Black Sea, Get Santa and Men, Women & Children – Richards Reckons Reviews

That title is a bit confusing, granted, but I’ve never used the Oxford comma and hell, I’m not gonna start now. So no, the second film isn’t “Get Santa and Men”, that’s an entirely different film which I’m sure is available to order on DVD from some online black market store.

ANYWAY, first things first (I’m the realest), Black Sea.

Blimey Jude, alright, we’ll get there.

Black Sea is not just about Felixstowe’s beaches; in fact, it doesn’t even reference them. Nay, Black Sea follows a man named Robinson (Jude Law, the originally J-Law), who has been made redundant after being a submariner with a shipping salvage company for over 20 years, and after basically losing his family to the job too. So he’s a bit hacked off. He then gets a tip off about a sunken U-Boat from World War 2 filled with Nazi gold waiting in the, well, black sea of Crimea. So he gathers a half Russian, half British team (with a cowardly American and a psychopathic Australian thrown in for good measure) in a rusty old Russian sub to salvage the gold; however a number of problems occur, especially when friction between the Russian and British submates starts to come into fruition…

Director Kevin Macdonald, whose work includes The Last King of Scotland, uses the submarine setting very well indeed; emphasising the claustrophobic environment by seldom leaving it at all. Even when we do leave the sub, it’s only to see the exterior; never above the surface. It positions you, as a viewer, in the submarine itself and makes you feel as trapped, cabin feverish and smelly (just the bloke sat near me then?) as the men onboard the sub itself. In turn, this makes the tension ramping up feel very close to home, and just as impactful.

The performances here are all very solid, including from J-Law Mk 1 as the surprisingly level-headed captain scotsman (whose accent very occasionally can drift into bum notes). All the crew portray the bubbling tension very well (some, of course, more hotheaded than others), never reaching cartoonish levels of anger. There’s an underlying social commentary on how the men of the Navy are treated after their stints and are proverbially thrown on the scrapheap of life, so to speak. There are shots of job centres, rants about poverty, various twists and “the man” to back this up, so it’s hardly subtle but it’s still a reasonable subtext to have.

While Black Sea lacks, er, fun and laughs, it’s heavy on character, pressure and setpieces; it has all the bearings of a heist movie, except underwater and in a pressure-cooker environment. Just as the rusty pipes clang and various parts blow up, the men grow more and more desperate; both for their money and for their lives. The film is a very well shot, solid descent into what happens when human beings, who have been treated badly by the system anyway, are pushed to their very limits.

Next, it’s Get Santa!

You may think from the title alone that Get Santa is solely about getting santa, but not in the “get ’em boys!” sense. And you’d be absolutely right, yes, but there is more to it than that. Just a few days before Christmas, Santa (Jim Broadbent) crashes his sled, leading to his reindeer being spotted roaming about London, and the man himself taking refuge in the garden of young Tom (Kit Connor). His father Steve (Rafe Spall) is a getaway driver who has just got out of prison, and is roped in to help Santa by his son after he is sent to prison for trying to rob his reindeers back from Battersea Dog’s Home. While Santa tries to convince people of his identity and survive jail, can Steve and Tom track down everything in time and save Christmas?

Bizarrely, this is produced by Ridley Scott, and is directed by Christopher Smith of Brit horrorfests Creep and Severance fame, so it’s quite a change of pace from the norm for them. Even with these names on board, after Nativity 3: Dude, Where’s My Sanity?, I was somewhat trepidatious when it came to this movie; that it would have all the cringeworthy, gurning and just awful beats that it had, becoming an embarrassment to the British film industry. And while it’s not a shining light and a stone cold classic Christmas movie, Get Santa is a warm and funny enough diversion from Christmas shopping to warrant having a watch.

I mean, don’t get me wrong, the story is ridiculous, and to begin with actually quite hard edged. Prison, a criminal father and an apparently messy divorce don’t exactly scream “HOORAY YAY CHRISTMAS!” straight away, and nor do the admittedly quite bleak colour tones towards the beginning. But, when it gets there, it’s quite a colourful affair; playing with and using the Northern lights and “Lapland” to good effect. The somewhat ludicrous story is actually a touchstone of most Christmas movies in themselves, so it’s to be expected, and the plot holes may be papered over by Christmassy wrapping paper but they’re still there.

