Film Review: The Grey

The Grey. Rated MA 15+ (strong violence, survival themes and coarse language). 117 minutes. Directed by Joe Carnahan. Screenplay by Joe Carnahan and Ian Mackenzie Jeffers.

Verdict: A gripping, psychological thriller about the fear of death. Not recommended for anyone about to fly somewhere on a plane.

Hostile, remote, snow-bound environments have contributed to a number of memorable films about fear. Alive (1993) is the cinematic adaptation of Piers Paul Read’s best-seller about the survivors of a plane crash in the Andes who reluctantly resort to cannibalism in order to survive their ordeal. John Carpenter’s terrific The Thing (1982) pits scientists working in an Antarctic research station against an alien lifeform to thrilling effect.

In The Grey (based on a short story by Mr Mackenzie Jeffers), a group of Alaskan-based oil drilling workers are returning home to Anchorage from their isolated base when their plane crashes in a blizzard. Lead by John Ottway (Liam Neeson), the small number of survivors must conquer not only the perilous conditions, but a ferociously territorial wolf pack into whose hunting territory the plane has crashed.

Film Review: This Means War

This Means War. Rated M (sexual references, action violence and coarse language). 98 minutes. Directed by McG. Screenplay by Timothy Dowling and Simon Kinberg.

Verdict: A slick, classy, charisma zone. Just don’t expect too much.

With his screenplay for Mr and Mrs Smith (2005), Mr Kinberg created an ideal vehicle for Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie who polished off the roles of married assassins who had been hired to kill each other. As one of the three writers credited with the screenplay for Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes (2009), he also shared responsibility for the forensically researched blueprint that ensured this film had the potential to reach the cinematic heights it did. Add Mr Dowling, whose light, breezy and entirely predictable screenplay for Just Go with It (2011) ticked all the rom-com boxes, and you end up with a satisfying explanation of all that is good about This Means War.

Film Review: The Vow

The Vow. Rated PG (mild themes, coarse language, nudity and sexual references). 104 minutes. Directed by Michael Sucsy. Screenplay by Jason Katims, Abby Kohn, Marc Silverstein and Michael Sucsy.

Verdict: Perfect Valentine’s fare. Just remember to keep your seat-belt fastened at all times.

Inspired by events in the life of Kim and Krickitt Carpenter, The Vow is a romantic drama that is as solid as a rock. And almost as interesting as one.

It all starts promisingly enough as we are introduced to two love birds – Paige (Rachel McAdams) and Leo (Channing Tatum, pictured) who leave a cinema and drive off into the wintery night. Moments later, after Paige takes off her seat-belt to have sex with Leo in the car, a truck slams into the back of their randomly parked vehicle, sending her flying head-first through the windscreen.

As an Insurance Commission of WA commercial about the importance of wearing a seat-belt, it might have all ended there successfully enough. But no. There’s another 100 infuriating minutes as poor old Leo desperately tries to remind his now-amnesic wife of how wonderful their pre-accident life together was. Standing in his way are Paige’s selfish parents Bill (Sam Neill) and Rita (Jessica Lange), and her smarmy lawyer ex-boyfriend Jeremy (Scott Speedman, of Underworld fame), who each prefer the Paige they remembered, manipulated and controlled in the years before she met the free-spirited Leo.

To their unending credit, Ms McAdams (Mean Girls, Sherlock Holmes) and Mr Tatum (Dear John) invest everything they have into the laboured, cliché-ridden script – and their devotion to the tasks at hand (and their charming and engaging onscreen chemistry) works entirely in the film’s favour. Ms Lange (Frances, Crimes of the Heart, American Horror Story) takes all of a few minutes in her brief scene in the garden to give the cast an acting master-class, while Mr Neill gives the impression of never feeling entirely comfortable with the fact that he’s in a scene at all.

Even though Mr Sucsy (Grey Gardens) directs with a fine sense of respectable intimacy, nothing can mask the film’s fatal flaw – which comes when Paige earnestly (and somewhat self-defeatingly) declares that she hopes, one day, to love someone as much as Leo loves her. The temptation to scream out of sheer frustration might be all too difficult to resist.

This review was commissioned by the Geraldton Newspaper Group

Film Review: Chronicle

Chronicle. Rated M (violence). 84 minutes. Directed by Josh Trank. Screenplay by Max Landis.

With their punchy, too-cool-for-school big screen debut, twenty-six year old filmmakers Josh Trank and Max Landis have found themselves riding a huge wave of popularity – and deservedly so. While it owes a considerable debt to the grand-daddies of the ‘hand-held camera/found footage/documentary-making nerd’ sub-genre Cloverfield (2008) and Blair Witch Project (1999), Chronicle wins points for the strength of the three excellent lead performances, its grand flights (quite literally) of imagination, and some impressive visual effects.

Andrew (Dane DeHaan, pictured) is living a claustrophobic existence at home with his parents – his mother who is slowly dying and his father who is a violent and abusive alcoholic. When his mates Steve (Michael B Jordan) and Matt (Alex Russell) discover a large crater with a hole in the middle of it, Andrew (who is documenting the extremes of his life with a video camera) is called upon to capture it on film. What the trio discover when they explore where the hole leads, changes their lives forever. Returning to the surface with supernatural powers, the trio – at first –use their new abilities playfully and to improve their popularity stakes amongst their peers. But as their combined powers to alter reality take a stronger hold, the battle becomes about how they will resist the dark side of extraordinary new possibilities.

True Blood cinematographer Matthew Jensen brings a generous (and recognisable) amount of that series’ visual flair to the screen, while editor Elliot Greenberg (Devil, Quarantine) works wonders with the rough and ready jump cuts – ensuring that the tension is mostly terrifically taut.

The dominant skill in this sub-genre is to never let us, or the camera, feel too comfortable or relaxed about where the story is taking us – and the spectacular climatic sequences in which good battles evil for the soul of one of the trio, are certainly worth the restless, edgy wait.

This review was commissioned by the Geraldton Newspaper Group.