Heroic Losers: NZIFF Review

Wildly accessible, heist movie Heroic Losers is here for a good time, and nothing more.

When a group of elderly Argentines band together to pool money for a co-operative, they're stunned after handing over their life savings when the bank they've invested into collapses. 

Learning that all of their cash was taken out by a swindler, the group decides on payback....

Heroic Losers is a slickly pulled together, crowd-pleasing affair, that does exactly what it says on the tin, and little more in between.

That's not to deny it its many pleasures though - from taking notes off of Hollywood heist films, Sebastian Borensztein clearly knows what he's doing, pulling the pieces together and ending it with a crescendo of comeuppance and good vibes.

Led by Ricardo Darin, La Odisea de los Giles packs in much energy and gusto in its 2 hour run time.

Its set up and payoffs are well paced, and its tale of ordinary people against the banking criminals will hit a timely note for many.

This is escapism in its purest form, and while it's essentially a lads-only affair (albeit elderly ones), the vibe is purely flighty and fun. Popcorn festival fun doesn't come more readily than this, and that's no bad thing.

Because when the final showdown comes, you'll realise just how much you're in the losers' corner and how sweet this genial level of payback feels.

Last and First Men: NZIFF Review

Composer Jóhann‌ ‌Jóhannsson is best known for his music from films like Sicario and Arrival.

And despite having died relatively young, Jóhann‌ ‌Jóhannsson also left a movie, mixing imagery and his evocative score to relatively strong effect.

Robbed of a big screen presence, Last and First Men's multimedia presentation feels more slight than it should. A voiceover from Tilda Swinton that starts with pomposity but gradually finds a place of its own despite claiming to be from "2000 million years in the future."

Adapted from the 1930s book of the same name, Last And First Men is a collection of Balkan landscapes shot in black and white, and slow swirling camera movements.

Dissonant, dizzying and discordant, this dystopian piece of work is more successful without the voiceover, as the series of images and sounds progress building to a hypnotic crescendo. There's something mesmerising in what Jóhann‌ ‌Jóhannsson has committed to screen, and the electronic screeching and maudlin feel of the soundtrack fits perfectly with the apparently disconnected architectural structures.

Then, somehow, against the odds, in the final 15 minutes of the film, everything comes together - the voiceover finally clicks into place and it feels like the jigsaw puzzle pieces have all dropped to reveal a wider picture - it's a deeply commendable result, given the initial struggle to have it all gel.

Last and First Men is Jóhann‌ ‌Jóhannsson's acutely aural experience; it's the kind of film headphones and a large screen were made for - and even though there's no sense of urgency in the final destination, much like parts of 2001: A Space Odyssey's mix of future visuals and audio, the journey of Last and First Men is a deeply engaging and strangely spiritual one.

Corpus Christi: NZIFF Review

Polish drama Corpus Christi was nominated for an Oscar - and it's easy to see why.

The story of ex-con Daniel (Bartosz Bielenia) who's just out of juvie and who decides on a whim to masquerade as a priest is one rife for comedy and misunderstanding. But what director Jan Komasa delivers is a film of outstanding dramatic value, and of morally questionable virtues.

Integrating into a nearby community after his panicked attempts to bail out fail, Daniel finds something of a rebirth as the priest, tending to a flock damaged and torn by a recent tragedy. 

After initially ripping off the sermons he's been part of in juvie, the community responds to Daniel's apparent freshness of approach and his unconventional ways of administering faith. But as Daniel spends more time there, he finds his own sense of morality intruding into the job, and politics begin to clash with personal faith. Just around the corner though, is the sense of the inevitable, building Corpus Christi into a film that bustles with tragedy and dread.

Thanks to an intense performance from the steely-eyed Bielenia, Corpus Christi finds the magnetism it needs from its lead. 

With piercing blue eyes and a dogged determinism, Bielenia never once shows any sign of fading from the screen, keeping every single sequence alive with electricity and uncertainty.

