Review: Atomic Blonde (UK Cert 15)

When an MI6 spy is murdered in Berlin and a list of active double agents stolen, fellow operative Lorraine Broughton must  retrieve it. Her contact in Berlin, David Percival, has gone native, enthralled to the sleazy, scuzzy side of the city. With days to go before the Berlin Wall comes down, it's a race against time to find the list and prevent it from falling into the hands of the Soviets. But there's a double agent- codenamed Satchel- who could throw a spanner in the works. 

Atomic Blonde is based on the graphic novel series The Coldest City by Antony Johnson and Sam Hart. Now, I went into the film knowing very little about it: I knew it had Charlize Theron in it, I knew it had a 1980s setting and... that was about it. 

It is true that, plot-wise, it's not the most original story- spy must retrieve (insert McGuffin here) but there's a double agent in the midst and so on. However, setting it in Berlin in the final days before the Wall came down is an inspired choice and there's an authentic feel to the fashion and the music to evoke the era. The film's style also marks it out; it's cool without trying to be cool and there's a gritty feel to the Berlin underground which I liked. 

Director David Leitch used to be a stuntman, so the fight scenes have been choreographed and shot really well. Whilst they are stylised, they're also absolutely brutal and, what's even better, is they show the combatants struggling to breathe and struggling to stand (as you would if you've had seven bells kicked out of you). They're not invincible super-soldiers; they're real flesh and blood people. There are several scenes of Lorraine sitting in an ice bath to help repair her battered body. 

Charfize Theron gives a truly kickass performance as Lorraine. Reminiscent in places of Angelina Jolie in Wanted, she owns every scene she's in. James McAvoy is great as Percival, a slippery and morally flexible guy who lives for the double-dealing and duplicity of the city. In some ways, Lorraine and Percival function as a rather dysfunctional buddy comedy- she the inexperienced newbie, he the grizzled old veteran- but that's just one side to a complex and complicated relationship.

There's able support from Toby Jones as Lorraine's MI6 superior who interviews her about Berlin; John Goodman shines as a CIA agent who has an interest in the case. Eddie Marsan is great as a former Stasi officer who wants to defect (and has memorised the list), plus there's nice turns by Bill Skarsgard as Lorraine's assistant Merkel, and Sofia Boutella as a seductive French agent. 

This has been a year of strong movie soundtracks and Atomic Blonde has one of the best I've heard this year: 'Blue Monday' by New Order, 'Cat People' by David Bowie, 'Father Figure' by George Michael, 'London Calling' by The Clash, 'Under Pressure' by Queen & David Bowie and '99 Luftballons' by Nena all play their part in creating the world of the film. 

I thoroughly enjoyed Atomic Blonde, and more so for the vast majority of the film being a surprise. Definitely worth watching. 

Rating: 4.5 out of 5

Tez

Review: 10 Cloverfield Lane (Cert: 12A)

While the trailers for Zack Snyder’s Batman v Superman felt like one massive spoiler (“So, Doomsday shows up then?”), the marketing team for Dan Trachtenberg’s 10 Cloverfield Lane have done the opposite, showing virtually nothing of the film and teasing us with comments like, it’s a “blood relative” to JJ Abrams’s 2008 handheld horror hit, Cloverfield. There’s a reason for this: The less you know, the more you’ll get out of it.

The film opens with Michelle (Mary Elizabeth Winstead – Scott Pilgrim vs. The World) packing her bags and making a run for it. Whilst driving, arguing on the phone with her now ex-boyfriend, she crashes the car and knocks herself out. Waking, Michelle finds herself in an underground bunker, home of Howard (John Goodman – Monsters Inc., The Big Lebowski – all-round acting legend), a conspiracy theorist who is convinced there has been a chemical, even nuclear attack on America, and is keeping her safe. Michelle realises that Howard is not all he seems, questioning what his real motives might be.

10 Cloverfield Lane gets a lot of things right. First off, the acting. Unlike most female leads in a horror or suspense thriller, Michelle has brains, doing everything you or I would do in this situation. She asks all the right questions, looking for new and inventive ways to escape. You care about Michelle rather than feeling like you’re forced to, because she takes up ninety percent of the screen time.

The real star of the show here is John Goodman, who flexes his acting chops in a complex, but subtle performance. When Goodman’s Howard arrives, you don’t trust him. He waits before he speaks, mulling over what he is about to say. He stares at you rather than looks at you, like he is constantly trying to work you out. Also, he has a violent, volatile temper. Virtually all of the film’s tension comes courtesy of Goodman; you struggle to predict what he will do next.

John Gallagher Jr. does a decent enough job as Michelle’s fellow prisoner Emmett, but you get the feeling he’s around to provide the comedy; he drops a well-timed one liner here-and-there, but that’s about it.

There are moments of real, shuffle round in your seat tension in Josh Campbell, Matthew Stuecken, and Damien Chazelle’s script; two highlights being a dinner scene, where Winstead tries to steal Howard’s keys off him, and a harmless guessing game that becomes increasingly uncomfortable. The trouble is, while I didn’t know what to expect from 10 Cloverfield Lane, at the very least, I was expecting something claustrophobic, nail-biting throughout, and while the film has some well-crafted set pieces, there aren’t many. There were times when I was wishing Goodman would come back onscreen, so things would start getting interesting again.