Rafe Spall and Jim Broadbent shine in this in their roles as the somewhat dodgy but well meaning father and Santa himself, with Jim Broadbent in particular being an “Ah eureka!” moment of casting. Stephen Graham, Warwick Davies and Jodie Whittaker are also all on good form here but are somewhat overused. There are the odd jokes that make you chuckle (such as Santa walking in slow mo down the prison corridors to the tones of the NWA, or the odd japes with the police), but nothing is really gutbustingly hilarious or all out moving to tears.

All in all then, Get Santa has some unique points to it (pour example the giant letterboxes for all santa’s letters), and a funny enough concept with good casting to get it through, but it doesn’t have enough originality or family laughs per minute to quite reach the absolute Christmas classic level of Elf, Muppet Christmas Carol or Die Hard (yes, Die Hard is a Christmas film, watch it again and tell me otherwise). So if you fancy seeing a family Christmas film and Paddington is sold out, you could do a lot worse than Get Santa.

Right, finally then, Men, Women & Children.

So, what is this extremely vaguely titled film about? Well, it follows a series of stories that intertwine with one another in a small way; mainly, it’s about families with teenage kids who all go to the same high school. The film examines their problems and issues in relation to the internet and their technology. It includes, and isn’t limited to, anorexia, porn addiction, extra marital sex and cyber smothering.

So heavy stuff there, obviously, with such massive relevance in this day and age. Writer and director Jason Reitman has given us some very good movies in the past too, with Juno and Up in the Air under his belt. And with a high quality cast and some fairly slick visuals to boot, this story is gonna be good, right? Riight…?

Wrong.

It’s a massive disappointment.

First off, the stories – it makes a narrative choice to keep five story plates spinning at the same time that intertwine with each other rather than have the episodically, which is very brave, as they all reach their crescendos. But it just doesn’t work. Some stories get lost in the mix, others climax (stop laughing) at times when others don’t and therefore undermine one another. The stories themselves, too, are all very undeveloped and stale (and often ridiculous). It all feels a bit like Reitman has stuck his storytelling fork into a bowl of quite poor narrative spaghetti and has slopped down the tangled and confused mess onto a plate and said “there you go, eat that!”.

Some of the stories are based on good ideas and themes, but it just all feels a bit… preachy and tell-offy. “The internet is bad… sometimes!” is the vibe it tends to give off; a completely confused message that is very selective and ham-fisted. It feels like a film that desperately wants to say something but has absolutely no idea what – simultaneously condemning internet freedom and internet restriction. The performances are actually very good, and I must say that Adam Sandler is actually, for once, one of the best bits of it, as he is good in this (I know!). But the writing and dialogue is all so poor and often boring that even the good performances swallow themselves like a black hole of tedium. As soon as you see Ansel Egort’s trembly little lips you can tell pretty much exactly what is going to happen in his mumblecore story segment, as you can with frankly a lot of them. It is literally just some stuff happening, some nonsensical, which have a small relation to the internet.

Men, Women & Children is a long, confused, preachy, modern-while-old-fashioned, boring and predictable disappointment from Reitman. Even the wonderful Emma Thompson gives her voice over with a degree of “why am I doing this?” in her tones as she speaks over a satellite drifting around space (yep, seriously, it’s bookended by space). Don’t bother.

Fury, The Judge & The Best of Me – Richards Reckons Review

A tank, a courtroom and a lakeside house in Nicholas Sparks-land. Just some of the many locations I’ve peered into through the cinema screen this week, like a creep outside a window, or like Gomie from Breaking Bad.

Premierely, let’s kick off (no pun intended. Because ‘kick off’ means get angry and fury mea- never mind…) with Fury.

Fury is not just about a film about being jolly well ticked off; no, it is a war film, where quite a lot of the soldiers are somewhat understandably jolly well ticked off. Here’s the plot;  Sergeant Don “Wardaddy” Collier (Brad “Probably-Killed-The-Most-Amount-of-Onscreen-Nazis-In-The-Last-10-Years” Pitt) is in charge of a Sherman tank nicknamed “Fury” (get it? That’s the name of the film!) and its crew, including Boyd “Bible” Swan (Shia “NOT FAMOUS ANYMORE” LaBeouf), Trini “Gordo” Garcia (Michael “Crash” Pena) and Grady “Coon-Ass” Travis (Jon “Shoot You In The Leg In A School Full of Walkers” Bernthal) as they roll through Nazi occupied Germany in 1945. After their gunner gets shot dead, Norman (Logan Lerman), a typist who has no training apart from the ability to type 60 words in a minute, is enlisted. The film follows the tank and its crew as it ploughs through a muddy and wartorn Germany.