The script helps greatly, building from the initial comedy of the confessional to the raw treatment of tragedy within the community and the divisions that arise from it. While Daniel appears to come at this side of things with his own sense of judgement and humanity, the script plays fast and loose with questions over whether Daniel is undergoing a rebirth of sorts, and whether in fact, faith is infecting his life for the better.

Muted colours, unusual scenes and a never-less-than-compelling performance from its lead grant Corpus Christi a great deal more than its conventional "con hiding in plain sight" trope.

It may be about forgiveness at its core, but Corpus Christi is unforgiving to the end - its final moments are desperately bleak and yet, offer a sense of Daniel's rebirth at a key moment in time. Maybe it's not the rebirth the audience wants, but this drama is of the top tier and well worth seeking out.

The Truth: NZIFF Review

Resting largely on a haughty performance from Catherine Deneuve, Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Paris-set follow-up to Palme d’Or winner Shoplifters is a meandering film that's about the conflict between mother and daughter.

A relaxed Juliette Binoche stars as Lumir, who returns to Paris with her actor husband (Ethan Hawke) and daughter in tow. Summoned home for the launch of the memoirs of her mother Fabienne (Deneuve), Lumir's incensed to discover her mother's made up portions of her memoir, sugarcoating it for her own image.

But while Lumir rages, Fabienne is filming a science fiction film about a mother reconnecting with her daughter after years of absences - and as Lumir sticks around, it becomes clearer that her ageing mother is in a reflective mood.

A brittle Deneuve simmers in her dismissiveness throughout Kore-eda's The Truth, a film that's as much about atmosphere as it is familial issues.

Genial to the n-th degree, The Truth wafts along on the breeze as much as the leaves do in the Paris courtyards that Kore-eda's film opens with.

It may lack the punch of a Shoplifters, but there's a pensive atmosphere throughout the Truth, and while it may feel inconsequential in the wash, the careful and precise examination of tensions throughout the years yields some impressive results.

Unhinged: Film Review

Cast: Russell Crowe, Caren Pistorius, Jimmi Simpson, Gabriel Bateman

Director: Derrick Borte

Unhinged is peak 2020, a grubby would-be B movie of a sustained campaign of terror against a woman.

A heavy set Russell Crowe is The Man, a man so far over the edge he's committed double murder and arson before the five minute mark of the film's even hit. Pistorius is Rachel, a woman on the edge, after waking up late, a messy divorce and a school run all collide.

When Rachel repeatedly beeps her horn at The Man at a junction, her day gets immeasurably worse when he takes affront, and starts pursuing her and her loved ones in a vendetta of road-rage induced revenge.

Unhinged really is the kind of low rent film that would have made it straight to DVD back in the 80s.

Shorn of any real background other than cursory exposition from the cops, Crowe needs do nothing more than look menacing and threatening throughout. And to be fair, when he fixes the screen with a dead-eyed stare, the threat levels reach a crescendo.

But Unhinged requires nothing more of any of its actors.

Certainly the script, loaded as it is with coincidence and nothing more, treats all those involved at the dumbest level possible, with Rachel's character behaving improbably and The Man's escalating rage attracting no attention anywhere else other than inside Rachel's world.

Perhaps that's the most frightening thing about Unhinged - that it gives oxygen to such brutal treatment of a woman and the women in its film. Beaten, stabbed, terrorised - the majority of the victims are female, and the camera appears to relish the horrors visited down on them.

Coupled with clumsy dialogue, and the buzzwording of things like "Fortnite scenario" that are thrown in purely to appeal to the kidz, Unhinged makes no case for subtlety or smarts. Repeated shots of objects show they will become important in just a few frames' time and leave no room for doubt within the script.

But Unhinged's worst crime is how it uses its victim. Even in the final frames, she's robbed of any power or sense of victory in the story, and it's shocking to say the least. The loss of agency and the fact she will forever be a victim is a morally reprehensible message, no matter how dumb the rest of the film is.

