Shoot 'Em Up (2007)

The other day I wrote about John Wick, which I ultimately find to be overrated, and compared it to Shoot 'Em Up.

I first saw it the year it came out, have seen it a couple of times on TV, and recently had watched it again. All this while it has stood the test of time, in my opinion.

The movie stars Clive Owen as Smith, a gruff assassin who finds himself in possession of and protecting a baby wanted by a master assassin played by Paul Giamatti. Along the way, he is helped by a prostitute played by Monica Bellucci who plays the role of wet nurse to the baby.

The movie is a black comedy film, but what I find endearing about Shoot 'Em Up is the tone of the comedy employed. It is funny, but not in a wisecracking, eye-winking way of Die Hard movies or more recently the Marvel superhero movies. The characters are all scowling serious, if dedicatedly over-the-top, but the situations they are put in and their actions give the movie its comedic charm.

A shoot out near a neon sign leads to this visual gag

And of course, the action too is commendable, and get more over the top and improbable, but always retaining its sense of warped humour, as the movie blazes to its conclusion, a gun battle while falling off a plane.

Why the movie wasn't received much better I don't know why.

The GOOD: Giamatti may not be the most obvious choice for the evil antagonist, but as the film's petulant, self-proclaimed genius villain with a double life as a family-oriented man, he really sells the role.

My VERDICT: I give it an 7/10

TRIVIA: As pointed out by the late Roger Ebert, one year prior to this film, Owen had starred in a movie as a man protecting a baby while being shot at throughout much of the film, Children of Men (2006).

Birdman (2014) and John Wick (2014)

Amidst the current glut of superhero movies, I took the time to watch two non-superhero movies that have been highly praised or won awards; Birdman and John Wick. However I found these two movies to be wanting.

Birdman: 

I heard about it because it won a lot of awards, including the Oscars. Funnily enough, the movie does concern superhero or superhero movies a bit, with Michael Keaton (from Tim Burton's Batman movies) playing a washed out former superhero movie star staging his big comeback by putting on a Broadway theater show. The movie's famous gimmick is that the whole movie appears uncut, as if it were one long take.

However, I was left feeling meh after the movie ended. I don't know whether the movie is pretentious or I am turning into an even bigger philistine. Perhaps it's the much-talked about ambiguous ending. The weird thing is, after I watched the movie, I went online to read the reviews (and make sense of the ending), and many of the reviews and reports made it like the movie is a comedy, which I found surprising. I never once got the feeling that the movie was a comedy while watching it, not even in the failing-to-be-funny sense.

TRIVIA: The three leads, Keaton, Edward Norton and Emma Stone had all starred in big-budget superhero movies, or played superheroes. Keaton as Batman, Norton as The Hulk in The Incredible Hulk (2008) and Stone as Gwen Stacy in the latest Spiderman movies.

John Wick:

I had come across this movie a lot while frequenting a forum. The forum users were full of praise for it, so I finally decided to check it out. It stars Keanu Reeves as a former hitman who is out to avenge his dog, which was killed in a home invasion by the son of his former mob boss. I was drawn to the movie because the forum users praised its action sequences.

However, just like Birdman, I was left feeling "...okay...?" when the credit started rolling. I really can't put my finger on it, but I was left not feeling satiated by the movie. And the action sequences are numerous, but they did not leave me amazed.

I was expecting something as dizzying as what has been shown in the latest Mad Max or by the revival of Mission Impossible. That may not be fair because the movie is not about a lone gunman shooting his way through disposable henchmen to find the boss, but there are movies which had done it right. One example is the little-known Shoot 'Em Up (2007), a self-aware, goofy, funny and satisfying romp between one gunfight to another.

Perhaps it's Keanu. I've not enjoyed anything with him since The Matrix, and in that movie his wooden acting works, in portraying an outsider who is revealed the mind-blowing truth, and constantly trying to make sense of it.

The same thing had also happened to me with an almost similar movie; Dredd (2012). Same plot, same forum users talking a movie up, same outcome. That forum has really got to start weeding out movie studio shills from their users database.

My VERDICT: I rate both these movies 6/10.

Interstellar (2014): or how I learned to suspend my disbelief and love movies

I've always been a big fan of Christopher Nolan, ever since Memento, which was among the earliest movie I reviewed here. Batman Begins, The Dark Knight and The Prestige are also in my list of personal favourites, and that is due to one reason; the motivation of the characters in those movies are believable. Things don't happen just so that the plot can be advanced. I've also written about this. To a certain extent, I've also adopted the same notion in other mediums of art I enjoy, that's why I consider HBO's The Wire as my favourite TV show of all time, and enjoy George RR Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire fantasy novel series; the characters are calculating and they do not make decisions that make the viewers/readers question the validity. These Nolan movies left me thinking about them a few days afterwards, trying to poke holes and find inconsistencies in them. Usually when I found one (Batman won't kill bad guys, but letting Ras Al Ghul plunge to his apparent death on the runaway train is ok?), it did not matter much because they are just minor things and they are overwhelmed by just how enjoyable the rest of the movie is.

