The Raid 2: Blu Ray Review

The Raid 2: Blu Ray Review

Rating: R18
Released by Madman Home Ent

"It's a question of ambition"

The first words spoken in The Raid 2: Berandal - and all throughout, Evans' ambition shines on like a beacon of directorial delight.

Not long after the first Raid movie finished, shortly after rookie cop Rama (Uwais) chop-sockied his way out of a building piled high with gangsters and bad guys, the sequel takes up. Suddenly, Rama finds himself asked to help weedle out the corruption within the system and enter the world of gangsters, gang warfare and an uneasy truce that's existed for more than a decade.

Despite his initial refusal to do so, the quest to do good is irresistible to Rama - and he finds himself in a world where he's not the biggest fish and there are some pretty dangerous predators around.

The Raid 2: Berandal  is an exceptionally impressive sequel that ups the ante of the first and shows no sign of resting on its laurels.

Evans has settled for the epic, and has certainly achieved that goal more often than not throughout its slightly overlong 2 and a half hours run time. If The Raid proved one thing, it's that a single man, with his fists and a knack for taking on the system could prove to be an incredibly visceral thrill. Certainly, the second reaches the dizzying highs of the first - and then amply exceeds them.

A series of set pieces prove almost balletic in their execution - from a major fight in a prison that becomes a muddy swamp scrap for survival to a final showdown that's likely to have you punching the air, this is an adrenaline packed ride that brings much originality and freshness to the action movie. Evans has directorial flair as well - using his camera to showcase a toilet fight from above and in a bravura extended car chase sequence, a fight within the back seat of the car. He's got vision and scope for the sequel that's jawdropping and fulfilled in every frame.

It's these moments that help lift the film from the predictability that annoyingly lurks in the background. The gang warfare story feels a little cliched and has been done many times before; a slightly bloated saggy middle section creaks with pointless re-exposition and almost flatlines as it sidelines our hero for turf war and attempts to channel Shakespearean type levels of betrayal (that don't quite meet the highs). But it's to Uwais' credit that he makes every moment count, perfectly encapsulating the conflict of trying to do what he believes is right but fighting his inner demons that perhaps he's out of his depth. A nuanced and restrained turn from our hero gives the emotional edge to the terrifically engaging and adrenaline-pumped action moments.

And there are so many of those - along with  Hammer Girl (a half-blind deaf mute whose MO involves, erm, hammers), this is a film whose sequel surpasses the original and delivers more than a kick to the head - it fires a shot in the arm of action movies and audience expectations for them. Beautifully choreographed frenetic fights flow like liquid, and leave the mind boggling over how many takes were needed; but serve to show how much of a talent Uwais is.

As the body count builds in the final act, you forgive the occasional creaks, the odd moment of weird characterisation (chiefly, a hobo looking aide to one family, who kicks serious ass but also has serious daddy issues); they all fade into the distance - because The Raid 2: Berandal packs a powerfully brutal punch, delivers a clear-cut KO to the genre and makes these kinds of movies all kinds of cool once again

Extras: Commentary with Gareth Evans, Q&A, Shooting a sequel, deleted scenes, behind the choreography

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The Z-Nail Gang: Movie Review

The Z-Nail Gang: Movie Review

Cast: Errol Shand, Tanya Horo, Paul Ballard
Director: Anton Steel

This week's second passion project, after the release of Kiwi film The Last Saint, is as different a beast as you can get.

Inspired by actual events from the Coromandel in the 1980s, it looks at a small community within the Bay of Plenty battling for the future of their land.

Racked with debt and preferring to bury his head in the sand, Errol Shand's surfer Dave finds his world torn asunder when a multi-national corporation, Golia Minerals, intent on mining gold in the hills, comes to town.

But his wife, Mareeka (Horo) isn't going to stand by and let the big baddies push them around - so, pulling together their community, she starts an insurrection against the corporation, creating waves and divisions not only in the town, but also in her relationship.

