Experimenter: Film Review

Experimenter: Film Review

Cast: Peter Sarsgaard, Winona Ryder, Taryn Manning
Director: Michael Almereyda

Realising that exploring social experimenter Dr Stanley Milgram was likely to be a controversial choice, the writer, director, and producer of it all, Michael Almereyda could have been on a sticky wicket.

However, by choosing to break the fourth wall conventions in this biopic a la Bronson, he removes the controversy of the man himself and ends up providing a more rounded insight into Milgram.

The film begins with Milgram's most incendiary experiments into the human condition, wherein he managed to put two subjects - a teacher and a pupil - into a room and made them administer shocks to a stranger. Based on Milgram's childhood growing up as a Jew and being influenced by events in the Holocaust, Milgram's reasoning for his trial appears sound - what could provoke any right minded person into such horrific action?

The Milgram experiments clearly had ripples and ramifications and Almereyda's exploration and presentation of them is nothing short of a shock to the system.

By using the aforementioned fourth wall convention and using photos for backgrounds for some events and meetings, it's a bolt upright reaction to what transpires on the screen. (And even has a feel of TV series Masters of Sex about it in its recreation) - but in many ways, it's a film that defies convention for a man who ultimately defied his own conventions.

Sarsgaard is a cool crisp slice of clinical perfection as Milgram, each word carefully and theatrically  delivered for maximum impact and each dryly wry witticism despatched with ease; there's plenty of humour in this film that's essentially a snapshot of a biopic.

By keeping it free of the minutiae of Milgram's life and investing us solely in pivotal moments at certain points in time, Almereyda's concocted something smart and involving.

Exposition serves for explanation and shifts of time periods within the film, and the discussions raised within will likely provoke some incisive and robust debate as the movie ends. However, rather than bogging down the film in stuffy discussion, thanks to some excellent casting (look for the cameos who make up the subjects of the initial Milgram experiment) and a great performance from Sarsgaard and a return to form for a long time absent Winona Ryder as his wife, Almereyda provides a film that hits squarely and confidently what it wants to do.

It may skirt around some issues and some of the ramifications of the experiments (there's an unexplored inference that Milgram was being tailed and one of his colleagues dies early in age, both of these are left to linger frustratingly rather than be delved deeper into), but Almereyda's never interested in anything more than using the style and the effortless ease of his leading man to deliver a fascinating take on a thrilling subject. 

Need For Speed: PS4 Review

Need For Speed: PS4 Review

Platform: PS4
Released by EA Games

Need For Speed has laid low recently.

After a relatively lacklustre film, the franchise kind of skidded off the road and saw other racers overtake it in its quest for world gaming domination.

The likes of Forza and its arcade spin-off Forza: Horizon, DriveClub and The Crew all came and cocked a snook at the Need For Speed series, threatening to leave them in their wake.

But a recent closed BETA of the new Need for Speed from Ghost Games demonstrated this series wasn’t afraid to get dirty and had embraced some of the bits of the other series and built on them

This latest can simply be described as a mix of elements from Fast and Furious via The Crew’s street racing vibe with lots of arcade sensibility thrown in for good measure.

In this reboot of the 20 year old franchise, you take the role of a racer who falls in with a group of street racers. Taken into their gang, you get to hurtle around Ventura Bay, a made up place which is similar to California by night, burning rubber, taking part in challenges and races and upgrading your ride and customising as you hit the roads.

Need for Speed is a different game from the franchise, one that revels in its point of difference – live-action cut scenes (which seem ripped from the likes of the Fast and Furious and are all from first player perspective).

These scenes are nicely put together, capture some of the headiness of the road, but are unskippable – even if they do offer the thrill of some real-life racing stars.  They are a tad long, but given the investment it makes sense to use the actors to their abilities and inject a boyracer ethos that’s always been apparent in the series.

