The Greatest Trick

I saw In Bruges expecting another violent, self-consciously hip swear-fest along similar lines to the works of Guy Ritchie, whose films I do not care for (even the bafflingly popular Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels). I was therefore pleasantly surprised to find that not only did it go some way to restore respectability to the term “British gangster film”, but it also made me want to visit Bruges. Until now my impression of Belgium was basically a big flat motorway with some service stations located on the way to more interesting countries. However, the use of locations in this film - beautiful medieval buildings, churches and so forth – made me want to pay another visit, especially at Christmas time.

The plot involves Irish gangster odd couple Ray (Colin Farrell) and Ken (Brendan Gleeson), who are sent by their boss Harry (Ralph Fiennes) to Bruges to hide out following a hit that went pear-shaped. They are supposed to lay low, but their trip is complicated by Ray’s involvement with small time drug dealer Chloe (Clemense Poesy), her amusingly inept boyfriend, and a racist dwarf who is acting in a bad movie inspired by Nic Roegg’s 1973 horror film Don’t Look Now.

Performances are all good, and Ralph Fiennes cockney accent was surprisingly convincing. Although In Bruges isn’t strictly a comedy, writer/director Martin McDonagh’s profane but blackly comical screenplay generates more laughs than most alleged comedies. The jokes are politically incorrect but hilarious. Gallows humour banter between Ray and Ken, endless gags about dwarfs and a stand out scene involving a fight Ray provokes with a Canadian will delight audiences with strong stomachs.

But despite the laughs, this has the feel of a classic tragedy, almost Shakespearean in construction. Occasionally recalling Carol Reed’s 1947 classic Odd Man Out, particularly in the final scenes, In Bruges falls short of greatness due to its reliance on co-incidence to drive the climax. But the mixture of pitch black comedy and gruesome violence doesn’t feel awkward, as it does in similar contemporary works (the afore-mentioned Guy Ritchie’s back catalogue for instance). In fact, In Bruges even has something to say, if not necessarily anything very profound, about the nature of sin, repentance and the possibility of redemption. Essentially it’s about a man struggling with the guilt of a terrible deed, and wrestling with whether or not he can change.

However, for most Christian audiences, no amount of pseudo-spiritual musings about life, death, heaven and hell will be able to offset the graphic bloody violence and very strong language (f-words and worse throughout more than earn its 18 certificate). Therefore, although I must guiltily confess to thoroughly enjoying the film, I recommend approaching with extreme caution.

Simon Dillon, April 2008.

Disney’s love affair with London (see Mary Poppins, Peter Pan, Bedknobs & Broomsticks etc.) lasted from the 1950s to, arguably, the 1980s (with Basil The Great Mouse Detective), and this entry, made in 1975 is largely throwaway, moderately amusing now I’m not a child, faintly racist but mostly harmless. My kids are watching it right now for the third time in as many days, which can’t be bad for a film of more than thirty years where everyone speaks in that quaint, Queen’s English jolly-hockey-sticks manner - but then my kids have resolutely NOT been raised on a diet of talking CG animals, with the exception of Nemo, so they’ve no reason to expect that kind of a film.

The plot is peculiar though - Lord Southmere (Derek Nimmo) returns to London from China having stolen a microfilm, and as soon as he re-enters the country is chased by Chinese spies (led by Hnup Wan - Peter Ustinov) to get it back. He resorts to hiding the film on a dinosaur in the Natural History Museum, and just before he is apprehended by the Chinese bumps into his former nanny (played with dignity and poise throughout by Helen Hayes) and her nanny friend, who he charges with finding the film and keeping it from the Chinese. When Wan decides to steal the dinosaur, the nannies get the jump on them, and take it off for a thrilling chase around London.

The aspect that sticks out like a mile now I’m an adult re-watching it is the fact that all the Chinese are played by Englishmen (Ustinov, Clive Revill, Bernard Bresslaw) in shocking amounts of make-up and very silly accents, especially Ustinov. Heidi and I wondered yesterday whether our parents were equally uncomfortable about it, but came to the conclusion that this actually possibly makes it less racist. If the jokes that are made at the expense of the Chinese and the silliness they get involved in were directed at genuine Chinese actors, it would be a great deal more uncomfortable - thankfully every adult watching knows this is a piece of monumental silliness (especially when it is revealed what is actually on the microfilm). And kids? Well, the setting, style and language of the film makes it so far removed from their reality that I don’t think one could accuse the film of promoting unhelpful attitudes towards the Chinese and have that accusation stand.

It’s fun and silly, harmless and good-hearted, and features some great music (which my kids are now dancing to while watching the DVD menu!). Great for the holidays.

Denzel Washington is one of those actors I can never decide about. Most of the time I think he is frustratingly worthy, choosing projects that I just don’t want to see. He also comes across as quite smug, and that is very off-putting. And then there’s Training Day and Man on Fire, both of which reveal a far more interesting range of acting requirements, and subsequently more interesting performances. This film, purporting to document the life of Rubin ‘Hurricane’ Carter, is sadly not one of these.

Carter is a middleweight fighter, presented as a kid from the wrong side of the tracks, unjustly treated by a racist police force and a justice system that was against him from the start. When he is accused of a triple murder in a bar in New Jersey, he goes to prison for the rest of his life, and while inside writes an autobiography. This book is subsequently picked up in the 80s by a young man, Lesra Martin, who identifies with Carter’s struggle and vows, with the help of his Canadian commune-dwelling educators (weird set-up that isn’t really explained at all), to get him out.