The Z-Nail Gang, for all its good intentions, feels unfortunately like a community piece of theatre or telemovie that's made its way onto the big screen.

Preferring to show a community of oddballs and quirky stereotypes that live in small towns, it paints a very simplistic view of life within a coastal town. While the concerns and motivations are to be applauded (the raping of our land and heritage for corporate gain), the execution of the story is mired in comedy that feels like something out of the 1970s British sitcom genre.

Aussie prospectors who let farts out every time they bend over and are bedecked in 1970s porno- moustaches from the Village People, an American corporate boss who's got a black stetson, a comedy overweight policeman who's always eating, a glasses twitching postie, an incompetent lawyer for the protesters - they're all along for this parade of stereotyped comedy cliches and The Z-Nail Gang really does suffer for it, as moments of mugging for the camera come to the fore, drowning out the quieter more empathetic moments from the likes of Tanya Horo's Mareeka.

While it's true the piece has been put together on an extremely tight budget, that doesn't necessarily mean there's a frugality of cinema on show (simply underwritten characters).

The relaxed vibe of the starting sequences, coupled with a wonderfully chilled OST, imbue this piece of Kiwiana with the effortless joy of the coastal lifestyle. And the conflict between Dave and Mareeka would have proved to be more of a fertile dramatic source for this piece, were it not jettisoned in favour of the more cartoon-like elements. It takes over an hour to get to the meaty part of the film - and a final showdown certainly reveals how situations can boil over, but it's a long slog to get there, thanks to an unsure mix of the overly comedic and far too occasionally dramatic.

The Z-Nail Gang may be a passion project for those involved, and their passion certainly comes through for the film - but as a complete viewing experience, it's unfortunately - and sadly - wanting.

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The Last Saint: Movie Review

The Last Saint: Movie Review

Cast: Beulah Koale, Joseph Naufahu, Calvin Tuteao, Sophia Huybens
Director: Rene Naufahu

Book-ending the movie with Auckland's Sky Tower, this crime thriller's clearly got the perils of the big bad city on its mind.

Beulah Koale is Minka, a teenager whose life has been ripped apart by the drug P; his mother, a former addict, is struggling to get by and his father, Joe, who owns a club, is involved in gangland concerns. Forced to work with his father, Minka's introduced into a world of crime to raise the cash to keep the wolves from his mum's door - but he soon discovers that the life path he's being guided down is not the safest choice he could ultimately make.

The Last Saint, while harrowing and shocking to some, is going to be a polarising piece.

With no financial support from the NZ Film Commission, the film's been forced into more of a passion project, and it shows within every single frame of the film. With Naufahu's shaky camera, drenched yellow Auckland by night and a searing ferocity on show, there are plenty of elements to admire in this - even if parts of the film suffer from being a little too shaky and appear speedily put together.

Koale impresses as the conflicted individual Minka whose life hangs on a knife edge as the drugs ravage his own personal life and those around him in the world of crime; this is a movie which doesn't shy away from showing some of the effects of addiction - with violence threatening to simmer over at any moment for those wanting their fix, Minka's descent into drug delivery boy is certainly horrifyingly handled.

Equally, Joseph Naufahu is certainly memorable as the P-addled dealer with the moniker of Pinball; though very occasionally, his turn teeters into OTT territory, though one guesses this is due to a drug addiction rather than over-acting on his behalf.

P is also the order of the day here too, with some finding this movie's intentions and execution polarising and also, at times, poignant as different sectors of the community are ripped apart.

While the human element occasionally falters (particularly during some of the fight scenes, where the over-reliance on grunting and bone-crunching sound effects becomes too much), the portrayal of a city ripped apart by a crippling drugs addiction never once veers from its target; oppressively written and impressively acted in parts, The Last Saint is to be applauded for its ambitions, even if its execution doesn't quite fully hit the mark.

