The Silence - DVD Review

'one of the more compelling police procedurals offered over the last few years'

Let down on occasion by its less than stellar cast, The Silence is still one of the more compelling police procedurals offered over the last few years. Indeed, one of its main strengths is in taking that genre and broadening out what can be offered. There's a relationship of some sort taking place between this and Bong Joon-ho's Memories Of Murder and certainly every member of The Silence's cast of characters is suffering from the latent feelings left by past brushes with violence and death.

At the films centre an investigation rumbles into why a young girl appears to have been abducted in exactly the same way as a different girl, twenty-three years earlier. Detective David Jahn (Sebastian Blomberg), grieving from the death of his wife by cancer, gets the least interesting part of the plot, as he recovers under the wing of retiring detective Krischan (Burghart Klaußner) and stumbles around solving the mystery.

In fact, Jahn's less-than-interesting development is mainly down to the fact that he is surrounded by a large band of ambiguous, layered supporting players, none of whom are entirely 'good' or 'bad'. Most interesting of all is Timo (Wotan Wilke Möhring), whose clear guilt is tempered by an apparent reluctance to be quite as evil as he might be and the hint that he is on the verge of redemption. His eventual conclusion, distinctly individual when compared, again, to other perhaps more mainstream procedurals, is worryingly indecisive and dares to tempt the viewer into dissatisfaction.

Technically perhaps, The Silence suffers a little from looking a touch made-for-TV, though director Baran bo Odar does bring in some lovely shots - a car being tracked by an overhead helicopter looks like something out of video game, the bright yellow straw fields are distinct - it can resort to more bland tricks. The music is extremely predictable in its execution and almost everyone who works with David is fairly low-rent hire-a-cop. With all that though, this tries new things in familiar territory and crafts a bleak vision of the influence of death on all around it.

Classic Intel: Midnight Run - Online Review

'Only when the director ups the ante with action set pieces (car vs helicopter) is Grodin forced to go outside of his near-comatose comfort zone.'

Much-referenced when talking about shallower contemporary films such as The Bounty Hunter, Midnight Run may have once held the high watermark of the miss-matched buddy comedy, but surely has since been surpassed by a selection of better, funnier films. Sure, Martin Brest's 1988 Comedy-Thriller has its moments, but is it up there with The Long Kiss Goodnight or Lethal Weapons 2, 3 and 4, all of which came after it?

One-liners in George Gallo's script do hit their marks on several occasions. A running gag about a pair of sunglasses culminates with Robert De Niro describing the excellent Yaphet Kotto as 'agent Foster Grant', which is smile raising but hardly likely to see the screenwriter at a comedy award evening any time soon.

Meanwhile, the relationship between bounty hunter Jack Walsh (De Niro) and his target Jonathan Mardukas (Charles Grodin) remains fairly stilted. De Niro goes for his role with bravado and outlandish physical acting but Grodin underplays so much he gives the relationship a very odd dynamic. Far from being a man panicking about his possible assassination at the hands of the mob, or imprisonment by Walsh and Kotto's FBI agent, he seems to be a man out for a gentle holiday. Only when Brest ups the ante with action set pieces (car vs helicopter) is Grodin forced to go outside of his near-comatose comfort zone. Others have commented that this is one of the film's strengths but, to me, there's not enough fun in the duality between the two leads.

Secondary to this is the real lack of concrete antagonist. Kotto is far too fun, whilst Dennis Farina's mob boss stays too distant for too long and several underlings rotate with too much frequency.

It results in a film that is fun, but only in a muted sort of way. Midnight Run also spreads the positives it does have too thinly, resulting in a vastly inflated two hour-plus runtime. It's a good 1980s Thriller but the high watermark for buddy comedies? Please report to Riggs and Murtaugh's office.

Midnight Run was showing on Sky Go.

The Numbers Station - Online Review

'feels like a distinctly asinine throwback to awful 1990s Action Thrillers, of which Cusack was never really a part'

John Cusack's extensive and tumultuous back catalogue has its fair share of oddities. Shanghai, which remains unreleased in the US, despite its $50 million budget, is a recent example but there's also a litany of fairly average genre rubbish to add to critically acclaimed outings like High Fidelity or the occasional art house indulgence such as Being John Malkovich.

The Numbers Station fits into this collection about as uncomfortably as a pair of too-tight boxer shorts. As Emerson, Cusack is essentially playing a humourless version of his Grosse Pointe Blank character, before he left government employment and become acerbic. The problem? Grosse Pointe Blank was sixteen years ago and Cusack, who never had great action chops to begin with, fits the role of hard case anti-hero even less well than the collection of ageing past-its indulging themselves in The Expendables series.

Of course, had Kasper Barfoed's film been any good, the suitability or otherwise of Cusack to do this sort of thing potentially might have mattered less. Stuck in a bunker with codesmith Catherine (Malin Akerman) though, Cusack and Barfoed have nowhere to go, left at the mercy of F. Scott Frazier's script which offers the already pretty poor Akerman lines like, 'Emerson... lie to a girl, would you.'

Meanwhile, Richard Brake's bad guy gets very short shrift indeed and Paul Leonard-Morgan's music does its best to sound like a Brosnan-era Bond score. The whole thing feels like a distinctly asinine throwback to awful 1990s Action Thrillers, of which Cusack was never really a part.

