Film Reviews
CRIME/THRILLER MESRINE: PUBLIC ENEMY NUMBER ONE (15) 113min ●●●●●
Part two of Jean François Richet’s epic account of the contrary life and times of France’s most famous bank robber and criminal mastermind Jacques Mesrine – we are now in the realm of myth and self-deception. Written, like it’s predecessor, by Abdel Raouf Dafri, Public Enemy Number One is based more directly on Mesrine’s self-aggrandising and largely made up book The Death Instinct, written in Sante prison in 1973. At this point Mesrine had robbed so many banks that he was well on the way to being public enemy number one, but ever the optimistic, and concerned with his legacy, Mesrine knew he needed to be more than just a common thief. In following his attempts to align himself with more radical political groups and his burgeoning skills as a master of disguise, Richet’s second film unfolds as something more freewheeling and as enjoyable as a good caper movie. Playing off Mesrine’s alleged charm (whether he is taking hostages or
escaping from prison) with his more cold blooded sense of self preservation, star Vincent Cassel and director Richet keep us guessing all the way as to what is true and what is not in this globe trotting, undeniably fun and exciting story of greed, violence and courted celebrity. Richet rolls out action scenario after scenario, all beautifully realised and full of the kind of energy and thoughtfulness that can only be brought from repeated viewings of Get Carter, The Friends of Eddie Coyle, The Anderson Tapes and Scarface. That the film is marked by Mesrine’s inevitable stroll towards his own Paris boulevard gallows at the hands of illegally contracted police snipers does not stop Richet from lingering to enjoy the scenery. The mighty Mathieu Almaric turns up as an uptight convict who joins Mesrine on the run. Richet allows this episode to descend into a convict-on-the-run comedy. Delusion and mythology take over for a moment. Mesrine would have approved. (Paul Dale) ■ Selected release from Fri 28 Aug. See profile.
30 THE LIST 27 Aug–10 Sep 2009
ROMANCE/COMEDY (500) DAYS OF SUMMER (12A) 94min ●●●●● (500) Days of Summer promises more than it delivers, regrettably. This factory made YouTube generation rom-com kicks off at breakneck speed delivering a drole reconstruction of young man Tom’s (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) unruly love affair with young girl Summer (Zooey Deschanel), whom he meets at work. A first encounter in a lift listening to The Smiths is charming, and play- acting ‘mummy and daddy‘ in their local IKEA a wry critique at the illusion of happy I-love-you-forever identikit families. Former music director Marc Webb has fun paying homage to Bergman here, a bit of Fellini there, plus a little light musical, some Disney animation, Belle & Sebastian and a great joke about Henry Miller; however it’s not quite enough to keep us in there for the duration. The narrative gimmick of playing the story back to front eventually wears thin and Tom’s search for his soul mate ends up in territory a tad more vacuous than the vastly preferable Knocked Up. In other words, there is little pathos at the film’s conclusion and you’re left wanting to watch repeats of The Graduate and High Fidelity, both films of which the director has clearly drawn from but not improved upon. (Selina Robertson) ■ General release from Fri 4 Sep.
ALSO RELEASED The Final Destination 3D (15) 81min ●●●●● The first 3D instalment of the popular Final Destination series joins Nick O’Bannon (Bobby Campo) for a day at the races. The trouble is he’s actually having a horrific premonition of, surprise surprise, multi-car pile-ups, destruction and death. When he wakes up, of course, he soon realises it wasn’t just a dream. The 3D really helps but this franchise was pretty strong already. General release from Fri 28 Aug. Gamer (12A) 95min ●●●●● This science fiction action thriller from the duo who brought us the wonderfully sick Crank films is set in 2034 when mind-control technology has taken society by storm, and a multiplayer on-line game called Slayers allows gamers to control human prisoners in mass-scale death matches. Gamer is modern exploitation filmmaking at its low budget best. General release from Fri 4 Sep. Sorority Row (15) 100min ●●●●● Remake of 1983 slasher The House on Sorority Row. When a prank goes wrong five girl students inadvertently cause the murder of another girl. Predictable but decent enough horror remake. Willis clan offspring Rumer Willis stars. General release from Wed 9 Sep. Home (15) 98min ●●●●● Ursula Meier’s reversely told, strange, horrific, metaphor-heavy tale of family breakdown and rural colonisation starring Isabelle Huppert and Olivier Gourmet. Worth catching. Filmhouse, Edinburgh, Fri 4–Thu 10 Sep. Skin (12A) 107min ●●●●● Solidly made drama based true story of Sandra Laing (Sophie Okonedo), a black child born in 1950s South Africa to white Afrikaners (Sam Neill and Alice Krige). Filmhouse, Edinburgh, Fri 4–Thu 10 Sep.
DRAMA/THRILLER BROKEN EMBRACES (LOS ABRAZOS ROTOS) (15) 128min ●●●●●
Since moving into his mature period of filmmaking Pedro Almodóvar’s films have benefited from both an increasingly dramatic emotional impact and an ever more cinematic sensibility. And his latest is by far and away the auteur’s most self- referential love letter to cinema yet. It’s the story of a ménage-a-quatre between filmmaker Harry (Lluís Homar), his leading lady Lena (Penelope Cruz), her sugar daddy Ernesto (José Luis Gómez), and Harry’s production manager Judit (Blanca Portillo). This emotionally and narrative-wise labyrinthine tale of amour fou unfolds largely in flashback as Harry, now old, blind and single, recounts his sorry story to Judit’s son, who assists the once great filmmaker with his hackwork as a script doctor.
From the opening credit sequence shot, Broken Embraces announces itself as a film about films and the people who make them. The plot recalls any number of American film noirs, nominal femme fatale Lena is styled to look like Audrey Hepburn from Billy Wilder’s Sabrina, there’s an explicit homage to Michael Powell’s own meta-movie Peeping Tom and a clip from Rossellini’s Viaggio in Italia appears on a television set at a key moment. And then there’s Almodóvar re-creating whole sequences from his breakthrough film Women on the Verge of A Nervous Breakdown, here used as the film-within-a-film. Broken Embraces is ultra-stylish and loaded with thematic weight. (Miles Fielder) ■ Selected release from Fri 28 Aug. See feature.