Fast 7: Blu Ray Review

Fast 7: Blu Ray Review

Rating: M
Released by Universal Home Ent

Fast and Furious 7 sets out its stall in its very first scene with Jason Statham posturing menacingly while promising revenge for his brother and then having the camera pull back as he walks back through scenes of devastation in a hospital, guards beaten and strewn around like rag dolls before getting in his car and speeding off.

Yep, the Fast and Furious franchise is back once again - and with the death of Paul Walkerhanging over this latest, there's potentially a lot more riding on it with an emotional pay-off guaranteed.

In terms of plot, it goes like this - Deckard Shaw (Statham) hunts down Dom Toretto (Diesel) and his family over the injuries given to his brother in the previous film. And that is it.

All the elements are in place. You want girls writhing around in not very much while the camera leers up their backside? Check. You want dialogue that's written by cavemen? Check. You want self referential OTT moments that are for the fans? Check. You want Dwayne Johnson delivering Schwarzenegger style one-liners while tearing a cast from his apparently broken arm while in hospital? Well, check and check.

And yet, Furious 7 considerably ups the hysterical ante in its overly long and dangerously close to bloated run- time thanks to some incredible eye popping stunts and set pieces, deftly and tautly delivered by director James Wan.

Wan knows how to control the action, mixing in comedy, almost balletic like fight scenes and ballsy pedal to the metal chase sequences that drip with as much bravura as they do ludicrousness. Cars fall from planes and segue into a thrilling mountain-top sequence that's action packed and leaves you breathless; a relatively pointless jaunt to Abu Dhabi to steal a MacGuffin from inside a car ends up in skytop leap of such insanity that's it's repeated twice in as many minutes and a final downtown LA set piece sees more destruction wreaked in a city than recent superhero outings - and borrows a Die Hard moment for kicks.

Which is an apt comparison because Toretto and his team of extended family have become almost superhero-like in their escapades. There's barely a scratch on any of them as they roll with the punches, endure the beatdowns of the almost Terminator-like Shaw (Statham in a po-faced but effective turn) and wreak utter mayhem in the overblown male posturing that follows with regularity.

Sure, you could bemoan the dialogue (most of which is chewed by the Rock and Djimon Hounsou's cartoon terrorist), complain about the fact the reconnecting romance between Toretto and Rodriguez's Lettie slows things down and roll your eyes that the weak paper thin plot is absurd (the group has to track down a hacker who has a device that hacks into every electronic device to help them locate Shaw), but judged on its merits and genre, Fast 7 is a total, glorious success delivering blockbuster moments that are as adrenalin-filled and crowd-pleasing as they are jaw-dropping. Taken on its own terms, this cartoon cars caper is a blast, an extreme bromance that revels in its own rules.

But, at the end of the day, Fast and Furious 7 will be about the poignant send-off for Paul Walker. 

It was a tough line for the cast and crew to draw in the sand for his Brian character and it's likely that when the swan song comes for him, if you're invested in the franchise, it'll be the moment that sees you reaching for the tissues. 

During the film, it's inevitable you find yourself wondering if each sequence that places Brian in jeopardy will be his ultimate departure. But when the time comes, there's a heart-warming, heavily meta-soliloquy from Diesel's character at the end that probably speaks for the entire cast and crew of the production, as well as the millions of fans with the words "It's never goodbye" having a resonance that will give this flick its emotional core. (Interestingly, NZ's WETA had a hand in the digital trickery needed to keep the character in the film).

Ultimately, it's hard to be cynical when faced with the spectacle that is Fast and Furious 7 - it's cartoonish, over-the-top machismo (with females getting nary a look-in) and defies belief - but it's a thrilling, visual, visceral blockbuster that delivers everything its fans want, and will once again confound box office expectations and non-believers that this franchise continues to roll on.

Rating:

Ricki and The Flash: Film Review

Ricki and The Flash: Film Review

Cast: Meryl Streep, Rick Springfield, Kevin Kline, Mamie Gummer
Director: Jonathan Demme

Meryl Streep gets her ageing rock on with this fairly cliched family drama flick from the director of The Silence of The Lambs and from the writer of Juno, Diablo Cody.

Streep plays Ricki, the singer of a house band which plays a residence at a knock-down bar. Financially defeated and oblivious to the world around her, especially her estranged family, Ricki gets a call from her ex-husband Pete (Kevin Kline) to tell her that her daughter Julie (Streep's real-life daughter Gummer) is depressed following the end of her marriage.