Just as Speed went downhill once Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock got off the bus, or Tom Cruise and Jamie Foxx got out the taxi in Collateral, the minute Winstead escapes the bunker (that’s not a gigantic, Batman v Superman spoiler, folks), things take a drastic turn for the worse. 10 Cloverfield Lane will keep you guessing just what the hell is going on, you’ll be coming up with all sorts of crackpot, inventive theories. When you finally find out, it’s hard not to feel the tiniest bit disappointed.

You have to praise 10 Cloverfield Lane for being ninety-odd minutes set in virtually one location and coming up with some smart, squirm-inducing scares. The characters aren’t your usual horror clichés either, both Goodman and Winstead having plenty to do.

With sequels and reboots being Hollywood’s modus operandi at the moment, it’s great to see a sequel that tries to do something different, to bend and sometimes break the rules set up by the first film (admittedly, the script started off as a stand-alone horror before JJ Abrams got wind of it). While 10 Cloverfield Lane doesn’t entirely succeed, it’s enjoyable enough, and John Goodman turns the film up several notches whenever he shows up. It’s just a crying shame that Trachtenberg’s debut wasn’t the minute-after-minute, pulse pounding thrill ride I hoped for.

3 out of 5

Matt

Review: Inside Llewyn Davis (UK Cert 15)

OK, confession time: I'm not the Coen brothers' biggest fan. I don't actively dislike them and I have enjoyed a number of their films (O Brother, Where Art Thou?, Fargo and True Grit) but I don't class myself as a fan of their work. Usually, I have to be in the mood for a Coen brothers film as sometimes their characters may strike me as quirky or idiosyncratic at one sitting, but downright bizarre or annoying at another. And let's not even go near their ill-advised and downright awful remake of The Ladykillers... But the trailer for Inside Llewyn Davis seemed intriguing, so I thought I'd- in the immortal words of The Watchers- give it a punt. 

Inside Llewyn Davis is a bit of an odd film to categorise. It's probably best described as a character study, I suppose. Set in New York's Greenwich Village in 1961, Llewyn (Oscar Isaac) is a struggling folk singer, performing at the Gaslight Cafe and sofa-surfing with friends and acquaintances. What happens next is a series of vignettes rather than a fully-formed plot or story; in fact, Joel Coen has remarked that 'the film doesn't really have a plot'. Llewyn ends up having to carry a ginger cat around with him until he can reunite it with its owners. He's previously slept with his friend Jean (a fiery Carey Mulligan) and she's pregnant but it could be either Llewyn's or her boyfriend Jim's (a dimwatt Justin Timberlake). He sees his manager. He gets some session work. He rides to Chicago with an obnoxious jazz musician (John Goodman) and his laconic valet (Garrett Hedlund). And so the film goes on. 

Performance-wise, it's all good enough. Isaac makes for a compelling lead, even though Llewyn isn't that likeable as a character- he's abrasive, condescending, slightly big-headed and a little too sincere, baulking at his sister's suggestion that he could always go back to the merchant marines if the music doesn't work out. Sometimes, the Coen brother's films are comedies of embarrassment, piling misfortune on misfortune on some poor schmuck (for example, A Serious Man or Intolerable Cruelty), making it almost excruciating to watch them struggle against the mounting absurdities around them. There's an element of that to Inside Llewyn Davis- although, in this case, some of those circumstances are of Llewyn's own making.

Other performances are similarly good. John Goodman's character Roland Turner embodies my previous statement about Coen brothers' characters; this time I found him quirky, another time I might have found him too brash or too oddball. Carey Mulligan doesn't have a lot else to do except snarl and throw some great one-liners at Llewyn, but she does it well and her singing voice is quite lovely. The music, produced by Marcus Mumford and T Bone Burnett, is- as you would expect- excellent; there are a few stand-out numbers such as 'Hang Me, Oh Hang Me' and 'If I Had Wings'. Bruno Delbonnel's cinematography is particularly good and overall it's a well-made piece, but I didn't love it and I'm finding it difficult to articulate why. 

Perhaps it's the lack of a clear-cut story? Maybe the script is a little too obtuse, a little too vague (although naming the Gorfiens' cat Ulysses is a none-too-subtle tip of the wink). Maybe it's the fact that the central character is actually a bit of a jerk. During one scene, Llewyn's manager mentions another character- a singing soldier called Troy Nelson (Stark Sands)- and predicts he'll be big because 'People connect to him' (unlike Llewyn). The film also frustratingly leaves the character hanging.

So, in summary, certainly no Ladykillers but far from being a Fargo. 

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Tez 

Programme 24: Argo and 1960s Movies

The Watchers Film Show: Ep 24 from The Watchers Film Show on Vimeo.


Programme 24 is now available!

Tez reviews Ben Affleck's latest movie Argo and we discuss our favourite movies from the 1960s!

In the news, there's a belated sequel to a Hollywood classic, the opening weekend box office for Skyfall and casting rumours for a Tarzan remake.

Podcasts versions are also available here and here.

Enjoy!