A Hijacking (Kapringen – original title)

99min 
Denmark (Danish and English) 
Genre: Thriller 
Writer/director: Tobias Lindholm 
Cast: Pilou Asbæk, Søren Malling, Dar Salim.

Plot

A crew of a Danish cargo ship is hijacked by Somali pirates Indian Ocean.  Mikkel the ships chef, Jan the chief engineer are taken hostage along with the injured captain and the rest of the crew. Their lives all depend on the negotiation team headed by the CEO of the shipping company back in Denmark, but a tense psychological drama is unfolding between the CEO and the pirates.

Review

Tobias Lindholm is one of the writers of Borgen the popular crime series.  This film is equally as tense and is set in realism, documenting the human cost of the hostages who are confined to unsanitary quarters and the huge responsibility the negotiation team is tasked with, with responsibility to both the company and to the family’s of the hostages. 

 

The pirates are not subtitled so it’s impossible to know what they are saying, in one scene Mikkel (Pilou Asbæk) and Jan ((Roland Møller) try to make friends and they think they have till the man turns nasty and threatening.  Scenes like these really rack up the tension the feeling of complete helplessness for the men trapped on board the vessel. Their feelings of desperation are all to understandable.

The CEO (Søren Malling) is having an equally difficult time in his clean and cool boardroom, he offends the pirates negotiator by calling him a pirate making him angry and weakening the CEO position.

The situation might be heading out of control.

4 out of 5 stars.

Gimme the Loot

81 mins
USA
Genre: Crime/Drama 
America 
Writer/director: Adam Leon. 
Cast: Tashiana Washington, Ty Hickson, Zoe Lescaze.

 Plot

 Two graffiti artists discover their latest work has been erased by another crew, so they set out to tag the untaggable, the New York Mets’ home run apple. They know a guy who can get them into the stadium for $500 so, cue a day of hustling and petty thievery the only way they can make their dreams come true.

Review.

This film looks low budget but has great characters and story, set in the dog eat dog world of a New York suburb where stealing and being stolen from is just part of the day to day.

Tashiana Washington plays Sofia a girl who is street smart but vicious when crossed.  It’s fantastic to see a well rounded female character, she’s intelligent and cynical when on the make but shows her sweet side when bargaining with handsome Graffiti pal Kaps (Melvin Mogoli).

In contrast Malcolm (Ty Hickson) is all about bravado and getting laid.  His scenes with bohemian rich girl Ginnie (Zoe Lescaze) illustrate a different slant on the interaction between the haves and have nots in America.  When Malcolm goes to her apartment to sell her drugs, Ginnie seduces him, but they are interrupted and Malcolm has to make a run for it.  When Ginnie calls him again he thinks he is onto a sure thing, but he walks in on a party, and Ginnie treats him like the help.  That’s when he decides to rob her.

There are some great secondary characters in the film from the silent man behind the screen door who gives no reaction as Sofia demands money for the phone she has fenced to Meeko the hapless lock pick who Malcolm enlists to open Ginnie’s front door.

This film is a really good romp and its fun, go and see it.

4 out of 5 stars.

Me and You (original title ''Io e te'')

96mins
Italy 
Genre: Drama
Director: Bernardo Bertolucci 
Writers: Niccolo Ammaniti, Umberto Contarello, Francesca Marciano, Bernardo Bertolucci. 
Cast: Tea Falco, Jacopo Olmo Antinori, Sonia Bergamasco.

  

Plot

A teenager lies to his mother and bunks off a school ski trip so he can spend a week alone in a basement.  However, his estranged half sister turns up and she needs help to get off drugs.

Review

This is a small and well told story with nice performances from Jacopo Olmo Aninori (Lorenzo) and Tea Falco (Olivia). Lorenzo’s change from selfish teenager to empathic manhood is nicely documented by Bertolucci, but it’s not a story that offers anything new in the coming of age film. There is no real meatiness in the drama.  Essentially it's vacuous story about a couple of rich kids treating themselves and their family badly. This makes them unsympathetic and unlikable and you don't really care what happens to them.  There is no real subtext either, so all in all a surprising choice for a veteran director.

2 out of 5 stars.

 

The Place Beyond the Pines

USA 
140mins
Genre: drama/crime
Director: Derek Cianfrance
Writers: Derek Cianfrance, Ben Coccio, Darius Marder.
Cast: Ryan Gosling, Eva Mendes, Bradley Cooper, Ray Liotta.

Plot

An unconventionally scripted film split into three stories which arc over two generations of characters.  Luke a fairground trick motorcyclist who discovers an ex lover has had his baby.  He is desperate to do right by them, and stays in town spending time with mother and son. 

Unable to earn good money at anything but motorcycling he takes up bank robbing, but things don’t go according to plan especially when he crosses paths with ambitious local cop Avery, who  coincidently also has a baby son.  Fifteen years pass by and old secrets well kept are revealed to the two children who are now young men.

 

Review

Gosling gives a stand out performance as Luke the motorcycle stunt rider, a man on the outskirts of society, a drifter, anxious to do right by his son and ex lover Romina.  He is gentle and simple soul but when he settles in Schenectady, New York (translated from the Native American as, the place beyond the pines) he becomes entangled in the morals and constructs of urban society.  It becomes his cage and he has no idea how to operate within it, attacking and injurying Kofi, Romina’s(Mendes) boyfriend and turning to crime to earn money.

Avery (Cooper) is in his own cage, stuck in a corrupt police department, he turns the tables on the corrupt cops and launches a political career.  This part of the film is somewhat weaker as it’s such a big story to be launched into with little set up, half way through the film.  The pace of the film slows as we catch up with the change in direction and lead character.

Again in the third part of the film we are introduced to new characters, the sons of Luke and Avery and their story, still the pace sluggish.  The end is fitting and lyrical though, when Luke’s son goes beyond the pines and out into the American west.

