list.co.uk/fi lm ACTION BULLET TO THE HEAD (15) 91min ●●●●●
Returning as the prodigal son of the hard-boiled thriller, director Walter Hill’s first film in ten years is a tough-guy vehicle for Sylvester Stallone. While the star’s recent output has been verging on self-parody in the Rocky, Rambo and Expendables franchises, Bullet to the Head commendably attempts to reset his larger-than-life persona in a more down-to-earth cop thriller. Stallone plays New Orleans hitman Jimmy Bobo
whose partner is stabbed to death after they execute a ruthless mobster in his hotel room. He teams up with cop Taylor Kwon (Sung Kang), a Korean technology wonk who uses his phone as a source of information; Stallone instead uses his as something to hit people with. Together, the mismatched duo investigate a complex gangland feud which leads to a trail of corruption. While Bullet to the Head’s predictable plotting and low-brow aspirations never reach the heights of Hill’s
streak of brilliant thrillers in the late 70s and early 80s (such as The Driver, The Warriors, and Southern Comfort), it’s still a welcome return from one of the genre’s acknowledged masters. (Eddie Harrison) ■ General release from Fri 1 Feb.
DRAMA ZERO DARK THIRTY (15) 157min ●●●●●
If Kathryn Bigelow’s Iraq-set bomb disposal unit drama The Hurt Locker caught everyone by surprise, the anticipation for her follow-up is tangible. An exacting procedural about the hunt for Osama bin Laden, it’s been in development long before the al-Qaeda leader and mastermind of the 9/11 attacks was caught and killed in Pakistan in May 2011. