24 Sunday Feb 2013
Director: Justin Zackham
Stars: Robert De Niro, Diane Keaton, Katherine Heigl
Plot: A long-divorced couple fakes being married as their family unites for a wedding.
Release Dates: 26th April (USA), 31st May (UK)
17 Monday Sep 2012
Director: Terry Gilliam
Stars: Jonathan Pryce, Kim Greist, Robert De Niro
Plot: A bureaucrat in a dystopian future tries to right a wrong but he finds himself winding up as an enemy of the state.
Terry Gilliam is a man of many talents. Perhaps most famous for representing the American contingent of the Monty Python phenomenon, he has film credits for directing, writing, acting, producing, as an animator and a production designer. So it comes as little surprise that his films illustrate his own visions of the world using all of these facets to surreal effect. From Jabberwocky to The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, the imminent release of a Gilliam feature film has always raised the anticipation levels to see what left-field treatment he has to offer this time round. Brazil is no different, serving up a very hallucinatory, dystopian satire which is in effect a two-hour cinematic drug trip that makes Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (another Gilliam film) feel like a very sober picnic.
Sam Lowry (Pryce) is a low-level drone working in a government office where taking illicit breaks to watch classic films behind the back of the boss Mr. Kurtzmann (Ian Holm) is considered the norm. Sam has frequent dreams of saving a beautiful woman, while dressed in a suit of armour complete with angel’s wings. On one particular fateful day, a fly gets jammed in a printer, causing a catastrophic administrative error – an innocent man named Mr. Archibald Buttle (Brian Miller) is mistaken for Archibald ‘Harry’ Tuttle, a suspected ‘terrorist’. Buttle is arrested and sent to prison, where he dies of an undiagnosed heart condition. When Sam goes to visit Buttle’s widow (Sheila Reid) to offer his condolences, he finds that the woman living upstairs, Jill Layton (Griest) has the same face as the maiden in his dreams.
Jill has been trying to help Mrs. Buttle find out what happened to her husband, but because apparent meddling, she is now seen as a terrorist for trying to report the mistake. Meanwhile, Sam has a visit from Harry Tuttle (De Niro), who is a renegade air conditioning specialist who worked for the government, but left because there was too much paperwork. Tuttle helps Sam rebuff the attentions of two Central government workers Spoor (Bob Hoskins) and Dowser (Derrick O’Connor), but they later return and rip the ducts from the walls in Sam’s apartment and take it over. Sam decides the only way to get back in touch with Jill is to get himself transferred to Information Retrieval, where he would be able to see her records, which are top-secret. He asks his mother Ida (Katherine Helmond) for help as she has connections at the top of government and so goes about trying to find Jill and realise his dreams – but he doesn’t find such a task as easy as he first thought.
Brazil is undoubtedly an acquired taste. Hailed by many as a masterpiece of cinema, it is held in high regard by fans of satire as a watershed entry in the growing list dystopian future films. Terry Gilliam’s movies are notorious for not making a great deal of sense – the real test as to whether you’ll like or not depends on the level Gilliam sets on his own dial of crazy. Unfortunately, the whole affair feels like a pastiche of random, cobbled-together Monty Python sketches, that do raise a few laughs here and there, but nowhere near as many as it should. Much of the plot involves a great deal of tongue-in-cheek drama, but even when a serious moment arrives, these scenes still have a manic grin on their face. Metropolis and Nineteen-Eighty-Four are obvious influences on the film’s style and there is also a strong whiff of Requiem for a Dream whenever we come face-to-face with Sam’s odd mother Ida. The characters themselves feel like they are purposefully weird (except for Sam) and are very hard to engage with – if you do find yourself identifying with any of them, then a trip to your psychiatrist would be required immediately.
Jonathan Pryce’s fine performance makes the vast majority of the film bearable. Many of us who have worked in low-level office jobs can sympathise with the bureaucracy and paperwork involved to get some of the smallest things done and Pryce’s portrayal of the frustration that Sam feels with everything going on around him marks this out as arguably his career-best. We can almost forgive him for his dreadful Elliot Carver in Tomorrow Never Dies, one of the most irritating bad guys in cinema history. The enormous cast makes it difficult to pick many other actors or actresses but having said, that there are some star names to look out for. Robert De Niro makes an all too fleeting appearance as the enigmatic Harry Tuttle, but it’s refreshing to see him doing something more light-hearted in an 80s film which at the time must have been quite a change. Kim Greist, who reportedly faced the wrath of Gilliam for putting in a performance which he was not at all happy with. Also watch out for Monty Python legend Michael Palin who raises a few laughs with his questionable parenting skills and there’s also Jim Broadbent, Ian Holm and Ian Richardson who all do their bit.