Ultimately, Unhinged is a film that deserves to be forgotten - the predictable formulaic action lacks any real redeeming points, and its long term message is enough to leave you needing a shower after you've experienced it.

Where'd You Go, Bernadette?: Film Review

Cast: Cate Blanchett, Kristen Wiig, Judy Greer, Billy Crudup, Emma Nelson

Director: Richard Linklater

With a haughty Cate Blanchett and a meandering script, Where'd You Go, Bernadette? feels like an opportunity weirdly squandered.

Blanchett is former superstar architect Bernadette Fox, who disappeared after having potential to turn the designing world upside down. Settled in with her husband Elgin, (Crudup, amiable and occasionally over-looked) and their daughter Bee (Nelson in a standout performance for a newcomer), Bernadette is overwhelmed when her daughter requests a trip to Antarctica as a reward.

Already brittle and disinterested in any connection with neighbours or friends, Bernadette is disaffected by the "banality of life". With a work-obsessed husband and a fussing daughter, things reach a crescendo and she disappears when the FBI shows up after she inadvertently floods a neighbour's house with mud....

Where'd You Go, Bernadette is a film that would be nothing without Blanchett's penchant for haughtiness. She's the best thing in the somewhat muddled narrative that veers through indifference to everyone's condition to a screwball farce that clearly aims to bring down some of the more WASPish neighbours and concerns.

There are moments of humour as Blanchett's growing weariness with everyone becomes acerbic and fraught, but Linklater's meandering approach to the story means the audience becomes as disaffected as Bernadette herself.

Equally, a series of cameos from a YouTube video should have been left on the cutting room floor, or beefed up to be more amusing and ludicrous as Bernadette rediscovers her passion.

Unable to decide upon a tone, and stuck with an indifference in the plot, Where'd Do You Go, Bernadette? really only thrives on Blanchett and her alone - other characters have little to no resolution in their arcs as the plot goes toward lunacy and relatively unearned heartwarming sentiment.

True History of the Kelly Gang: NZIFF Review

"Nothing you're about to see is true."

The opening lines of Justin Kurzel's True History of the Kelly Gang sets the stall out early on, with a disclaimer of what transpires for one of Australia's most prolific criminals.

There's a punkish vibe throughout True History of the Kelly Gang, but at times, its disparate approach to the Ned Kelly story feels less rounded than it should.

1917's George MacKay makes a ferocious Ned Kelly count when he should, but he also delivers a softer approach when it's necessary. Kurzel, who delivered a fantastic Snowtown and subsequent on-the-streets Q&A after a fire alarm necessitated an evacuation, has an eye for the details here, but a rambunctious almost ramshackle script nearly foils him,

There are some wonderful visuals helmed by Kurzel, including the final shoot out where Ned and his gang find themselves surrounded by apparent torch-bearing law-abiding citizens wanting to bring him down. One moment in the showdown alone is worth the price of admission.

But to get there is somewhat of a slog.

Characters have no end to their arcs, rendering some of their actions inconsequential and feeling like non-sequiturs in their own story. Granted, the film is of the Kelly gang, but given how much time is spent setting up proceedings and weighting some heft to incidental supports, it feels bereft to leave them wanting. It feels particularly cruel to Thomasin MacKenzie and Nicholas Hoult's characters who are pivotal early on, but tossed aside in the final furlong.

In among it all is MacKay, who delivers a softer Kelly than perhaps you'd expect, but never shies away from channeling moments of pure ferocity. From the indignant scenes of bare-knuckle fighting to a Reservoir Dogs moment, MacKay never holds back from summoning up the anger that Kelly clearly felt.

There is beauty in the wide shots that Kurzel's helmed here showing the rough countryside and the growing divide within the Kelly family, but True History of the Kelly Gang lacks the cohesive feel it needs to feel truly great.