(By the way, the reason Gandalf and the Fellowhip do not take the Eagles from the very beginning is because there are Nazguls and dragons.)

This means that it often detracts my enjoyment of certain movies. I do understand that works of art often need to take certain liberties with things such as realism, physics and politics and employ fantastical elements, but I've become too eager to pick holes in said movies. Let's take the example of those Marvel superhero movies. I do enjoy them, but only to a certain extent. I can't get past why Iron Man only needs his basic suit to take out hordes of Chitauri spacecrafts, but needs to wear another armour over his basic armour in order to take on Hulk. That's why I don't really care for Thor, because his movies sit in the magical realm, although they do try to explain it away as very advanced science, which to our relatively primitive civilisation, appears magical.

That's not to say I'm a total logic monster. When it comes to watching comedies and musicals, I am more pliant. My shield just goes up when I watch drama, thriller or any 'serious' movies.

And that is why I didn't mention his other movies above; The Dark Knight Rises and the very popular Inception. I was massively disappointed with TDKR, because there are just so many plot holes in it. Gordon brings his confession note everywhere, later conveniently found by Bane who uses it to demotivate the city residents? Batman simply believes a female criminal who dresses up like a cat, who then walks him right into Bane's trap? Almost all of Gotham's police force is taken to conduct a raid, only to be trapped underground, leaving the city defenseless, and when they are eventually released, they confront Bane's thugs in hand-to-hand combat, in broad daylight? How the hell did Batman manage to get back to Gotham, and sneak into the isolated and barricaded city? If I found more holes, the movie would turn into a documentary about cheese instead.

Whereas with Inception, the problem is not so much with the plot, which I think was more or less watertight for a movie with its scope, but with me not being able to enjoy it. It was just 'meh'. I didn't go home trying to work out what the inconsistencies were.

Naturally, when Nolan's latest movie, Interstellar was announced, I was equal parts excited and wary. It did look exciting with a hefty science fiction subject matter that involves space travel and time, but movies that employ these two usually end up with numerous plot holes. I wondered whether this movie would go the same route as TDKR. Maybe TDKR and Inception were not glitches.

[SPOILERS] After watching Interstellar last week, my take on it is that it does have a few plot holes: the sudden inability of a smart physicist in calculating the time dilation on the first planet, how Cooper manages to come through the other side of the black hole, that sudden talk about love nonsense, how Murphy manages to convince her very angry brother that their father is actually talking to her from wherever he is, and who are 'they' actually?

However, I think this is the first time whereby plot holes in a movie does not affect my enjoyment of it. I thoroughly enjoyed every second of it, and it convinced me that the holes are necessary for me to enjoy it. I cried three times at least, and it made me feel the vastness of our universe and comparatively, how infinitesimal we are.

Interstellar also reminded me again how a movie can use the fantastic to make us forget the world beyond the four walls of the cinema, for the duration of the movie. Just like his earliest movies, I spent the following day just asking questions about the movie's plot, and I did find a few things (which I raised above), but they ultimately don't matter. It managed to sweep me to a different state of mind.

I'm not gonna review the movie because I'm sure other people have done it better than I can. But you should go watch it, the visuals are impressive, the plot arresting and best off all, all this is used to speak about the bigger picture; humanity. The science fiction elements are merely vehicle to tell the story of humanity and our place in the universe.

The GOOD: Bittersweet and heartbreaking theme, beautiful visuals, brilliant execution, spot-on performance, and TARS.
The BAD: That hammy love vs science speech that comes out of nowhere, repeated quoting of Dylan Thomas' "Do not go gentle into that good night".

My VERDICT: 8/10. Far from perfect, but highly enjoyable and mindblowing in more ways than one.

TRIVIA: Matthew Mcconaughey once starred in another movie about interstellar travel, Contact (1997) as a priest.

Four Lions (2010)

It's been awhile since I last watched this black comedy, so the details are a bit sketchy. But I remember it being hilarious. It's a bit of a sleeper hit, so I think this qualifies for my blog. Furthermore, since the whole issue of ISIS has cropped up, I think the subject is relevant to the viewing public.

Four Lions is about a bunch of radicalised British Muslims who decide to commit their own terror plan in Sheffield, England. The thing is, they are so inept at it that they constantly botch up their plans. Think of the Three Stooges, but instead of poking each other's eye out, they behead each other. Those plans include coming up with threatening videos, going to Pakistan to undergo terror camp, and trying to decide on a worthwhile target to bomb.

Trailer. Hilarious, bro.

