dates: 25th January (USA), 8th March (UK)