As I said, it’s a slow film and a little clichéd but worth the effort for Goslings soulful performance full of depth and simplicity.

4 out of 5 stars.

A Late Quartet

USA 
105mins
Director: Yaron Zilberman
Writers: Yaron Zilberman, Seth Grossman
Cast: Catherine Keener, Christopher Walken, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Mark Ivanir.

 

Plot

The harmony of an orchestral quartets working and personal relationships are put under threat when one of it's members is diagnosed with a serious illness.

Review

A thoughtful film about ageing and coming to accept the choices made in love and career. The quartet’s problems are very adult and mature and handled with sensitivity. Peter (Walken) has to deal with the possible end of his career and face a long and lonely retirement. The shock of his announcement reverberates through the rest of quartet and threatens their 25 years together.

Gelbert (Hoffman) wants a chance at playing 1^st violin (he’s currently 2^nd violin a position which enhances the first, but does not take the kudos).  But when his wife (Keener the quartets’ viola player) fails to back his bid and Lerner (Ivanir) refuses to relinquish the post of first, Gelbert takes it as a personal slight on his talent, and sets out on a path that could break the quartet and destroy his marriage.

Quiet perfectionist Lerner laments his years of dedication which has cost him a personal life and Juliette questions her role as a mother and wife to Gelbert.

It’s all filmed in a New York bitter winter, snow on the streets and breath in the air reflecting the bitterness built up in their lives, they seem almost emotionally stuck in the snow.

The performances are as quality and subtle as you would expect, lovely to watch and emotionally delicate.

4 out of 5 stars.

King of the Travellers

Ireland (English) 
Genre: Drama 
80mins
Writer/director: Mark O'Connor
Cast: John Connors, Peter Coonan, Michael Collins, Clara McGlynn.

 

Plot

Young traveler John is haunted by dreams of his father’s violent death and is convinced a rival travelling family is responsible. Things are complicated further when a local farmer wants John’s family of his land.  A violent drama with a convoluted plot.

 

Review

On the whole watchable, but sometimes the film is amateurish with an uneven tone,  veering from violence to surreal silly comedy in a matter of minutes.  The plot is convoluted with lots of toing and froing between the caravan sites of the families (and riding horses across an angry farmers land). A little less of this could have left room for exploring the characters fully and given the audience an insight into the lives and traditions of travelers, and why family and feuds are so deeply rooted in their culture.  Also there isn't as much bare knuckle fighting as indicated in the trailer and poster.

 

The acting was on whole good, although the characterisation is 2D; the farmer is unrelenting in his viciousness and vitriol, as are his henchmen.  The councilor is only a coward. Michael, John’s best friend and brother is a relentless fun addict and rogue.  John makes a dull hero and is bull headed about taking revenge, even when he is not clear about the facts surrounding his father’s death. 

However, when Connors who plays John is let loose on a bit of role play in an old tree house with co star Clara McGlynn, who plays his potential love interest, the scene plays charmingly. A few more scenes like that could have made this a better film.

This is one of those films that could have been so much more, but wasn’t.

2 stars out of 5.

Compliance

Genre: Thriller 
90mins
Canada
Writer/Director: Craig Zobel
Cast: Ann Dowd, Dreama Walker, Pat Healy

 

Plot

The manager of a fast food restaurant receives a phone call from a prank caller who convinces her he is a police officer and that one of her employees is a thief.  He manipulates her into strip searching the employee.  During the course of the film the prankster goes on to convince various members of staff and otherwise ordinarily trustworthy individuals to abuse and humiliate the girl.  A terrifying study of oppressive corporate culture in the modern world. 

 

Review

Realistic performance from Ann Dowd (Restaurant manager Sandra) who won a National Board of Review award for Best Supporting Actress. Sandra, under pressure due to ruined bacon is about to have the worse day of her working life.  A man claiming to be a policeman calls accusing server Becky (Dreama Walker) of stealing from a customer.  Sandra brings Becky into the store room come office where Sandra is told by the caller to hold tight, as the the police aren't far away. 

He then talks her into strip searching Becky.  The conman makes it sound perfectly reasonable and also asks Sandra to call her superior (but she doesn’t get through)for confirmation that this kind of action is within company policy. Sandra crumbles and resorts to the same reasoning tactics as the prankster on Becky, and soon the young girl is down to her briefs.   

When the restaurant gets busy Sandra calls on her fiancé Van (Bill Camp) to watch the girl. The caller soon has Van under control, compelling the man to carry out seedy and revolting acts on auto pilot. 

 

By the middle of the film you think the plot is ridiculous until you remember the opening credits stated the story is based on true events.  A phone prankster used the same con for over a decade culminating in the abuse of a restaurant worker at a MacDonald’s in Kentucky 2004. 

 

The film is also based on Yale social psychologist Stanley Milgram’s experiment in obedience and authority.  The experiment has participants administering increasingly severe electric shocks (the shocks are fake so no patients are harmed) to patients.  Milgram’s conclusion, after discovering more than half of participants gave high voltage shocks even when patient’s were in extreme pain, was that participants shifted blame for the hurt they were causing to someone else, therefore relinquishing responsibility.

The film uncomfortably illuminates this lack of thought and responsibility in the fast food restaurant industry and also the insidious nature of control and authority. Following orders of superiors is in every part of our society from governments to corporate managers. 

 

Could this film have worked better as a documentary, I think so; the character of the prankster is only vaguely seen at the start and end of the film. He appears to be a family man, so more about how he came to be carrying out the pranks would have been interesting. Along with an exploration of  Milgram’s experiment and the history of corporate culture could have created a richer experience.

Still an interesting film well worth seeing.

3 out of 5 stars.