The way the movie works is like it's a series of comedy skits featuring the four main characters, who unfortunately are not the sharpest tools in the shed. They constantly bicker with each other, and at times endanger themselves more than society, through their sheer buffoonery. In portraying them as clueless, I think the director essentially humanises the terrorists, and not necessarily in a bad way. Too often evil people are portrayed (in real life as well as on the screen) as completely heartless, when most of them undergo logical progression of thought that normal people have now and then. And now with ISIS, they are often portrayed in the news as total plonkers who can't tell the pointy end of the knife that they use to behead people, which underestimates their actual danger to society, when in reality it is relatively easy for a determined idiot to wreak havoc among the innocent.

The GOOD: Unlike most black comedy, which sacrifices the humour in the later half of the film for drama, Four Lions retains its humour until the chilling end.

My VERDICT: I give it an 8/10

TRIVIA: There's a cameo by pre-Hollywood fame Benedict Cumberbatch.

Recent movies round up

It's been awhile since I watched an underrated movie that I like, so this time I'll just do a brief roundup of the recent movies I watched. It's blockbuster season again, and we welcome back cinematic explosions and men in tights.

My limited time now means that whatever entertainment I indulge in, I have to make sure that the enjoyment is guaranteed, that means I can ill afford to experiment with my movies and have to watch the well-rated mainstream ones. That's also why I'm still single, I mean committing to a woman does not guarantee success these days heheh.

1) Godzilla (2014)

When I first learned about this movie, I went "Really? But why?" and did not think much about it. The 1998 Roland Emmerich version is forgettable, even if slightly enjoyable, so I wondered why another adaptation was deemed necessary. But when the Asian trailer came out, it showed another monster and I decided I had to watch it, as that has to mean that Godzilla is not the antagonist, like the role he plays in the 1998 version. But I did wonder, as to why they revealed the inclusion of the winged monster (Muto) in that trailer.

I cannot answer that without spoiling it for you, but suffice for me to say that this is the strength of the movie, minor plot twists throughout the movie. Enough to get you surprised, but not to make it the focus of the movie without them feeling ham-fisted. 

The director took something that could be straight forward and unmemorable in the hands of lesser directors, and made the movie stand out. And Bryan Cranston's casting made the human element of the monster movie better. And I'm not a fan of the Japanese Godzilla, but other Internet users say that this version is more accurate to the original character. My only gripe is that there is not enough monster battle, something that I share with many other viewers. However, I concur that something as awe-inspiring as the sight of two monsters levelling San Francisco must be shown in moderation, or the excess will detract from the experience. Godzilla gets a 8/10 from me.

2) Edge of Tomorrow

I just watched this science fiction flick yesterday, and it was an enjoyable experience. It's nothing to shout about, but it's good nonetheless. A soldier, played by Tom Cruise, who is forcefully-conscripted to fight in an alien invasion finds himself reliving the same day over and over again every time he dies, which means that he is able to train himself and learn about the true nature of the aliens, with the help of a war hero played by a blonde Emily Blunt. So it's like a combination of Starship Troopers, Groundhog Day and the first 30 minutes of Saving Private Ryan.

The effects are cool, the plot okay and the chemistry between Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt is believable. The best part of the movie is when the point of view unknowingly shifts from Tom Cruise's character to Emily Blunt's, so the viewers are left wondering whether what is happening on the screen is happening for the first time or it has happened before to him. I give it a 7/10 too. By the way this movie is originally from a Japanese teen novel titled 'All You Need is Kill'. P/S: I would shamelessly ignore the war effort and die repeatedly if that means being greeted by a stretching Emily Blunt every time. Watch it and you'll understand.

3) X-Men: Days of Future Past

Admittedly, after the suck-fest that was X-Men 3 I would have given DOFP a miss. But First Class sort of revived the franchise so I gave DOFP a chance, although I was still reluctant that the inclusion of the previous franchise's cast would bring along the bloated-ness associated with it, and with Hugh Jackman's Wolverine. I was glad that aside from being an enjoyable movie, DOFP is also able to do something else important to the franchise, ret-con it and open a new chapter for movie X-Men. 

Now if you're not familiar with comic books, to ret-con something means to change the history of a character, to give it a clean slate. This happens a lot, especially with long-running and famous characters. It is understandable, after all after 50, 60 years of publication, there is not much wiggle room left from which to advance the plot. Sometimes it is done casually without much explanation given as to the changes minor or major, a lot of times some supernatural of pseudo-science reasons are given such as time-travel, ripples in the space-time continuum, or magic. It's a bit silly, sure, but still necessary for the longevity of the character and the comic book medium itself. The most recent one is the retconning of the DC Comics universe, now dubbed the New-52.