Equally, your phone will ring a lot within the game as this group of disparate racers come together; with banter, offers of races or just for a natter, it never stops as you race around Ventura Bay in the constant night-time.

It’s an odd stipulation that EA has insisted that it all takes place online, given that the map populates with only a few drivers here and there – to be honest, when I chose to play the servers were quiet and hardly anyone was around. Hopefully, the more you level up, the more populated it becomes.

Customising the cars is nicely done – and works naturally by setting it in a garage, with access to whatever you need providing your rep is there and your credits are in line. Adding in decals, paints and tooling up give you a feel for your ownership and while this is nothing new in racing games, the fact that it's street-racing to the max, gives it a frisson of ownership that's exciting.

While the police don't exactly feel like they pose much of a threat, the world within is worth exploring. From collectibles to snatching camera shots, there's a lot to do in Need For Speed and a lot that's worth investing in. Granted, if your internet fails, there are frustrations, (and one thing EA should have considered) but for disposable racing fun, Need For Speed delivers in spades. The motto is if it ain't broke, don't fix it, and maybe the reboot has tweaked some edges, but the game's DNA is thrillingly alive in an exceptionally busy end to 2015.

Rating:

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2: Film Review

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2: Film Review

Cast: Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Elizabeth Banks, Liam Hemsworth, Donald Sutherland, Woody Harrelson
Director: Francis Lawrence

The end is nigh for Katniss Everdeen in the final part of Suzanne Collins' Hunger Games franchise.

At the end of Mockingjay Part 1, the effects of the revolt were starting to be felt and Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence) had found herself an initially unwilling pawn in the face of the Revolution between Panem and the Capitol.

But with President Snow (Sutherland) severely upping the ante in the fight to crush her and with Peeta traumatised, the odds weren't in her favour....

So, deciding once and for all to seize her own destiny and stop being a pawn in a propaganda war, Everdeen sets off to kill Snow and end the conflict.

It gets dark in The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2.

There's the endless atmosphere of solemnity that hangs over the finale and makes part of it feel like dystopia's been washed over with a relentless grey tone. And it certainly wins the prize for some of the darkest material in a YA series that's been committed to screen; one sequence that demonstrates the horror of war and the lengths rulers will go to to achieve victory stands alone as the blackest witnessed on a screen. (Particularly in a week that terrorism's hit the headlines, viewing this through the prism of Paris is an odd experience)

As ever, Lawrence gives a great turn as the wounded veteran of The Hunger Games, the Quarter Quell and the ongoing battle to make her the martyr the cause needs; but even she can't sell some of the moments of the story with a surprising emotional scene failing to hit the mark it needed to. There's a grit and determination to Lawrence that's seen her Katniss' resolve evolve through the run of films and there's definitely a feeling of an arc that's been undergone.

Learning from the relative lag of part 1 where there was much talking about a revolution, director Francis Lawrence delivers some great action sequences, chiefly during a Call of Duty: Panem: The Hunger Games version which sees Everdeen and a squadron of troops trying to make their way through a massive minefield. Equally, a tunnel chase section crackles with a kind of claustrophobic horror seen in Aliens and the Resident Evil game and a trap is brilliantly executed earlier on, there are moments that transcend the ongoing debate and ruminations of the effects of war, which are starting to grow weary as the series ends.

Unfortunately, it's not all gold in this Hunger Games film.

Inconsistencies with Josh Hutcherson's Peeta and his post-war behaviour mar parts of the film, and the love triangle that's grown with Liam Hemsworth's Gale and Peeta simply melts away, making your investment in it over the course of four films simply feel limp.

Also, supporting characters get very short shrift as the series wraps up - and at least one death which is supposed to resonate more, fails to generate the required emotive response. Equally, the denouement of the film with its multi-endings feels too quick leaving the conflict way too swiftly given how events have transpired.

The Hunger Games franchise has always worked by way of its dystopian background, its discussion of war propaganda and its examination of people as pawns. There's been plenty of debate throughout the previous films that have coursed richly through this series' veins giving it a more adult feel than simply its love triangle.