So, against her best wishes, Ricki heads home to the family she's avoided for years and to the tensions she ran away from to become a Californian rocker.

Ricki and The Flash is exactly what you'd expect from a family kitchen sink drama of someone reuniting and reconnecting with those who used to be around them.

Looking like an older version of Freaky Friday's Tess Coleman complete with side plait and dark eye shadow, Streep personifies the old rocker and scatty human well in the early stages of the film before it lapses into the usual trite conventions of its genre and barely walks the tightrope between the family drama and romcom.

Against a soft-spoken and sardonic Kline as the dad, Gummer's spikiness and fragility is well-observed as the daughter on the edge, but like the rest of the supporting characters (particularly her two sons), she falls by the wayside for Streep's character.

One of the main problems is the relatively corny, yet occasionally honest, film simply becomes a thinly veiled facade for Streep to perform a series of soft rock covers with a band, rather than fuel and further the narrative, which becomes more and more sidelined. It's almost like Meryl Streep - The Concert Album.

Some insights into a woman who chooses her career over her family are thrown out during a moment of implosion on stage, but the final redemption and forgiveness are too easily gifted to those who need them in Ricki and The Flash.

While Streep remains a presence in this flick, Ricki and The Flash is more about the guilt trip, than the overall trip. Despite the presence of the usually insightful Cody, underwritten family characters detract from the earnestness and a meandering final third make it feel like more of a drag than it should be as it ambles towards its obvious conclusion.

Rating:

Dumb and Dumber To: DVD Review

Dumb and Dumber To: DVD Review

Rating: M
Released by Universal Home Ent

Comedy's all about timing"

These words uttered by Jim Carrey's Lloyd in this sequel couldn't be more prescient or pertinent when it comes to Dumb and Dumber To.

Over 20 years ago, Dumb and Dumber stole my heart; a sweet, unabashed film about two idiots whose stupidly sweet innocence seemed a throwback to the prat-falling silent schtick of a Hollywood from yesteryear.

Needless to say, 20 years on and the sequel rides roughshod over any nostalgic glow I may have had for the first.

In this latest, Jeff Daniels' Harry discovers he has a daughter and sets out with Jim Carrey's gurning Lloyd to find her - because he's in dire need of a new kidney. So begins another road trip....In some ways, it's pointless to rail about how unfunny and crassly crude Dumb and Dumber To is - not to mention casually racist, because it's all done by these two leads who are supposed to be nothing more than a pair of loveable knuckleheads blundering from one encounter to the next.

But in updating the adventures of Harry and Lloyd and re-teaming with the Farrelly Brothers, those involved have actually lost sight of what made the original pair so successful and so amusing - their naivete and sheer chutzpah for any given situation propelled it along its sweet and endearingly dumb journey. This time around, by making the pair so stupid and occasionally offensive (perhaps a sign of the times we now live in), they've lost that audience empathy from the start, preferring to concentrate on a series of silly pranks over everything else. (Even those were present in the first, but dialled down)

Equally, there are plenty of scenes within the film that seem aimless with nary a punchline or moment to punctuate them; it's almost as if the writers lost sight of the actual gags they were trying to aim for. I'm not suggesting there's a sophistication with the Dumb and Dumber series at all - or even needs to be - in fact, it works better because of a lack of it. But an excessive number of flat jokes really stand out as this road trip "comedy" saunters onto its destination.

Carrey, Daniels and even Turner have their moments (possibly more Carrey as he does manic moments such as scoffing down a hotdog and greeting a dog at a gas station) - but they're too few and far in between a scattered plot that's lacking in real gags with warmth and heart; Melvin appears to be playing a brunette bimbo as the daughter and even Rob Riggle looks a little lost as the film tries to match some of the comic highs and even plot points of the first. (A fact made even more pertinent when the closing credits replay scenes from the first movie, making you realise all the more what you've missed)

All in all, Dumb and Dumber To is a massive comic disappointment - I hadn't expected the world but to see the legacy of Harry and Lloyd dumbed down a step too far after too many years too late makes this a contender for one of the worst films of 2015 already.