This is what happens in DOFP. In the future, mutants are hunted by shape-sifting robots Sentinels, and Professor X (Patrick Stewart), Magneto (Ian Mckellen) band together with Kitty Pride, Storm and Blink to send Wolverine back through time to stop an event which brought about the creation of the Sentinels, and eventual the destruction of mutants. In the 1970's Wolverine finds Professor X and Magneto's younger selves to enlist their help in stopping the event.

I love this movie on account of them embracing ret-conning as a tool in their storytelling, much like in the comic books. And they utilise it well, as a lot of times when it is employed in the comics, the writers are criticised for the decision by the readers. Without going into too much detail, in DOFP it is part of the story via time-travel, and it also erases the bloated X2 and X3 from the equation. Furthermore, it also buries the whole humans-are-afraid-of-mutants plot that has always been the main source of conflict in the franchise. There are only so many times that that story can be told. It will be replaced by a new big bad altogether, so please stay until the final credit. DOFP gets a 7/10 from me.

Death Race (2008)

Hey everyone. Apologies, long hiatus, work, etc, etc, etc. Now that's out of the way, let's get down to business. I don't know whether I give off the art-house, elitist aficionado vibe, but I do enjoy straight-to-the-point action movies. Nothing wrong with them, but I think the biggest mistake that these kinds of movies make is taking themselves too seriously.

This is why I like Death Race (2008), starring Jason Statham as Jason Statham. OK I jest, but seriously, dude plays himself in all his movies. Anyway, he plays a wrongfully-accused convict in a depression-era near future, who is sent to prison for the crime of murdering his wife. He is then made to take part in a violent car race with the other convicts that is televised to the whole world by the prison warden, in order to gain his freedom and be reunited with his daughter.

I mean that's the gist of it. I don't want to tell you more, because it's a movie about a violent car race. You have to see it for yourselves. Think 18SG Speed Racer. 

What I really like about the movie is that the director Paul W. S. Anderson, understands that it is an action movie and gets straight down to business. You can scarcely catch your breath before the carpet is wrung from underneath you and you're thrown into another action sequence. The movie knows its lead is an actor with the acting chops of a dinner table, so it does not try to veer into dramatic scenes for long. It's one car race scene after another. Come to think of it, it could be that the pacing was a necessity after all, and not an artistic decision.

Which is why I can't stand the Fast and Furious franchise. It's also about dudes who race cars (or used to be), but they always make it melodramatic. "You're my best friend, how could you betray me?!" "How could you pretend you were dead all this while we grieved for you?!" Shut your pie hole, Vinnie D.

I remember thinking to myself right after the credit starts rolling: "Hmm, that was...efficient." The busier I get these days, and the less time I have to watch movies I have, the more I think that more movies should be like this. If they know that they are no Inception or A Few Good Men, be quick about it and show us the good bits. Enough talking and DEFINITELY no crying please. No way they're gonna really convince us that the giant space-faring robots are TOTALLY GOING TO DESTROY EARF, GUIZZZE, we can't really relate to the threat on the life of the US president that is posed by the Muslim but suspiciously multi-racial looking terrorists, and yeah you paid too much for the lead actress so now you have to shoehorn her naked quivering form into an awkward love scene to make it worth it.

Intro set piece, exposition, car chase, final exposition, second set piece, plot twist, final set piece, boom! Movie's over in under 90 minutes, $100 mil in worldwide collection, 55-65 rating on Metacritic. That's how it should be done.

The GOOD: Enjoyable for an action movie, and does not overstay its welcome with our attention.

My VERDICT: 7/10. Knows what it's supposed to do, and does it well.

TRIVIA: This movie is actually a remake of Death Race 2000 (1975), starring David Carradine and Sylvester Stallone.

I want good character-motivation

After all these years, I've only watched Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon last night. The movie is great, the cinematography beautiful, and the action scenes are simply mindblowing, especially the fight scene on the bamboo plants. However, what makes it brilliant is how the director; Ang Lee uses all those kung fu and action scenes to tell a very poignant story about what essentially are very human desires and longing. But I'm not writing today to review this movie. After all it's rather accessible, and a lot of reviews have been written about it. That's not what I intend to do in this blog.

I want to talk about a notion that I have always had, that I think was finally confirmed upon watching Crouching Tiger. I have my own list of what I consider my personal favourites, and I've always thought that they share one similarity; believable character motivation that is propelled by believable emotions. What are these movies? Saving Private Ryan, Lord of the Rings, Memento, Batman Begins, The Matrix, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Songlap. I know, these are quite popular movies, nothing too art-housey nor obscure. I'm not gonna lie, I enjoy watching giant robots punch each other to pieces, and digital messiahs stop bullets with a wave of his hand in blockbuster movies as much as the next guy. But for these movies to transcend their status as mere explosion-fests, to attain immortality and occupy their place as my favourites, takes a lot more. And that is their strong emotional core. This essentially means that in these movies, the characters' actions are motivated by the sort of feelings that are relatable to the audience. Whatever the actions taken by them on the screen are, they make us go "I guess I'd put on a bat costume, leap off buildings, and bash criminals' heads in too, if I were a billionaire whose parents were murdered by a mugger". Let's begin with...'Batman Begins', haha. 