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Magic in The Moonlight: Movie Review

Magic in The Moonlight: Movie Review

Cast: Colin Firth, Emma Stone, Simon McBurney, Jacki Weaver
Director: Woody Allen

Director Woody Allen stays in Europe for his latest outing.

This time it's 1920s France, where famous illusionist (and monstrous man) Wei Ling Soo aka Stanley (an unlikeable Colin Firth) has been called in by his friend Howard (Rev star Simon McBurney) to debunk a clairvoyant Sophie (Emma Stone), who could be part of a scam.

Famously outspoken against clairvoyants, Stanley's determined to remove Sophie from the scene but his plans are derailed when she stuns him with the depth of her knowledge and apparent insight into the spirit world.

And his world view is thrown further into disarray when he starts to spend more time with Sophie.

Magic In the Moonlight follows a typical formula of a man being set up for a fall; with bluster and strong self belief, the skeptic Stanley goes through the motions of vehemently not believing, suddenly believing and then ultimately not believing again as he tries to negotiate his own questions of life beyond the pale.

Brash, abrasive, and generally grumpy, Firth's Stanley is a difficult man to get behind in this piece from Allen, that's about as light and unchallenging as anything he's recently put out. Add to that though, the fact that this Allen flick is as lifeless as one of the spirits Sophie's trying to channel throughout and Magic In the Moonlight starts to lose some of its real shine.

Allen's trademark talkiness is still in play, but the dialogue doesn't sparkle at all; none of the repartie or banter has any hidden levels or revelling in any kind of joy; most of Firth's renunciations and retorts are laced with a cruelty and harshness that means you fail to generate any empathy for what's transpiring. And over time, while the continual digs provide a scoffing from the audience, the overall effect is one of tedium, not medium. Even Stone feels downplayed a little as the waif-like Sophie, the psychic unable to really channel anything other than unfortunately feeling slightly miscast and out of place.

Allen uses the gorgeous setting of southern France to maximum effect but he demonstrates an over-reliance on jazz tunes to segue each scene; it's not enough to lift Magic In the Moonlight in ways you'd be hoping for; a final sequence adds in a clever use of a motif demonstrated early on and offers one delight, but an abrupt ending is shorn of any emotion or pull, with Allen leaving you with the feeling of a rushed screenplay and resolution.

Questions and ruminations on a life after may have been the thrust for this, with even potential discussions and viewpoints of cynicism and vehement denial forming more of a drive for any verbal jousting between Stanley, Sophie and even Howard, but Allen eschews all of that in favour of plenty of scenes of Stanley merely musing out loud.

All in all, Magic In the Moonlight is a film that has no real lasting magic once the lights have gone up even if it is pleasant enough - albeit frustrating - to watch transpire in parts.

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If I Stay: Movie Review

If I Stay: Movie Review

Cast: Chloe Grace Moretz, Mireille Enos, Jamie Blackley, Stacy Keach, Joshua Leonard
Director: R J Cutler

Based on the Young Adult novel by Gayle Forman of the same name, Kickass' Chloe Grace Moretz stars as Mia, a kid growing up in a musical family.

Her mum and dad (Enos and Leonard) used to be in a local rocker band, her younger brother's into Iggy Pop, but Mia's more classically inclined, with a penchant for the cello which is encouraged not indulged by those around her.

When a snow day is called, the family heads out together for a road trip, but a road accident changes Mia's life - and her family's - forever. Trapped in a coma, Mia must decide whether to return to life or move on.

There's a mix of the quaver of notes and the quiver of hearts (as you'd expect) in this young adult outing as it follows the usual path of first love, obstacles and naivetes.

With its bon mot of "Life is what happens when you're making plans", it plunges into the traditional tropes of the genre but without any real emotion (outside of Grace-Moretz's occasionally vulnerable performance as the prodigy) and with a dollop of cheesiness and stereotyped characters sprinkled liberally within (and plucked from a range of other stories).