Rating:

Last Cab To Darwin: Film Review

Last Cab To Darwin: Film Review

Cast: Michael Caton, Jacki Weaver, Emma Hamilton, Mark Coles Smith
Director: Jeremy Sims

Based on the stage play, Last Cab To Darwin, which is inspired by a true life story of an Aussie cabbie, is the story of Broken Hill cab driver Rex (The Castle and Packed to the Rafters star Michael Caton).

Wearied with stomach cancer and told he has only three months to live, Rex decides to head 3000kms to Darwin to meet a Northern Territories doctor, Dr Farmer, who's slap bang in the euthanasia debate thanks to her new machine, to help him to die.

Packing up his scant belongings and leaving behind Dog, his dog (so-called because Rex was already taken), Rex sets out across the red roads to his fate. But along the way, he meets an aimless Aborigine called Tilly (Beneath Hill 60 actor Mark Coles Smith) as the pair head to Darwin.

Mixing up racism, indigineous issues, cancer, and holding mawkish tendencies at arm's length is not an easy job, but this Aussie film manages it with a degree of aplomb but hobbles itself in the final strait by choosing to avoid the meatier issues raised within.

The euthanasia issue is more a side-serving story line than a full on catalyst for discussion, this is a gentle film that skews older and that's squarely about Rex and the two people he meets as the journey goes on.

Which is probably a good thing, given that Caton is nothing short of eminently watchable and continually dignified as the battler who's your everyday Aussie bloke - the opening sequence shows Rex hobbling home half cut from the pub, making a spam sandwich and falling asleep in his chair, a taciturn nod to most of the hell-raisers in the audience and the ravages of old age. But in among the mournfully reflective start, the craggy yet relatable Caton sets the tone early on and emerges with granddad-like gravitas at the end.

For the most part, subtlety is the poignant film's raison d'etre - and that's also perhaps its weakness.

Rex's relationship with an indigenous neighbour is deftly hinted at early on, with scenes that reek of nuance and ripple with society still struggling to reconcile races.

But it's Coles Smith as the drifter Tilly who adds the fire to Rex's road trip, throwing in a volatile mix that is as thrilling as it is predictable - his live wire performance coupled with Caton's more restrained touch make this partnership ascend from the levels of cliche you'd expect. Coupled with some truly gorgeous scenery (the reds of the dust roads and the blue of the skies leap off the screen), this is a road trip to wallow in in parts.

However, the emotional ride goes on a little too long in places, runs out of steam in the final stretches and Weaver's Doctor seems ill-adjusted to the film, with her behaviour seeming out of sorts for someone in her position.

You could easily argue that the real crux of the debate of euthanasia is sidelined in favour of cliched story contrivances and beats in Last Cab To Darwin, but this tale of waifs and strays in the Aussie heartland is likely to easily resonate with the older crowd as one man's twilight is elegantly explored.

Rating:

You're not You: DVD Review

You're not You: DVD Review

Rating: M

Negotiating a movie with a disease is no easy task.

But given that director George C Wolfe was involved in Angels in America and won a Tony for his direction, this story about Hilary Swank's Kate and her battle with ALS would appear to be in safe hands.

Prim and proper, with her life fully in control and her marriage to Josh Duhamel's Evan perfectly happy, Swank's Kate finds everything upended when she's diagnosed with the incurable disease ALS, the first signs of which rear their head on her birthday.

18 months later, and the pair is forced to find a full-time caregiver to help - which is where the impulsive college student Bec (Shameless star Emmy Rossum) comes in. Initially seeming like a polar opposite to the order they need in their lives, Kate insists on hiring her - even though she's no experience and appears to be a train wreck herself.

Instinctively, the duo form a bond which moves sensitively and inevitably towards its conclusion.

You're Not You has moments of mawkishness and twinkling piano music, designed to elicit tears from the most cynical given the subject matter. There are also moments of manipulation as the predictable inevitability of the disease plays out.

But yet, among all of that, there's a powerhouse of a performance from Swank, whose measured control as Kate imbues this potentially telemovie story with a dignity and sensitivity that's hard to deny.

Sure, there are the bumps in the road that you can see coming a mile off (Rossum's rough and ready Bec clashes with all around her except Kate; Swank's perfect veneer masks the guilt of knowing peoples' lives will be affected by her illness; Duhamel's Evan falls spectacularly as expected but remains likeable) but the strength of the acting pulls the piece out of worn-out and over-used tropes, designed to see you delving into the Kleenex.