It would be too far a leap if the story has Bruce Wayne put on a bat costume to fight crime straightaway, but the story gains legitimacy by having him try to exact revenge on his parents' murderer first. And the movie (or the source material, I don't read a lot of comic books) then has it that someone else gets to the murderer first, depriving him of that one thing that he thinks is going to let him sleep more peacefully at night. And then his childhood sweetheart gets disappointed at him for wanting to exact revenge, saying that his dead parents would be equally disappointed of him. He's a boy whose parents will not be there anymore to comfort when he has nightmares, and his only chance at some semblance of happiness or satisfaction is taken away from him. On top of that, his girlfriend is upset at him. He's all alone in this world. ONLY THEN the batsuit, batmobile, and gadgets feature in the movies. 

And even then the movie doesn't ditch its emotional core. He becomes Batman at night to ensure that no one has to suffer what he had gone through, but far from it being done just out of selflessness, he also does it out of a very personal need to silence the screams of his murdered parents that he hears every night (comic book fans have said that Batman is actually just as crazy as the villains he battles). What's worse is at the end, upon defeating his enemies and revealing to his sweetheart that he is Batman; she rebuffs him, saying that the boy she knew never came back from his soul-searching sojourn halfway across the world, instead in his place now is a man whose sole interest is fighting crimes with his various bat-themed gadgets. He is still all alone, save for the company of his loyal butler.

Yeah, yeah I know. I can be a bit obsessive about Batman and Nolan.

How about Saving Private Ryan? At the end, the mild-mannered squad captain, played by Tom Hanks (he doesn't play any other kind of character, does he?) reveals that he willingly risks his life to take up the job of rescuing Private Ryan's life in order to atone for the killings he has committed throughout the war, in order to 'deserve' coming back home to his wife and previous life. And he also tells Ryan to "earn" being rescued at the cost of the squad's lives, after his tour of duty ends. These are all very real motivations that the audience can relate to.

In Memento (another Nolan fare), Leonard the amnesiac protagonist goes around looking for his wife's murderer despite his handicap, not just for revenge, but also to fill the void in his now empty life, and the ending of the movie makes this need even more apparent.

In the Lord of the Rings, why does Frodo make the perilous journey to Mt Doom to destroy his uncle's ring? It's definitely not because he wants to save the Shire, or protect Middle-Earth. He is just one of the Hobbits, a race who is insequential in the wars and history of the bigger and more noble races of Middle-Earth. It is because he has been told by Gandalf that Sauron and his agents will keep coming for him for as long the ring is in his possession, putting his own life in constant mortal danger. All the big talks about loyalty, responsibility, duty and sacrifice in the trilogy come from Sam, Gandalf and Aragorn, if you pay close attention.

How about in 'Eternal Sunshine'? Without revealing too much, it's not just about a guy who loses his love, but it's about not wanting to let go of the memory of that love, even the bad times.

These are all very relatable emotions that are not easy cop outs in any movie. I mean the desire for revenge at a loved one's death is not too far-fetched, but how often do we go on bullet-spraying vendettas after a family member dies after being hit by a drunk driver in real life? Sure, in most movies true love waits or stands outside the room with a boombox (or stalks behind the bushes with a meat cleaver in horror movies), but in real life we just find ourselves a new partner sooner or later, no matter how painful the heartbreak is initially. These are not very relatable emotions that inspire credible motivations for the audience to start suspending their disbelief.

Don't get me wrong. I concur that movies are ultimately just our escape from reality, but for me, that flight into fantasy must be grounded in reality at its heart, if a movie wants to be really great. Think of CGI, they say that it's just a tool in the arsenal of a great movie-maker, but it must never supersede or replace good storytelling itself. The same can be said about character emotions and motivations. You can make a cerebral thriller that twists and turns unexpectedly at every corner to enthrall the audience, but if you don't give the hero a relatable motivation, it will end up just a good movie, not great. All the actions taken in the thriller are just there to advance the plot.

In the case of Crouching Tiger, I love how the imaginative fight sequences are just the icing on a well-written cake of a movie that's peopled by characters that are simply looking for their own happiness, after having distanced themselves from the affection of another human being after all these years due to honour and self-sacrifice.