Grace-Moretz brings a sensitivity and tangible sense of a life on a precipice during her hospital set scenes, but the flashbacks charting her life as she waits to see if she's got into a prestigious musical college, works through the good and bad of her first relationship with soft-rocker Adam (Blakely) and generally reflects on what's gone occasionally bring the movie into a lull. She manages to channel the uncertainty of diving into any world naturalistically, but the Lovely Bones style framing starts to drag things down into a predictably syrupy mire.

That said, Cutler does relatively good work with the subject matter (pseudo sick lit perhaps) and doesn't ever let the horror of what's going on swamp the movie. But perhaps, that's also some of the real problem here - a lack of real connection and a trite fashion of dealing with a wildly sanitised approach.

While the family flashbacks have a warmth and a corny sense of life (witness a group singalong of Smashing Pumpkins' Today around a campfire in a moment Mia describes as perfect), there's little heart as the rest plays out. The one stand-out moment comes when Stacy Keach's distraught Gramps sits by Mia's bed and pours out all the pent up emotions and repressed sadness that comes in such situations, with his heartbreaking final words mustering all the emotional tone that's needed for the rest of the film. (Though, admittedly, that could send it over the edge into overly mawkish)

Along with the usual cliched lines that are made to make teens swoon, and given the success of The Fault in Our Stars, If I Stay will benefit from having an already in-built audience determined to cry their way through the oh-so recognisable and relatable issues of life and love; as a story of a teen facing her own mortality, thanks to some unoriginal imagery (lights outside of the hospital, a white light in the corridors, music on speakers around the ward), it feels too formulaic - despite Grace-Moretz's charismatic performance, If I Stay is just another sanitised dollop of teen / young adult fare.

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Boyhood: Movie Review

Boyhood: Movie Review

Cast: Ellar Coltrane, Patricia Arquette, Ethan Hawke
Director: Richard Linklater

Time is an illusion in Richard Linklater's masterpiece coming of age film.

Set over 12 years of the life of Mason Jr (Ellar Coltrane in a stellar turn - how did Linklater know he would turn out exactly as needed?), Boyhood charts the boy's growth and ends with graduation from high school.

But the passing of time is not signposted, nor remarked on as lives change, circumstances become more and less complicated and life, basically, happens.

Eschewing conventional narrative tropes that usually blight these kinds of movies (parents separate, parents reconnect, everyone lives happily ever after), Linklater remains true to the often messy and unpredictable ways of life. Mason's parents, Olivia (Patricia Arquette) and Mason Sr (Ethan Hawke) start the movie separated, with his dad zooming into town here and there and parenting where and when he's allowed; meanwhile his mother goes through a series of relationships that splinter under time (and dissolve off-screen) having had the seeds of discomfort sown early on.

With life evolving and dissolving, Linklater never loses his focus and eye for detail and moments as seamless time shifts take place throughout; be it the Harry Potter mania that grips both Mason and his sister Sam or discussion of the Twilight novels, the zeitgeist is certainly present throughout the 165 minutes run time, making this piece feel both timeless and yet also of the era as well. Problems are universal - girls, school choices, alcoholism - they're all there for the rich dramatic pickings

But in among the humour, there's poignancy as well; a final speech from Olivia as Mason Jr prepares to move out works on two levels; there are laughs within it but at the same time a bittersweet recognition that in amongst the various haircut changes and fashion sensibilities, life has marched on and the inevitable lies ahead; a sad admission that life, in all its forms, is to be treasured and embraced. (Even if most of the audience laughed at this, it's an indication of how wide ranging the film is and how differently it can be interpreted)

And its main protagonists fare exceptionally well too; Coltrane inhabits the role with ease from the naivete of youth to the highs and lows of life's disappointments and makes an eminently watchable lead no matter the age; Hawke is an affable easy presence and (along with Arquette) is spared the indignity of watching the relationship fall apart - and Arquette, the mother is an achingly real centre of Mason's world, as she tries to find her own identity and negotiate life.