That said, it's a shame that despite the darkness, grittiness and endless talk of how war damages our young and the dissection of post traumatic stress syndrome, there is an awfully out of place pat happy ending that feels like Suzanne Collins short-changed her characters' more mournful journey towards salvation.

While the film's to be commended for never sanitising its message and staying true to its series, the overlong The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2 certainly lacks the emotional heft a finale should have.

Rating:

Man Up: Blu Ray Review

Man Up: Blu Ray Review

Rating: M
Released by Sony Home Ent

Once again, it's back to a Britain and a romantic comedy where the slightly loopy and utterly unhinged live, but are forever charming thanks to the exploits of that foppish Hugh Grant.

Bell, donning an English accent, is Nancy, a 34-year-old romantic mess of a woman whose continual lack of success during set-ups by her friends fuels her neurotic lifestyle. After yet another unsuccessful mismatch, and compelled by a complete stranger (Ophelia Lovibond) on a train to do so, inadvertently ends up on a blind date with 40-year-old divorcee Jack (Spaced star Simon Pegg).

Deciding not to correct Jack's perception that she's his younger date, and going against her own character, she rolls with it - and finds that life's great rollercoaster has offered her a chance at happiness. But, when the truth comes out over that one night, what next for both Jack and Nancy?

Man Up has a degree of madcap quick cutting banter between the two leads which wouldn't be out of place with any of Edgar Wright's previous outings with Pegg.Though to be fair, it's Bell who assumes the usual Pegg loser role as she borders nigh on unlikeably neurotic and in need of becoming a weak-kneed woman railing against the ineptitude of her own life, but who comes up short when challenged with rising up and fighting to the top of the cliff of her own failure.

Thankfully, the writers realise this early on, and gift Bell a rounded role that sees her getting the audience on side. It's helped in no small way by the camaraderie and rapport that she shares with Pegg's Jack, who appears confident but then channels the typical rom-com stylings, haunted by failures past made brutally present by Olivia Williams as his ex. It's these scenes when they're together that convince us of this relationship, see us champion it and watch in horror as life threatens to pull it apart.While some OTT stereotypes still linger in the script (as personified by Kinnear's stalker whose lunacy veers from cringeworthy to downright injunction-worthy and feels drastically out of place), it all culminates in a finale that embraces the very best of what makes those awfully sappy Brit rom-coms come together - hint, a speech delivered by Pegg would have once been given by a certain Hugh Grant.

But somehow, against all the odds, Man Up manages to work - it's charming, but not exactly perfect and realises that it's two smartest assets are Pegg and Bell; time spent apart from these two during the film drag, but when they're together, the sparkle lifts the humdrum into the eminently watchable.

Rating:

Win The Ground We Won

Win The Ground We Won

Thanks to Madman Home Entertainment, I'm giving you the chance to take home a piece of rugby history.


You could win the brilliant doco, The Ground We Won.

To enter simply email to this address: darrensworldofentertainment@gmail.com  and in the subject line put GROUND WE WON. 

Please include your name and address and good luck!

A knock-about rugby team - made up of salt-of-the-earth dairy farmers - is staring down the barrel of a long run of bitter losses. With pluck and determination, the men unite to inspire their small community. In the face of the hefty demands of farming and fatherhood, the Saturday game becomes the focus of the men's passions; the ground on which their worth is proved. 

Alternatively heartwarming and heartbreaking, melancholy and hilariously funny, THE GROUND WE WON captures a fascinating season of traditions, debauchery and friendship, as the men reclaim their faith in themselves

Win Deathgasm on Blu Ray

Win Deathgasm on Blu Ray

Thanks to Madman Home Ent, I'm unleashing the apocalypse on you.

Well, Deathgasm any way.