To further solidify my point, I'll take the example of another Batman movie that was also directed by Nolan; 'The Dark Knight'. It is essentially structured as a caper story, and a pretty smart one at that. It is a great movie, but it is not one of my personal favourites. Why? It's because I feel that it loses some of its emotional core, and instead of being driven by character flaws as in Begins, Dark Knight is advanced by idealism and stoicism. For me, that's not real and it doesn't grip my emotions. I think realistically, we as humans are more weak in character than we are strong, and from our smallest and most mundane daily actions, to our civilisation, are shaped and motivated by our weaknesses as very emotional creatures, instead of our courage and selflessness.

However, I admit that some movies, such is in the case of the Matrix, are simply great because of their inventiveness, the cool factor. Keanu Reeves is the last guy you'd approach to play characters with emotional depth and nuance; and I sure as hell wasn't emotionally affected when I watched the Matrix. The bullet-time, shades, trench-coats, wire-fu in the movie are very imaginative and cool to the point that it's in my personal list without even having to appeal to my emotions. But it's a rarity. I still want good character motivation.

Buried (2010)

I do try to watch movies that are unusual from time to time, and this one's pretty unusual for me. Buried stars Ryan Reynolds and, errrr, that's it. It's just him. He's the only actor in the whole movie. You don't see anybody else. Now you know why I call this a quite unusual movie. And not only there's only one actor throughout the whole movie, the movie only takes place in a coffin. Ryan Reynolds plays an American contractor in Iraq who is captured by terrorists and buried under the sand in a coffin, with only a handphone to gather the ransom money with.

Now a movie with only one actor that takes place in only one very small space might not sound interesting to you, especially if you're essentially trapped there with Ryan Reynolds, but his style of acting works well here. It's slightly light-hearted at times, which propels the plot forward better than if a more dramatic actor were cast in his role. No one wants to watch a guy mope or scream into the phone for one and a half hour, right? Reynolds carries the movie himself quite brilliantly, something that he doesn't showcase quite often in his other movies, and he is also aided by skillful pacing by the director and editor. They ultimately succeed in thrilling and sustaining the audience's interest, despite it being a movie with only one actor and location.

My VERDICT: this movie is a 7/10

TRIVIA: despite the fact that only one actor is seen on-screen, a number of actors are listed in the credit section. They voice the characters called by Reynolds on his handphone.

Chow Kit (2012)

Apa khabar? How have you been doing? It has been quite sometime since I last reviewed a Malaysian movie so that's what I want to do in this post, and I think you will all be pleased that today I'm going to review a movie that had just come out in the cinemas recently, around two months ago, instead of my usual fares of flicks that are more older. 

I find it odd that most of the movies that I have reviewed in this blog are the ones that I watched through random encounters such as from channel surfing on Astro, and my encounter with this movie occurred from an almost similar happenstance. I was out with my friends, and they had wanted to rewatch The Avengers. But upon arriving at the cinema, we found out that the tickets for all the showings for the rest of that day was out. Disappointed, we decided to watch another movie instead. Going through the listing, we saw the a movie titled 'Chow Kit' and decided that that's the movie we wanted to watch. Not much logic behind the call, I know, but I have an inkling that it was because of the place that the movie is set in (Chow Kit is an area which is considered to be the seedy underbelly of  KL), they might have thought it was one of those gangster movies in the vein of KL Gangster and KL Drift. Not my cup of tea, of course, but I was too tired to protest and the rest of the movies available sucked. And if I had to watch a lousy movie, I'd rather my RM 10 goes to local moviemakers.

So we went inside, and the movie started. And wow, was I surprised from the opening shots! It opened with  a cold opener of a group of children chasing a man with two by fours along the dilapidated store fronts of Chow Kit, and then into the dingy backalleys. They finally have him surrounded, but the man takes out a gun and shoots one of them in the arm. The leader of the pack drops him with a whack, and they all viciously pounced on him with their planks and by good ol' stomp on the head. It is a very visceral scene that also makes the audience wonder about the events leading up to it, and the opener effectively jolts the audience into the realisation that 'Chow Kit' is not like anything that they have seen from any other Malaysian film makers. 

The plot itself is unusual in that it deals with a subsection of the Malaysian society that is rarely featured on film; the seedy underbelly of Kuala Lumpur, drug addicts and dealers, transvestites, prostitutes and pimps and also the unfortunate children of the prostitutes. And when I say rarely featured, I mean featured in a realistic, kitchen-sink manner without glorifying nor condemning them. 

The movie itself is actually two separate stories with the  first story showing the daily lives of a group of the above-mentioned children of prostitutes, their endeavours to find money, and their reaction when one of them, the only female member in the gang, is sexually-assaulted by her mother's boyfriend. The other story concerns two friends; one a recent former convict and gangster, the other a snatch thief, who are looking to score a last payout before leaving the criminal world and to help the latter pay for his mother's surgery. But as the poet Robert Blake wrote, "the best laid schemes of mice and men go often awry" so do the two friends' plan. They are repeatedly double-crossed by the people they deal with, and their predicament keeps escalating; taking them further away from that last payout and putting their lives in danger. The two stories are only connected by the appearance of a number of characters.