The main thing about Boyhood though is how incredibly easy Linklater's made this all look - committing to a film for 12 years certainly is one hell of a decision (and reeks of the 7 Up series of docos) but proves to be a masterstroke in the coming of age genre.

Quite simply, thanks to Boyhood, that genre has been forever changed and its limitations blown out of the water. Do what you can to see Boyhood, it's one of the most rewarding films of the year and is as life-affirming as it is life-changing.

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The Inbetweeners 2: Movie Review

The Inbetweeners 2: Movie Review

Cast: Simon Bird, Joe Thomas, James Buckley, Blake Harrison, Emily Berrington
Directors: Iain Morris and Damon Beesley

The boys are back for one last blast.

Having torn up the UK box office with their first cinematic outing (widely condemned for encouraging laddish behaviour and drunken escapades in Magaluf), a second was perhaps inevitable.

This time, when Jay (James Buckley) sends the remaining trio of Will (Bird), Neil (Harrison) and Simon (Thomas) an email bragging of his escapades during his gap year in Australia, the over-sexed trio of losers decide to go and join him.

So, putting life on hold, the mates plunge into the world of backpacking, dealing with those on a gap year and generally head for humiliation all over again.

Sad to say, The Inbetweeners 2 is not a patch on the first movie, which, while mining vulgarity also showcased the bond between the boys to excellent effect.

This latest has ramped up the gross out gags as far as they can go, so that you end up cringing in your seats. An impressively directed sequence which sees Will the victim of Neil's irritable bowel syndrome at a water park sets a new record for being both laugh out loud funny and uncomfortably excessive. Equally, an act of desperation when the boys become lost in the outback is the same mix of cringe and crude. There's plenty of swearing, objectification of women and general offensiveness on show - which you'd expect to a degree, but the writers have really gone for it this time, meaning non-fans of the show may feel somewhat alienated.

And yet, under all the low brow moments, there's a level of heart and warmth that writers and directors Beesley and Morris have brought to this that helps you through what feels like quite an episodic film. It lessens the offensive and really makes you appreciate the boys' bond and the way the writers have so excellently managed to transpose the awkward relationships of groups of boys to the big screen. Also, this time around, there's a degree of life actually figuring into their best laid plans - with not everything going to plan.

Will's flirtation with a fellow traveller, Katie (Berrington) is sweetly handled (even if she's relatively underwritten as a one-note female character) and leads to some absurdly amusing consequences; likewise, his relationship with another pompous traveller who's determined to mine his spirituality and pretentiousness of so many on a gap year trying to discover themselves is brilliantly satirical. Simon's psychotic girlfriend back in the UK gives Thomas another chance to mine his embarrassed beyond belief routine and frustration which was so perfectly honed during the TV series and Harrison's gormless one-liner Neil gets a fair share of the laughs thanks to the unpredictability of what's coming out of his mouth. But it's Buckley's character who gets the biggest journey here as his over-sexed, over-desperate and under-achieving Jay discovers more of his sensitive side and gives a sweetness to dull the offensive and non-stop lavatorial humour.

Thankfully, directors Morris and Beesley haven't completely forgotten the bromance and banter between the quartet that helped the series become such a success; scenes with just them in it sparkle and crackle with the hidden emotions that lads hide and the jibes that they throw at each other through their formative lives. They're a welcome addition because, in parts, the movie feels a little flat - especially given how the boys are split up.

If this is the end of the road for The Inbetweeners (and the creators and stars say it is), this second film is perhaps a summation of everything that made them great and also repelled others - scatalogical decadence and puerile smutty grossness with some potty mouthed laugh out loud moments.

To be honest, it won't win any new fans and even the fans of the show may find it a bit of a slog in places, but a nostalgic glow of the characters and the actors will leave you either amused or appalled.

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