Source Code - 30th April 2011
Well, as I have said before, I am not sure Inception was quite as intelligent as everyone gave it credit for but in the first half of the year we have already had The Adjustment Bureau and now Source Code, both of which seem to come hot on Inception's tale dealing as they do with questions about what is real or not and alternate realities.
That is by no means to say that Source Code is an Inception clone or rip off, merely to imply that it is part of the first wave of more intelligent yet no less entertaining sci-fi thrillers to grace the silver screen since Inception's success.
Source Code's plot initially reads and actually plays like a really good Quantum Leap episode via Groundhog Day, but if Sam Beckett was played by someone with actual charisma or if Bill Murray had to stop lots of people from dying instead of convince Andie McDowell to love him.
It's about a soldier, Jake Gyllenhaal, who is part of some new technology which, just like Quantum Leap (complete with reflections in the mirror different to that of Gyllenhaal), allows him to be repeatedly dropped into the body of another man, for a small and set period of time, who is on a train, bound for Chicago, with a bomb on it. Gyllenhaal's task and he seems to have no choice in the matter whether he accepts it or not, is to, in this limited time period, find out where the bomb is and who planted it. The film then basically takes you through all the logical scenarios one might go through if actually in that situation and does so in such a way that, despite the repeated setting and conversations, it never gets tired.
It is also half way through the film when you suddenly realise the catch and the fact that the real mystery is where is Gyllenhaal's soldier really and what is actually going on.
The first thing I would say is how good Jake Gyllenhaal is in this movie. The last thing I saw him in was Love and Other Smugs and that was so bowel shatteringly awful I am not sure, with hindsight, how I made it through to the end without being sick but in Source Code he gives a believable, if occasionally overly earnest portrayal of exactly what you'd expect someone to go through if such a situation ever presented itself: disbelief, fear and, refreshingly, some humour.
Even the slightly unnecessary emotional journey that he goes on through the course of the film, to do with his father, is handled in a slightly more subtle way than usual and the whole film, pleasingly, has less heroics and more actual thought and detection in it. Which is odd because the marketing made it look like a stupid action film the likes of which Nic Cage would be better suited to, when in reality it is a proper, almost old fashioned slice of well realised science fiction.
So it was well written and very competently directed by Bowie Jnr, Duncan Jones, with nothing particularly flashy about any of it, just successfully performing the very difficult task of taking several strands of storyline, which take place over two very different and separate places in time, in what could of been a confusing and complex structure and making it all seem coherent, realistic, plausible and understandable. No mean feet, all things considered.
There were two aspects of the film that took a little bit of a Hollywood liberty and that had to do with the female leads in both sections of his story.
In the present world, Gyllenhaal is talked through his mission by a female military officer played by Vera Farmiga and, without giving too much away (MINOR SPOILER ALERT), it is a bit of a stretch of the imagination, that in the short time she has been working with him, he would be able to win over a trained soldier like her to put her job on the line for him like she does.
The same can be said for the Michelle Monaghan character in the past world, in the sense that, seeing as she only really gets to spend eight minutes total with the Gyllenhaal possessed version of her friend, that they end up where they do is a bit of a leap even if she was always leaning in that direction with her actual friend in the first place.
However, both the women perform their, little bit thankless, roles very well and sell, to the best of their abilities, the slightly tall order of the story.
A special mention goes to Jeffrey Wright who plays Dr.Rutledge, he is the head of and inventor of the project that is currently using Gyllenhaal, and he plays the part of a slightly fastidious, nerdy old man with a limp and slightly dubious morals with such relish that it is an absolute pleasure to watch.
It's rare these days that actors are asked or given the free reign to play parts a little slightly over the top, with maybe a funny voice or a quirky tic and when the best of them do, I could watch it all day.
It's difficult to discuss the film further without giving too much away, things like this really are better watched knowing as little as possible and I do urge you to go see it as I thought it was an engaging and enjoyable sci-fi romp with a little bit of naval gazing existentialism thrown in for good measure.
Out of the three so-called intelligent sci-fi thrillers that I spoke about at the beginning of the review, personally, I liked this one the best and would definitely watch it again.
8 out of 10
Love and Other Drugs - 27th November 2010
It starts as a perfectly ok, throw-away, sort-of-comedy about a guy, played by werewolf faced, bland-as toast, recently buffed up for an action movie based on a video-game, Jake Gyllenhaal who has the gift of the gab, sells people junk they don't need, be it stereos or pharmaceuticals and sleeps with every implausibly attractive woman he comes across in a variety of forehead slappingly predictable and obvious sex scenes.
Then he meets Anne Hathaway's dungaree wearing fantasy woman who seemingly spends all day not working very hard at a crappy little cafe or lounging about in hardly any clothing arranging her, very trendy, polaroid pictures into hipster art in a loft apartment that would make Van Gogh audibly orgasm. She of course, calls him on his crap in a sassy and flirtatious way before explaining to him that all she wants is what he wants, a series of meaningless sexual conquests. Cue a never ending string of fairly graphically naked sex scenes which have little or nothing to do with much except blotting out the apparent oh-so-tragic pain of being them, which, in Gyllenhaal's case means making hundreds of thousands of dollars being number one sales man of, surely-sells-itself, boner pill Viagra and in Hathaway's case having to swan about doing absolutely nothing all day apart from repeatedly showing your breasts and fiddling with a photo.