The movie is very uneven, at least 40 minutes too long, and really rather worthy. There are serious questions about the truth of what is presented (see the user comments on the IMDb page), though the film does admit on an opening title card that characters are composited and some events used with creative licence. Even so, about half way through I asked myself what the film was actually about. Was it a boxing movie, a prison movie, a movie about the power of the written word, or about racism? We get the majority of Carter’s story via the device of Martin reading his book, with a very irritating narrative voice-over, which just comes off as clunky exposition. When the film finally gets into the search for new evidence to help Carter in his trial, and becomes a courtroom drama, it develops some interest, but it’s far too late to resurrect audience enthusiasm.

Washington’s performance is right up there with the best of his ‘worthy’ ones, and it is clear that historically Carter’s fate was of some interest in a time of extreme social change (Bob Dylan’s song about him features strongly on the soundtrack, which is actually the strongest feature of the movie as a whole). One scene where the pressure of prison causes Carter’s mind to create three distinct personalities is impressive, but the story-telling is messy, and Washington can’t rise above a script which doesn’t actually give him much to do but pontificate for the last half of the film. As far as other performances go, Rod Steiger is the only one of any decent note (and he is fantastic), but John Hannah’s ‘Canadian’ accent is confusing, to say the least.

In terms of objectionable content, there is a fair amount of swearing, and clearly boxing and murders mean there is violence, but all this is contextually justified. The Empire magazine review calls the film ‘decent-minded and brilliantly-executed’; I might agree with the former (though basing the film more or less totally on one man’s autobiography doesn’t seem very balanced), but not the latter.

Many years ago, when I showed my younger brothers the 50’s sci-fi B-movie The Blob, it made a tremendous impact on their impressionable minds, and they promptly decided to produce their own hugely imaginative stage version. Son of Rambow (spelt “Rambow” to avoid copyright issues) has a similar premise: two boys decide to film their own version of Rambo after viewing a pirate video of First Blood (ie the original Rambo film, not the rubbish sequels). Whimsical, nostalgic and unashamedly sentimental, this will strike a chord with anyone who grew up in the 1980’s.

The friendship between these two very different boys forms the core of the film. Will is from a strict Plymouth Brethren background (an ultra-legalistic Christian group who don’t allow film, television or pop music). He befriends Lee, who is always in trouble at school, and the two of them form an unlikely bond as they set about producing their own version of the Sylvester Stallone classic.

Partly autobiographical in nature, the story is loosely based on childhood incidents from writer/director Garth Jennings. This is his second feature, and visually it draws heavily on his experience helming some of the sharpest pop videos of recent years (including Blur’s Coffee and TV). The many slapstick gags, amusing characters and increasingly dangerous stunts are executed to hilarious effect.

Performance wise, the two leads, Bill Milner (Will) and Will Poulter (Lee), are both completely convincing. They are ably supported by the likes of Zofia Brooks, Neil Dudgeon and other TV names. The cinematography and editing are slick, with great use of animation to illustrate Will’s fertile imagination. Obviously, no film of this nature would be complete without a cracking pop soundtrack, and the likes of Duran Duran, The Cure, Gary Numan and Depeche Mode are all used to good effect.

The narrative loses focus somewhat towards the end, and becomes increasingly improbable as virtually the whole school gets involved in the production. There are also some anachronisms that will be noticed by nit-pickers, since the film is set in 1982 and features at least two songs playing in the background that weren’t released until later. But in spite of these flaws, the film remains a warm and engaging experience, albeit one peppered with mild swearing. Lee in particular blasphemes a great deal, but this is true to his character, especially considering his background. Speaking of backgrounds, both Lee and Will have well developed back stories involving absent parents, and although this has become a storytelling cliché, it’s a cliché that’s used to good dramatic effect.

On a spiritual level, the film also provides a surprisingly penetrating insight into the crushingly oppressive nature of legalistic religion, especially when inflicted on innocent children. It would be inappropriate for me to tell my bizarre life story in what is supposed to be a film review, but having experienced something similar to what Will goes through in my own early childhood, the scenes where he was excluded from certain school activities brought up painful memories that can only be understood by those who have been through such things. Thankfully, like Will, I also had an awakening similar to his experience watching First Blood when the cultish church we attended collapsed and I was suddenly allowed to do all manner of things that had previously been prohibited. Colossians chapter 1 verse 16 says “All things were created by him and for him.” All things include film, television and pop music. Therefore, to say all film, television and pop music is wrong is to deny the Bible. These things are not evil in themselves, it depends whether they are used to promote good or evil. That is where legalistic denominations completely miss the point in their “everything fun is wrong” approach to life. The God I know simply isn’t like that.

Above all, this is a celebration of childhood innocence; a nostalgic portrayal of the 80’s how people of my age remember it. There are no discussions of Thatcherism or the Miner’s strike. Instead, it’s a wistful reminder of a bygone era where children were allowed to play outside, use their imaginations, and create amazing adventures for themselves. Son of Rambow is no masterpiece, but it’s so entertaining it’s impossible not to recommend, especially to people who remember tear-off ring-pull cans of Coke, hilarious 80’s fashions and expressions like “skill”.

Simon Dillon, April 2008.