A situation where The Numbers Station could have worked arises at the beginning of the final third, as Akerman and Cusack find a list of fifteen things that could have quite easily formed the basis for a TV series; Catherine's trapped codie forced to help Cusack's disenfranchised spook do a bit of good. In film form though, this is ninety-minutes of very below average, low-rent plotless garbage, of interest probably only to Cusack completists and fans of bad nineties cinema.

The Numbers Station is released on demand, including iTunes, on Monday 27th May.

Trailer Of The Week - Week #21 - Gravity

The trailer for Alfonso Cuarón's Gravity generated some great buzz last week but in all honesty, I don't think it's that great a tease. What is noteworthy in the buzz stakes though is this piece on In Contention, which is essentially about a cast presence in the film but has some very positive early reaction amended on to its rear end. Sandra Bullock to be pushed for an Oscar? You heard it here (there) first.

Trailer Of The Week is a regular Film Intel feature which picks a different tasty trailer of delectable goodness every week and presents it on Sunday for your viewing pleasure. Sometimes old, sometimes new, sometimes major, sometimes independent, sometimes brilliant, sometimes a load of old bobbins: always guaranteed to entertain. If you want to make a suggestion for Trailer Of The Week, see the contact us page.

Dogwoof's first Blu-ray

A brief mention today for Dogwoof, a label who had a fantastic year in 2012 and before that, doing things the right way and putting out some great films. Next month will see the arrival of their first blu-ray in the shape of Chasing Ice, a really good documentary boasting this Oscar-nominated song, sung by Scarlett Johansson. Head out, make a purchase, support a good label.

The Master - Blu-ray Review

'Comparisons to Brando are thrown around with abandon but in the scenes with a psychiatrist, a mumbling Phoenix resembles him and his performance is powerhouse.'

What is The Master? It's a question never asked explicitly by Paul Thomas Anderson's film, yet the suggestion that he who rules over Freddie Quell (Joaquin Phoenix) may not actually be cult leader Lancaster Dodd (Philip Seymour Hoffman), is everywhere.

Returning from the war directionless, Quell is the equivalent of the idiot at a party who mixes every drink on the bar and calls it a cocktail. Alcohol, an early candidate for Freddie's master, plays its part in this narrative and in Freddie's life, causing drunk stumbling through a life now blurry of version.

Parents and relatives too seem to hold sway over Quell's conduct. They crop up often in conversation and their authority is eventually questioned directly by Lancaster's son (Jesse Plemons). Meanwhile, mother figure (and actual mother) Peggy (Amy Adams) seems to have more authority than initially suggested, especially come the end, when her near off-stage direction guides the hand of Dodd, now perched between ornate window of judgement.

Anderson's film was mainly recognised for its performances only and certainly they provide the second reason to watch it, behind the ideas he attempts to explore. Comparisons to Brando are thrown around with abandon but in the scenes with a psychiatrist, a mumbling Phoenix resembles him and his performance is powerhouse. Hoffman gives a flustered, strutting pant, occasionally in control but more often than not out of it. Adams reveals a snake-like crawling at just the right moments.

But despite all that, The Master is a crushingly distant film. Anderson plays everything with such a straight face, such a lack of humanity and humour, that the entirety of Quell's narrative seems to take place on the pages of a book, held at a length of several fathoms from the reader's face. The outstanding Jonny Greenwood score takes over from real emotion and the wake from several travelling ships stands in for more interesting metaphors.

It steams on for far, far too long, wallowing in a disconnected ambiguity it proves impossible to identify with.

Classic Intel: 24 - Season One - DVD Review

'The full realisation of many of 24's better moments, will have to wait for subsequent series, where the writing is tighter and less people have convenient battery drains/memory losses.'

Whilst it may have launched a titan of television, and seen the début of a now iconic character, hindsight is not a kind glass through which to view the 1st season of 24. Often aimless, choc-full of action film clichés television has since worked so hard to minimise, if not eradicate, Jack Bauer's (Kiefer Sutherland) first outing is not quite as polished as it should be.

It begins with items like a mobile phone running out of battery. A simple enough device, which should have expired at roughly the same time Jack's model of choice did. From there, we get deeper and deeper into problematic plot element territory. A key character late on conveniently loses her memory, making it impossible for her to just walk home and out of the plotting. Referring to her, another character actually speaks the line 'she's suffered some sort of... temporary memory loss', thus ecstatically calling to mind Hot Tub Time Machine.

There is though some great decision making here that makes 24: Season One worth taking note of above the fact that it brought Bauer and split screens into our homes. Kidnapped Kim (Elisha Cuthbert) is kept kidnapped till just at the point her constant referrals to 'my Dad's going to rescue me' were becoming annoying. Michael Massee, as Ira Gaines is a terrific first villain, growling out his 'that's right, we're watching you', from the DVD's menu. A late handful of episodes with Elizabeth (Kara Zediker) shows just how well this show can do tension, when it really thinks about it.

The technical elements, including the split screens, work well and with the normal plethora of directors, they come and go in usage levels, making their integration easier. The final third doesn't always feel in control of itself, yet it does manage to pull off a couple of shocks, whilst avoiding the twee manipulation of Patty (Tanya Wright), it seemed to be heading for and marking out Palmer (Dennis Haysbert) as even tougher than the main narrative had already suggested. The full realisation of that element though, and of many of 24's better moments, will have to wait for subsequent series, where the writing is tighter and less people have convenient battery drains/memory losses.