Now what I love about this movie is the realism with which the the movie is presented. Malaysian films are reliant on the need to fluff them up, be it with cringe-worthy humour and comic relief, an unnecessary love interest, far-fetched drama or tear-jerker moments; which I find cheap and hammy. That is why I find it refreshing to watch a Malaysian movie that eschews all these to portray things as they are and to just simply let the audience decide for themselves what to feel. And in most of the scenes, I was left not knowing what exactly to feel, even in the more touching scenes. After all, the characters are not exactly blameless for the predicaments that they get into; they are prostitutes and criminals. That the film is successful in producing these layers of reactions and emotions is a testament to the makers' refusal to cheapen the movie by dumbing it down, and also to the depth of the writing.

Another aspect to this realism that I find refreshing is with the dialogue. Now let me just tell you a little bit about my experience as a cinephile. When watching Hollywood and foreign movies alike with adult language, I had wondered to myself whether this sort of thing is ever going to happen in a Malaysian movie. Not that I am glorifying crass and want swear words to be heard in every other line, but purely for the fact that I think it more accurately mirrors the society's speech. Let's not kid ourselves, almost everyone swear when talking nowadays, and so do I. And not just the swearing, I'm also talking about the register of our daily speech. In short, I find the dialogue in Malaysian movies; specifically Malay movies, unrealistic, as if the movies are written by non-native Bahasa Melayu speakers. Anyway, to get back to my point, I had always thought that swearing in our movies is not going to happen in my lifetime. I mean, our damned politicians banned a documentary, for God's sake. That's what you get for letting people who have no interest and knowledge in arts and film regulate any artistic branches. 

So understand my amusement and bewilderment when the first cussing was uttered in the movie; "Babi lah kau". Now you might wonder what the hell I'm giggling like a school girl for; it's just a swear word. I was kind of shocked because that line, I repeat, the first curse to be spoken by any of the characters in the movie, was uttered by one of the prostitutes' children to his playground enemy. Yup, we went straight from the text-book dialogue in our movies to children swearing in them in just one movie. The adults didn't even get a chance. It's as if a human civilisation, which has no mode of vehicular transportation, were to suddenly invent a rocketship within the duration of one lazy weekend. That's why I was really amused. Fortunately the adult characters get their fair share of swearing in the movie later, and swearing is not something that I'm not used to everyday, to actually see and hear it in a Malaysian movie is something that I was strangely proud of, in the sense that there are Malaysian film makers who want to embrace realism in their movies, instead of shying away from it and covering it with fluff.

Still on the topic of realism, this movie is also realistic in its steely portrayal of the seedy underbelly of society. To make it easier, I'll just list down most of the criminal activities that are portrayed in this movie:

- incest, sexual act and prostitution

- child rape (one of the most graphic scenes of the movie)

- drug and alcohol use

- theft and snatch-theft

- drug deals

- physical violence

- oh, there's also a severed head thrown in for good measure

I repeat, although it is quite a long list, they are not in anyway portrayed in a manner that glorifies them. The audience is simply presented with them, and it is the audience alone who should decide what to feel about them. Kudos to the filmmakers for treating us like adults who are able to think for ourselves, for a change.

Which brings me to my next point, how on earth did they sneak this movie past the censorship board?! I am simply amazed at their audacity in getting it into Malaysian movie cinemas, risking their careers and reputation so we can enjoy it. I can't imagine the furore and the pitchfork carrying frenzy the Malaysian society will get into, upon learning that a movie about this underground subsection of the society has been released. The demonstrations, the holier-than-thou Facebook status posts calling for all devout Muslims to boycott this movie, the politicians chiming in to make sure that they are seen as morally righteous by their potential voters. All without having once seen the movie. I shudder at the thought. Or maybe FINAS themselves have adapted to the times and current movie-goers' matured sensitivity and I have simply given them too little credit. After all, the musical 'The Producers' (2005) was shown uncut in Malaysian cinemas despite its overt portrayal of gay men, and that was seven years ago.

However, what happened was the complete opposite of getting the attention of the public, even the negative kind. I talked to a friend who had talked to 'Chow Kit's' producers and the people involved in the making, and he told me that the movie did not make profit. The usual course of action when learning that yet another good Malaysian movie has finished its theatrical run barely noticed by Malaysian movie-goers is to criticise them for ignoring a gem in favour of frivolous comedy or romance movies, but for 'Chow Kit', I'm gonna cut the usual suspects a slack. Prior to going to the cinema with my friends, I had known literally nothing whatsoever about it, which is unusual for me. At the very least, I would learn of the title and the main actors of any recent Malaysian Malay movies from simply being around people and listening to them talking or through the internet, even if I have no intention of catching these movies. But not 'Chow Kit', not a word nor a squeak, which means the movie lacked promotion. I wonder what's up with this. I know that it did not have a sizeable production budget which means that its promotional  budget might have been even more miniscule, but these days you need promotion to ensure the success of any project intended for an audience, and although promotional and advertising works cost money, you need to spend money to make even more money. Could it be that they avoided promoting it to avoid attracting unwanted attention, the kind I mentioned above? Who knows. I hope they are going to get the movie on DVD so I can get a copy for my movie collection.