I've got a copy of Deathgasm on Blu to give away - 

To enter simply email to this address: darrensworldofentertainment@gmail.com  and in the subject line put DEATHGASSSSSM. 

Please include your name and address and good luck!

Brodie is the new kid in town. With a crack-addicted mum and an obsession with all things metal, he doesn't fit in to his white-bread neighbourhood or with his religious relatives. Even sightings of the gorgeous Medina aren't enough to shake Brodie from his belief that he has landed in small-town hell. 

But when he meets fellow metalhead Zakk while picking through vinyls at the local record store he knows he's found a mate for life. Together with their equally socially-outcast friends Dion and Giles they form a band, Deathgasm, and when they find a mysterious piece of sheet music at the house of their metal hero Rikki Daggers they dedicate themselves to learning to play it...Little did they know, the mystical music is actually a spell to summon malevolent forces, and very soon everyone in the town has been infected by the demon curse. Now, our thrashing losers must man up to save the day. 

With shades of early Peter Jackson and schlock-horror classics EVIL DEAD and SHAUN OF THE DEAD, DEATHGASM is a blood-soaked, hilarious trip set to killer guitar riffs. Get ready to rock

Secret In Their Eyes: Film Review

Secret In Their Eyes: Film Review

Cast: Nicole Kidman, Chiwetel Eijofor, Julia Roberts, Dean Norris, Alfred Molina
Director: Billy Ray

Back in 2009, an Argentinian film surprised the world when it took home the Oscar beating out the favourites.

At the time, The Secret In Their Eyes was hardly well known, but it began to garner a reputation as a drama that was explosive and emotionally involving.

Sadly, the remake is unfortunately a reasonable, rather than gripping, drama.

Set against the backdrop of a post 9/11 world (making for an odd experience as prism viewing in the week of events of Paris), the narrative flips back and forth between 2002 and present day as a Eijofor's Ray investigates a murder.

13 years after the crime was never solved, Ray turns up with a new lead having devoted over a decade of his life post the case trying to get answers. Despite the protestations of DA Claire (Kidman) and because it's contra to the counter-terrorism team he worked on in 2002, Ray believes this is the lead they've been missing and could now solve the case in 2015....

To say more about Secret In Their Eyes is to dip your toes in spoiler territory and to those unfamiliar with the original Argentinian flick, the key part of the film is the unfurling like a narrative onion of the layers of the plot.

Slow, drawn-out and to a degree, dawdling, Secret In Their Eyes is never as engaging as perhaps it should be. Not exactly a crime thriller, this is a movie about regrets, politics, the passage of time and the horrific bonds between Ray, Claire and Juliet Roberts' detective Jess.

Against a continual backdrop of 9/11 imagery and potential overkill of the fact the terrorists are really bad people, the film's inability to escape from its inevitability hampers it. Flashbacks are fine, but the reveal early on of how that investigation plays out causes narrative impotence, garnering the film with a laissez-faire sheen that audiences won't fully invest in.

It's not helped by a lack of chemistry between Eijofor's Ray and Kidman's Claire. We're supposed to believe the duo shared a spark that was left unexplored and burned bright for 13 years but scenes with the duo don't garner the fizz or hints of a fizz that would have helped propel any potential powderkeg along.

It's a shame because Eijofor chiefly delivers some great dramatic moments; his reaction on the discovery of the body simmers with tragedy and horror; equally Roberts' grieving mum is as restrained a turn as she's ever given - but she's not on screen for as much as is required during the melancholy maudlin movie. Kidman and Molina stand out for the wrong reasons and while Breaking Bad star Dean Norris adds a degree of humanity to the film, there's simply not enough to help you through the darkness.

Ray's direction is workmanlike with no real moments standing out - but this is a thriller that rarely thrills as it should and whose emotional candles burn on mute.

Ultimately, when the end comes, it feels more of a deflation than an elation of shock; where Secret In Their Eyes should have raged, it merely blows pathetically in the wind when compared to the original's power and ability to shock.