The Greatest Trick

Maverick director Tim Burton’s gothic sensibilities are unleashed in their purest form to date in his latest film, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. An adaptation of the groundbreaking and notorious Stephen Sondheim stage show, it’s an unlikely yet effective mixture of musical and horror film, replete with terrific numbers and gallons of blood.

For a while, Burton seemed to have lightened up his act with films like Big Fish and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. However, Sweeney Todd is a return to the darkness of Sleepy Hollow, and from a purely artistic standpoint, a thunderously good one.

For those unfamiliar with the plot, barber Benjamin Barker (Johnny Depp) returns to Britain after being falsely imprisoned and deported, courtesy of corrupt judge Turpin (Alan Rickman), who stole his wife and daughter. Under the pseudonym Sweeney Todd, he opens a barber shop above a café run by Mrs Lovett (Helena Bonham Carter) and finds a unique and bizarre way to exact bloody revenge not just on Turpin but many others.

Some have criticised Depp in the lead role, saying a trained singer ought to have taken the part, but I disagree. Even though he sounds suspiciously like David Bowie and occasionally gets the wrong note, his performance is so passionately theatrical it simply doesn’t matter. It works in the same way Woody Allen’s Everyone says I love you musical did, because as in that film, its about the passion of the singing, rather than hitting every note perfectly. Elsewhere, Helena Bonham Carter, Alan Rickman, Timothy Spall, and even Sacha Baron Cohen provide good support.

John Logan’s screenplay radically alters and/or cuts much of the stage version, but to good effect. The art direction and cinematography give new meaning to the term “gothic”, the musical orchestration is magnificent, and the whole twisted, utterly demented package is held together by Burton at the peak of his powers.

Alas, it is only from an artistic standpoint that I can commend Sweeney Todd. To complain about violence in such a stylised production seems churlish, yet for all its intended satirical black comedy (the wealthy metaphorically devour the poor, so why not literally devour them?) and pseudo-Shakespearean tragedy, Sweeney Todd still invites its audience to revel in buckets of blood and gore in a way that can hardly be defended as noble, lovely or true. In spite of its message on the futility of vengeance, the sight of Todd exacting his revenge is undeniably emotionally thrilling, and it is these feelings one is left with afterwards.

Therefore, in spite of its undoubted cinematic merits, I cannot in good conscience recommend Sweeney Todd.

Simon Dillon, January 2008.

I am a huge fan of Joel and Ethan Coen. With the unfortunate exception of their misjudged Ladykillers remake, every film they have made to date is a masterpiece. Their latest, No Country for Old Men, is so good that some critics have suggested it might finally win them a Best Picture Oscar, but frankly I have my doubts, given the Academy’s usual prejudice against genre fiction in the top prizes.

Based on the novel by Cormac McCarthy, the plot concerns a hunter Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin) who stumbles across the bloody aftermath of a drug deal that went wrong. Deciding to take the money and run, he later has an attack of conscience that causes him to return to the crime scene. This triggers a deadly pursuit between himself and psychopathic killer Anton Chigurh (a truly terrifying Javier Bardem), and eventually escalates into further tragedy that draws in local sheriff Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones) and Llewelyn’s wife Carla Jean (Kelly Macdonald).

The performances are uniformly superb. Josh Brolin is excellent as a determined man whose greed gets the better of him. Tommy Lee Jones provides the necessary humanity as he despairs at the apparently motiveless violence around him. Kelly Macdonald yet again proves that she deserves to be a major star (which I have thought ever since her superb debut in Trainspotting), and there are a number of memorable supporting roles and cameos, including one by Woody Harrelson.

But the film really belongs to Javier Bardem whose bone-chilling performance will unquestionably go down as one of cinema’s most memorably frightening killers. Everything from his unnerving presence to the way he never once raises his voice oozes menace, and every word he says puts the audience on the edge of its seat. He seems like a human terminator; above bribery, unable to be reasoned with and completely insane. But he is really more a symbol of the restless and seemingly random evil at loose in the world. This idea that bad events happen purely by chance is underscored by scenes where he tosses a coin and asks his would-be victims to call it, determining whether they live or die.

In No Country for Old Men, the Coen’s get back to basics, recalling their early classic Blood Simple. I’ve not read the book, but the brilliant, spare screenplay should almost certainly win the adaptation Oscar (the Academy are a bit less prejudiced when giving out writing awards). The stark, vivid landscapes are brilliantly photographed by cinematographer Roger Deakins, and Carter Burwell contributes an appropriately subdued music score.

Some of the Coen’s previous pictures (such as The Hudsucker Proxy and O Brother where art thou?) are quasi-Faustian allegories that contain characters symbolizing both God and Satan, and their struggle for the souls of men. However, in No Country for Old Men, they seem to buy into McCarthy’s despair at the apparent random cruelty of life, and his “stop-the-world-I-want-to-get-off” philosophy. The message in this film is that there is no God or justice, only a relentless and apparently motiveless evil taking the world to hell in a hand basket. The unconventionally abrupt ending (which I am informed the film shares with the book), underscores this belief, and is deliberately unsatisfying, which of course is the entire point and therefore dramatically correct. Are the Coens going through a mid-life crisis or have they genuinely lost their belief in human goodness and/or God?

Whatever soul-searching the Coen Brothers may or may not be doing, No Country for Old Men is an unremittingly bleak, nihilistic experience, tempered by a rich vein of dark humour. From a Christian point of view, it may be spiritually false, but it is also undeniably a superbly acted and utterly arresting piece of cinema, inevitably destined for masterpiece status. If you can take the bloody violence and are prepared for a very dark view of human existence, this couldn’t be more highly recommended.