(Though that isn't to say that those moments occasionally rankle, thanks to over-used signposting and cliche)

At the end of the day, You're Not You does exactly what you'd expect - and while the sentimental gloop is poured on thickly about two thirds into the piece, George C Wolfe's restrained direction, combined with Swank and Rossum's effortlessly plausible bond, give the film the power it needs to just rise above some of the mawkishness that threatens to pull it down into telemovie territory.

Rating:

Wild - DVD Review

Wild - DVD Review

Rating: M

Based on Cheryl Strayed's memoir, adapted by Nick Hornby and directed by Dallas Buyers' Club's Jean-Marc Vallee, Wild has more than just calibre going for it.

Witherspoon (who produces too) stars as Strayed, who decides to hike more than a thousand miles along the Pacific Crest Trail after a series of life moments push her into action.

With Wild, it's best to know less about the background of the story and go with it - it begins with the tiny Witherspoon losing a shoe atop a mountain, and hurling the next shoe off before screaming at the top of her lungs. Is it fear, frustration, relief?

Vallee reveals much of Strayed's past through elliptical flashbacks, slicing and dicing the onion of time and peeling back multi-layers to her story in a way that draws you in and immerses you in Strayed's mental turmoil.

But, it's easily Witherspoon's film by far.With her small frame eclipsed by a massive tramping pack that lightens as the journey goes on (the allegory and allusion of emotional baggage isn't subtly hammered home but is patently obvious), you clearly wonder how she's going to survive the ordeal as she heads out on her own with only her thoughts and demons for company. (Not even a few animals like Mia Wasikowska managed in Tracks last year).

But the inner resilience of Strayed is brought to life by a subtle Witherspoon and a side of her acting that we've not really seen before - a human vulnerability and complex emotional pull that's really quite affecting as the movie plays out. She's really grabbed something out of the bag to distract the naysayers who believe she's only fit for light and frothy material.

Masterfully weaving flashbacks and some timely moments of the era (a Jerry Garcia memorial setting the scene at one point to remind you of the chronology), Vallee's constructed a journey that is, in many ways, timeless and one that we've seen time and time again. Grief, temptations, familial relationships - all of these fall under the microscope and all have potential to elicit groans from a cynical audience bombarded with these tropes many times before.

Thankfully, the pairing of Vallee and Witherspoon proves to be a powerful concoction that's eminently watchable. Acting solo for the most part (aside from the odd occasional interactions), Witherspoon's already generating Oscar buzz as she straddles Strayed's quest to conquer the elements, her crippling past and her debilitating demons - it's a dazzling, heady watch that captures the essence of the appeal of being alone and yet also explores the uncertainty and doubt that nags at one's spiritual being when so alone.

Rating:

Jimmy's Hall: DVD Review

Jimmy's Hall: DVD Review

Rating: M
Released by Vendetta and Rialto

Against a backdrop of images of workers in old New York and a jazzy old school wartime soundtrack, comes Brit miserabilist Ken Loach's latest.

Set in Ireland in 1932, Barry Ward is Jimmy Gralton - who divided a small community when he built a dance hall nearly a decade ago. Forced out, he went to New York but returns to Ireland "not the same man that went away" and determined to live out a quiet life.

However, urged by the kids who are blessed with wanderlust and boredom, he restarts the hall up only to find his plans pushing him into direct conflict with the Church (in the form of Father Ted's Bishop Brennan actor Jim Norton )

There's a quietly reflective tone to Jimmy's Hall, but it wafts as lightly as a flower on a summer breeze. It's pleasant to look at but is distinctly unmemorable as it goes on. Ward is fine, but lacks any real edge during the genuinely heartfelt drama. Even the conflict with the Church seems tame by comparison and the mournful tone against the lush verdant green backdrops of Ireland proves to be an odd mix that never really fires up.

While there's a vibrancy and energy to the dance hall scenes, they only really ever serve to highlight the fact that that is missing throughout the rest of this piece, which seems remarkably toothless by Loach's standards.
Coupled with the fact this battle for hearts and minds through dance and against the church ethos is never anything but black and white. The church is firmly in the wrong and Jimmy's a hero to all, albeit one that never really serves to light the fires of passion for those watching.

While Loach may be mellowing (see the brilliant The Angels Share for proof of that), his touch on this true story is too slight to be anything as engaging as it should be.