Brazil is one film with a plot you can’t possibly judge from its title – if you’re expecting one big carnival and a trip down the Copacabana, you’ll be sorely disappointed (it refers to the recurring musical theme Aquarela do Brasil). Even a twist at the end cannot save what is essentially a film that tries too hard to be self-aware and overly weird for the sake of it. There are some wonderful if sporadic plus points, but before you commit over two hours of your life, just make sure you know what you’re letting yourself in for.
Rating: 
29 Sunday Jul 2012
Tags
2012, Bradley Cooper, David O. Russell, Jennifer Lawrence, Robert De Niro, Silver Linings Playbook
Director: David O. Russell
Stars: Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, Robert De Niro
Plot: After a stint in a mental institution, former teacher Pat Solitano moves back in with his parents and tries to reconcile with his ex-wife. Things get more challenging when Pat meets Tiffany, a mysterious girl with problems of her own.
Release Dates: 21st November (USA), 23rd November (UK)
12 Monday Dec 2011
Director: Kirk Jones
Stars: Robert De Niro, Kate Beckinsale, Sam Rockwell
Plot: A recently widowed father goes on a road trip to re-connect with his grown-up children after they all decline his invitation to visit him for the holidays.
Whereas most films that at some point feature a Christmas or Thanksgiving theme are usually comedies aimed at children, there are a growing number which look at the downside of the holiday season. Movies such as the incomparable It’s A Wonderful Life, so often noted for its sappy ending, actually traces its protagonist George Bailey, as he becomes gradually depressed and contemplates suicide - this makes up much of the running time. Frozen River concentrates on the struggles on a woman who has fallen on hard times just before Christmas, resorting to illegal immigrant trafficking to make ends meet. Everybody’s Fine is not quite as dark and serious as these, but looks at the subject of general loneliness, but uses Christmas as a way of resolving issues within a particular family, with a widower at its heart.
Frank Goode (De Niro) has recently lost his wife and is now living alone in upstate New York. His four grown-up children, Rosie (Drew Barrymore), Amy (Beckinsale), Robert (Rockwell) and David have all flown the nest and are scattered around the country. As all of them have either cancelled or not confirmed their plans to come to a family reunion, Frank takes it upon himself to visit each one of them in turn, despite the reservations of his doctor. His health has slowly deteriorated due to the fact that had worked with PVC, coating phone lines for much of his working life and has to take medication for his resultant poor health. Despite this, Frank sets off on the journey in an effort to get to know his children once again.
Frank first visits his artist son David in New York City, but after a long wait outside his apartment with no reply, decides to carry onto Chicago to see Amy. She is an ad exec and lives in a plush house with her husband and son Jack, who she told Frank had been ill, but as he shows no signs, Frank becomes suspicious that it was an excuse. He then goes to see Robert who had told his father that he is an orchestral conductor in Denver, but when Frank visits the concert hall, Robert is ‘merely’ a percussionist. The final stop is in Las Vegas, where Frank’s daughter Rosie lives in an expensive apartment. After a heart-to-heart with her, he realises that they all only told him the good news, being far more open with their mother, but also there is something about David that they are not telling him.
Everybody’s Fine is by no means ground-breaking or particularly original, but it’s Robert De Niro who holds the whole film together. His character evidently central to the plot, so his story is the only one with whom we can really connect. Playing against type here, De Niro has found another niche between the genres of gangster and comedy films to play a part that needs a heartfelt performance – and he delivers. Kirk Jones’ direction sets Frank against large bus terminals and long, lonely corridors to emphasise not only the loss of his wife, but also the absence of a meaningful connection with his family. Beckinsale, Barrymore and Rockwell play their characters well enough, but there is little time given to them in the script to really develop in any way.
There are some nice touches in the screenplay that are subtle, but run alongside Frank’s journey and add depth without becoming too cumbersome. His former job coating telegraph lines is highlighted by the montages of voiceover telephone conversations between the four visitees as they tell each other about their father’s impending stops and try to hide David’s troubles from him, to save Frank from unnecessary stress. There is also a dream-sequence in which Frank talks to his children as they were at a picnic table, in an effort to understand their attitudes towards him, all the while under a forthcoming storm cloud – this is one of the more predictable yet touching moments. To consider this as a comedy-drama is too much of a stretch, as it is more of a drama with the odd chuckle, as the film is by-and-large a serious and downbeat look at family relationships.
Everybody’s Fine is an apt title – it’s fine, not outstanding – but it’s a thought-provoking film that may not blow you away but at least it may make you think twice about how you relate to your nearest and dearest, especially around this time of year.
Rating: 