Simon Dillon, January 2008.

Loosely based on real events, Charlie Wilson’s War tells of the eponymous Texan Congressman who covertly funded the Mujahideen in an attempt to help them overthrow the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan during the 1980’s. With a little help from the CIA, he managed this next to impossible task, securing a rapidly escalating budget from Congress and even convincing Israel to help their Arab neighbours.

This is not the first time director Mike Nichols has turned his attentions to war satire. He also directed the film version of Catch 22 back in 1970. However, unlike that unsatisfactory adaptation of a classic novel, this is a very accomplished re-imagining of true events so bizarre you couldn’t make them up. West Wing writer Aaron Sorkin’s screenplay is fast, foul-mouthed and funny, whilst not skimping on the complexities of the many inherent political and religious machinations.

Tom Hanks is very good in the lead role. The first time the audience sees Charlie Wilson, he is in a hot tub with strippers and cocaine, but is distracted by the television news concerning Afghanistan. This opening sequence immediately establishes his character as debauched but affable, hard-nosed yet possessing a reluctant, Oscar Schindler-type conscience. His womanising and drinking are counterbalanced by a loveable, cuddly quality that no doubt inspires the loyalty of the girls he hires to run his office. He’s a rather absurd, sexist, tactless figure, but somewhere inside, a spark of decency causes him to intervene and change the course of the Cold War.

Julia Roberts is equally good as right-wing Bible bashing Joanne Herring, a wealthy Texan heiress who inspires Charlie to act. Less good is Amy Adams as Charlie’s assistant Bonnie, simply because she is given little to do but stare admiringly at her employer and say yes every time he asks for something. However, Phillip Seymour Hoffman’s supporting turn as maverick CIA agent Gust Avrakatos more than makes up for this. He is consistently excellent – by turns angry, wise, wickedly funny, and as one would expect with the CIA, very practical in that he is more than ready to get his hands dirty in assisting Charlie. He even provides the moral voice of reason towards the end once the battle against the Russians has been won and Congress refuses to fund the rebuilding of the country.

Which brings me to what is arguably the film’s main flaw. The implied criticism of US foreign policy, both now and then, is perhaps not made clear enough and assumes a certain level of intelligence and historical knowledge on the part of the audience. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but I couldn’t help wanting the sting in the tail to be made clearer – that intervention in Afghanistan and the US’s subsequent refusal to deal with the mess they had created led directly to the birth of Al Queda and ultimately 9/11.

That said Charlie Wilson’s War is tight, entertaining and refreshingly unpreachy. It does contain a lot of swearing, some nudity, war violence/injuries and potentially offensive bad Christian stereotypes (ie right-wing hypocrites), but against that, it has a ring of authenticity amid the inevitable Hollywood gloss. It’s so absurd it has to be true.

Simon Dillon, January 2008.

Richard Matheson’s seminal science fiction horror novel I am Legend has previously been filmed twice, most notably with Charlton Heston in 1971’s The Omega Man. It isn’t the most obviously commercial source material, and yet this latest incarnation has been a surprise smash hit on both sides of the pond. There are three main reasons for this; superb marketing, Will Smith, and a third reason I will go into later in this review.

Smith plays scientist Robert Neville, apparently the only survivor of a lethal, man-made virus originally designed to cure cancer that killed most people and turned the survivors into vampire/zombie creatures. He has immunity to the virus, but spends his time in a deserted, overgrown New York City desperately trying to find a cure that will return the vampire/zombie creatures to their original human form, because he believes he is the last man on Earth. It is immediately apparent that Neville is starting to lose his mind when he tries to feed his dog vegetables as well as meat, talks to mannequins he has placed at key points around the city and watches television news and weather from years previously.

Will Smith does very well with a kind of performance that is not easy to pull off – better, I would argue, than Tom Hanks who tried to a similar trick in Castaway. Director Francis Lawrence helms with a modicum of style, and the screenplay maintains audience interest for the most part.

Where the film comes apart somewhat is in the sequences involving the vampire/zombies. Anyone who has seen 28 Days Later (or indeed any of the George A Romero zombie movies) knows people in make-up is the best way to go when creating such creatures. However, the filmmakers inexplicably decided to go for all CGI, and frankly the resultant monsters are completely unconvincing. This very poor artistic decision greatly hurts the film, especially as Francis Lawrence is otherwise adept and building shocks and suspense. In stark contrast to this, the best special effects are the ones the audience doesn’t notice, particularly the superb deserted overgrown New York cityscapes.

The third reason for I am Legend’s success is that from a Christian perspective, it is spiritually significant parable, possibly even a prophetic allegory. A global, book of Revelations type plague is not entirely outside the realms of possibility (many experts still believe a bird flu pandemic is an inevitability). Viewers are perhaps more inclined to suspend disbelief than they would have been thirty years ago, even though it is still obviously a Hollywood production.

SPOILER WARNING AHEAD: In spite of bleak subject matter, this film is ultimately optimistic about both the existence of God and his ability to ensure mankind is not destroyed. Effectively used flashbacks to the panic as the virus took hold show how Neville was once a man of Christian faith. But his faith was destroyed after the disaster. In the course of the film, he finds his views on the non-existence of God challenged, and his character has a similar arc to that of Mel Gibson’s former priest in Signs, with a similarly enigmatic twist that hints at a divine plan amid the despair. Furthermore, Neville’s ultimate sacrifice has Christ-like overtones.

As such, I am Legend, for all its flaws, is a cut-above average sci-fi flick with very positive, redemptive themes, although it will probably prove scary to those not accustomed to horror movies.

Simon Dillon, January 2008.