Fury is one of those films that is shot and directed in a way that makes you feel like you are there with the characters; that the fourth wall has been blown up by a tank shell, and you’re in there with them. You feel the claustrophobia of tank life (very different to a fish’s tank life); you can almost smell the blood, sweat, grit and mud coming from the environment (reminds me of Glastonbury, in a way). Director David Ayer has done a fantastic job of making the frame and everything in it seem as raw, gritty and murky as the realities of war. The score adds to this in a strange way by at times making the tale seem almost mythical, with operatic singing and grand anthem-like beats. At some point you will almost definitely check for shells, bullet cases and mud on your seat.

Not only that, but you also feel the sense of danger coming across from the screen too. Make no mistake, this is a film that is absolutely brutal; its raw and frankly generous approach to gore and violence strikes a chord with just how much danger these soldiers are in almost constantly. To go along with this savage world, there are also savage characters; every single member of the tank crew at some point shows both sheer aggression and a crippling vulnerability. The performances by these five men are fantastic and three dimensional; rather than some sort of World War II A Team, they are all scared, and cover up their cowardice with a stiff upper lip and aggression. The relationship between Brad Pitt’s Wardaddy and Logan Lerman’s Norman is the centre of the movie and constantly changes. Norman is the closest thing we have to a protagonist and Lerman portrays him brilliantly, progressing from scared and shellshocked about his gradual descent into hell to covering his fear with, well, Fury, funnily enough.

 

When it wants to be, Fury can be incredibly intense, from its gripping beginning in which Norman is introduced to firing from a tank, right down to its fighting-against-all-the-odds climax. If I was to have a criticism of it, however, I would say that there is a definite sag in the middle. There is a sequence in the middle  set in a German house which feels like it goes on for a bit too long and adds little in terms of character development for being that long; it’s a nice touch, but breaks the tension somewhat with a limp, and leaves you wanting them to get back into the tank again.

Fury won’t be for everybody; the brutality of the violence and its characters, along with a strange dichotomy between what seems like ultra realistic and movie-like nature of war, may put people off; but if it’s a tense descent into the hellish landscape of World War II you’re after, look no further.

Next up, my verdit (LOLZ) on legal family drama The Judge.

ORDER! ORDER! *Bangs little gavel thing*. The Judge has been sentenced as a film with a plot, and that plot is this; Defence lawyer Hank Palmer (Robert Downey Jr.) makes a living out of getting slippery bastards out of jail sentences in court rooms in Chicago. One day, while doing just that, he gets a phonecall saying his mother has unfortunately passed away. He goes to the funeral in his old hometown of Carlinville, where he meets his brothers Glen (Vincent D’Onofrio) and Dale (Jeremy Strong), as well as his father Judge Joseph Palmer (Robert Duvall), with whom he has a very bitter relationship. The next day, Judge Palmer is accused of killing a man with his car in the night, which he can’t remember doing and, after some persuasion, it’s up to Hank to defend him.

What I’ve done there with that handy plot summary is include all the plot threads that actually matter, because the main issue with The Judge is that there are far too many going on, slithering through the main tree trunk of the story like vines that don’t go anywhere or get resolved properly. It’s a shame really, as this drags the rest of the film down; worst of all affected by this is Vera Farmiga, who is restricted in a role as an ex-girlfriend of Hank’s who appears now and again to service a romantic subplot that feels extremely unnecessary. She is, however, as brilliant as always, even in this tight role which leaves very little wiggle room. The show is very much the Roberts’ (Downey Jr. and Duvall), as all other characters fade into obscurity in the background, and not really contributing all that much; despite being introduced as if they might.