So far so meh! and not even an over active, man please just loose weight, supporting role from Mr.Comic Relief himself, Oliver Platt could really elevate it much above, weirdly sexually graphic but not very distracting fluff.
Then somewhere along the line we realise oh no! Hathaway's got a disease! Hathaway has Parkinson's! She doesn't want to get close to anyone because she may, one day, need help from that person and oooh noooo she doesn't want to be a burden to anyone because she's so good and volunteers to go with old people up to Canada to get cheap meds and ahhhh she's been down this road with previous men, including, of course, Gyllenhaal's arch pharmaceutical rep rival and whinge, moan, whinge, moan, cry, moan... zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
BANG! wake up!
Sorry about that but basically after a few more sex scenes, a break up, another handful of snore inducing sex scenes (including an obligatory one through fogged up, rain dripped glass), Hathaway doing her best shaky hands, I have Parkinson's really! routine and a montage of Gyllenhaal not wanting to accept her fate and so desperately trying to find a cure, followed by another smattering of self-absorbed self destruction with some moping, a ridiculous, I have never told anyone this before because I used to hide my depth behind my abundant shallowness, declaration of love which is followed by another break up and then some more make-up sex, all the time accompanied or interrupted by a not-very-funny sidekick turn by someone who is meant to be Gyllenhaal's brother but looks like a curly haired, fatter and less funny Jack Black, they finally decide, after Jake rides up next to Anne's bus in his porsche, stops the bus, gets on and declares more love while the old folks comically egg her on to just go for it, to be in love and stay together. The End..... and BREATHE!
As if my run on sentence just then didn't just prove that I couldn't get on board with this turgid, tedious, predictable arse belch of a film enough, then let me explain:
On the surface this attempts to be a strictly adult take (look there's nudity and swearing!) on the tale of the selfish philanderer who finds the woman of his dreams and despite her medical condition becomes the man he truly is by falling in love with her and pledging to take care of her because really, medical condition or not, we all need taking care of, even Jake 'oh look I am naked again, this work out regime wasn't wasted then' Gyllenhaal. Ladle in, what should've been, a decent bit of satire about the drug companies and health care in America and, especially timing wise, after the big health care debacle in the States, you'd have a hit rom-com/drama on your hands that will appeal to all women from 25 to 85.
The trouble is it is none of those things and less.
Much like Gyllenhaal's character apparently finds depth by the end of the film (why because he stops selling drugs and decides to go back to what his hugely over privileged family want him to do and go to medical school while also lazing about on Anne Hathaway??), so the film was meant to have become deep I suppose but much as, I suspect, three years down the line, ol' Jake, bored with Hathaway's enormous gob and 17 rows of perfect white gnashers, will scarper back to loose women and the thrill of the sell, so this film's supposed point never really holds any truth and it all ends up being a fairly mundane re-tread of every 'I love someone with a disease' movie.
We learn nothing, nothing changes and we never really grow to care about these perfect people and their perfect hair. All that happens is we are secretly pelted with weak cliches and flimsy scenes strung together by some repetitive nudity all the while supposedly thinking we are watching something that, at least, attempts something a little adult beyond the usually sexually sterile Hollywood Rom-Com but we're really not, it has all the depth and substance of a child's cardboard paddling pool. I, for one, just sat there mostly thinking 'man, Jake Gyllenhaal looks like Eddie Munster, the werewolf child off the TV'
It was also another completely wasted opportunity because a film that could've been a 'Thank You for Smoking' for the Pharmaceutical industry ended up being a film that 13 year olds will watch certain scenes from to masturbate to when their parents are out buying groceries or, god forbid, working.
Also, they seem to have wasted the opportunity to do a good and poignant satire, simply so they could use the registered names of Pfizer and Viagra but by doing this and setting it in 96 to, I guess, give it some sort of historical reality, they were then unable to really go ahead a bite the hand that was, no doubt behind the scenes, feeding the whole thing anyway. Just another annoying trick played on us by the people who brought you restless leg syndrome and anti-depressent medication that can actually increase your chances of wanting to top yourself, i.e. our friends at the pharma companies.
For once the adage, if there is one, that 'tits maketh a movie' does not ring true. I never thought I would sit watching a film willing beyond all hope that Anne Hathaway would put her clothes back on and do something interesting! but congratulations Hollywood you made that very movie! Gyllenhaal is usually a bit better than this and I was really disappointed.
In the end though, obviously, it wasn't my choice of movie and so I was pleasantly pleased, when we got up out of our seats and headed to the diner, to find my wife and her friend were of a similar opinion as to the below averageness of the movie and I would have no problem voicing my opinion about what rubbish I thought it all was. They did, however, want Anne Hathaway's hair and my wife probably wished I looked more like Jake Gyllenhaal and less like a flabby, Lon Chaney style, beardy werewolf, still, can't have everything!
4 out of 10 foam filled cups of what appears to be mocha, cappa, frappa, flappychino but turns out to be just hot air and some dribbly milk.
Points from The Wife 4 out of 10 also as, she too, with a little hindsight had worked out just how this film really lacks substance of any kind.