The GOOD: 

- the lead child actor is wonderful. Brooding and quite handsome. Hopefully he stays in the industry when he grows up

The BAD: sometimes the low-budget makes the more technically challenging to shoot scenes look laughable, like the Mexican stand-off scene

My VERDICT: this movie gets a 7.5/10
TRIVIA: The soundtrack to this movie is composed by Butterfingers' Loque. Maybe that's where their promotional budget went to?

Seraphim Falls (2006)

Today we’re gonna take a look at a movie of a genre that I’ve never discussed before; western. I don’t know why, but despite its popularity, the western genre has never really caught on with me. I remember watching Clint Eastwood’s ‘Unforgiven’ after reading a lot of rave reviews for it, but I was left feeling unimpressed after the credit rolled. I have always chalked this failure to appreciate westerns down to cultural differences, since I’m not American.

However I’ve had the pleasure of watching this little-known western movie which I thoroughly enjoyed; ‘Seraphim Falls” on satellite TV. It stars two of the most solid male actors of their generation; Liam Neeson and former James Bond; Pierce Brosnan in a story about a former Confederate colonel (Neeson) who doggedly hunts and tracks down a Union general (Brosnan) after the end of the American Civil War to exact revenge. Brosnan and Neeson’s performance together is what drives this otherwise sparse and lonely movie. Now I say sparse and lonely in a good way, as their characters obsessively try to outsmart, evade and track down each other by slinking away into the farthest and darkest reaches of 19th century America.

The director of this movie; David von Ancken plies his trade mostly in the TV industry, having directed a number of ‘CSI:NY’ episodes, the David Duchovny vehicle ‘Californication’ and also ‘The Vampire Diaries’. It’s great that he shows adept skills in making the transition from the small screen to the silver screen. Plus it’s not everyday that you get to work with Liam Neeson and Pierce Brosnan for your first movie. The movie presents to the viewers the loneliness that is faced by someone who is obsessed about anything as he foregoes all logic and reason to pursue his purpose in life, as exemplified by Neeson’s character. This movie could be yet just another revenge movie, but for the untamed beauty of the movie’s setting and the cinematography work with which the director used to capture this beauty.

So if you can, do catch this movie. It’s not awfully remarkable or anything like that, but it delivers its promises and the acting is top notch.

The GOOD:
- The performance of the two leads is very good, feeding off and working from each other.
The BAD:
- The ending might be a little too open-ended for some. But pay attention to the lady who sells the snake oil and you’ll get it.
My VERDICT: I give ‘Seraphim Falls’ a 7.5/10
TRIVIA: Although the two lead characters are Americans, they are both played by non-Americans.

Valhalla Rising (2009)

Hello imaginary readers. It's been awhile since I posted in this blog. Have been busy. I got myself a job (because even movie reviewers need money to eat, they don't simply subsist on sarcasm and sass) and a lot of other stuff. Well let's get straight to the point. Fortunately in my hectic schedule I still found time to watch movies so here is my review of the movie 'Valhalla Rising' which came out in 2009. This movie was directed by Nicolas Winding Refn and features Mads Mikkelsen as the main character One Eye; a laconic Viking warrior who follows a group of Crusaders who are on their way to the Holy Land.

Well to be honest, I was expecting a typical Viking movie with the whole plunder and pillage and the works that usually come with with movies which include Vikings. But boy was I wrong. This movie is quite slow and pays equal importance to the dialogue. But when it happens, boy it is violence, glorious violence. You get disembowelment, decapitation, impaling, eye-gouging, you name it, it has it. Which sort of explains the need for the slow pacing. You're all bored and yawning for something to please happen already, and then the pace picks up in a crescendo and you know some guy is gonna get stabbed in the eye and you squirm in your seat, expecting the wonderfully dreadful. Oh boy!

But I have to admit that at times this movie escapes my comprehension. The dream sequences are huge wtf to me and it took me a while to realise a major plot point.

The GOOD:

1) The violence is sickening and unabashed in this movie

2) Mikkelsen did a solid job in portraying such an effectively ruthless character without speaking any line

The BAD:

1) I don't get the movie. What's with the rouge dream sequences?

2) The ending. So, uh, that's all there is?

Moi VERDICT: I'm giving it 6/10 because I simply DON'T GET IT.