The Roberts however are both brilliant and utterly watchable together. Their constant bickering with each other and attempting to one-up one another almost constantly in arguments is fascinating to watch, and you’re desperate to find out the history behind it; indeed, so is Hank really. Watching Downey Jr. in a courtroom setting is also great fun, as he is able to play the charismatic lawyer Hank very well (with definite shades of Tony Stark about him; although it is hard to see where Tony Stark ends and Robert Downey Jr begins…). There are indeed some touching and emotion-fuelled scenes between the two of them throughout; a highlight being a very well handled scene where the parent-child relationship is reversed.

However, I felt there was a lack of redemption towards the end of the story between these two characters. It’s a shame as you feel a real lack of closure between them in the end, even though it was building up so well using courtroom scene devices. The reasoning behind the bitterness in their relationship doesn’t really feel strong enough to warrant the aggression within them either, which does not help the feeling of lack of payoff in the climax (come on, grow up).

Overall, there really is a great film in The Judge somewhere; however some trimming of narrative fat, development of characters (and more Billy Bob Thornton too please! Love me some Lorne Malvo) and a better payoff would have helped in spades. It’s a good film, don’t get me wrong; however these aspects really do inhibit it from becoming a great one.

Finally, saving the, er, best til last, comes The Best of Me.

The Best of Me is another movie from the shiny, sunset-tinted white-heterosexuals-falling-in-love world of Nicholas Sparks, which goes a little something like this (stop me if you’ve heard this one before); Dawson (James Marsden and, no, not the one off of the Creek) and Amanda (Michelle Monaghan) fell in love when they were teenagers (when they had the faces of the completely different looking Luke Bracey and Liana Liberato), but due to circumstance drifted apart and worked on an oil rig/got married and had a child (delete where appropriate). 21 years later, they are both summoned back to their hometown after an old friend of theirs dies and, guess what, explore what happened with their relationship (luckily in chronological order so it makes sense for the audience, thanks guys!).

Okay, so I should probably go ahead and say it; The Best of Me is one of the worst films I’ve seen this year. Now, this is not necessarily because it is a romantic drama film from the land of Nicholas Sparks that I am almost definitely not the target audience for; it would be silly of me to dismiss it for that reason. No, there are a plethora of reasons as to why this film is so genuinely, laughably terrible.

 

First of all, it is clichè ridden within an inch of its life. Just think about all the things that are romantic film staples that almost never happen in real life ever; constantly tickling each other, check; knocking at the window in the middle of the night in the pouring rain, check; communicating through written letters, check; defying parents wishes to see each other, check. It also attempts pathos through absolutely pathetic, stock dialogue straight from the “sugary” shelf; an example of this is “how can you ask me to fall in love with you again when I never stopped?!”. Ugh. When it does attempt grit (and, UNBELIEVABLY, it does, through a subplot involving Dawson’s drug dealing biker gang father who looks hilariously like my old landlord), it just feels so stupid, with no threat whatsoever.

But the sugary romance wasn’t truly why I disliked it really; it was mainly because of its absolutely mindblowingly stupid narrative beats that are forced in there in a ludicrous attempt at sentimentality. Not only do these defy logic, but they defy basic storytelling rules AND, in one instance, the laws of physics themselves. These build and build and pile on top on one another like a mass grave of common sense, and are basically there to try to add something more to the admittedly limp and boring story. I’d love to go into a few of these events, but however I can’t due to wanting to avoid a spoiler safari; but needless to say, one “twist” towards the end literally made me, and I do not condone this, whisper “OH F*CK OFF” at the screen in frustration.

Not only all of this, but also the performances aren’t even that good either. Michelle Monaghan and James Marsden don’t even really seem to be trying; James with an understandably constant look of “god why did I agree to this?” on his face as he stumbles through the narrative. Their romance as the adult versions of these characters feels utterly unconvincing too, meaning the building block of the whole film doesn’t really feel stable; prompting even more collapse, like a really shit Jenga block made of sugar and inconsistencies. The teenage co-stars are actually better than the main billed stars, with their relationship feeling less forced and strained. The cinematography is at times beautiful, but, with some very questionable editing choices, that alone is unfortunately nowhere near enough to save this film.

The Best of Me was not aimed at me, of course, but it is frankly incredibly insulting to its target demographic. If you’re a Nicholas Sparks completist, by all means, go for it; but I think you too will feel the way I did. Please avoid this unless you fancy your intelligence being offended.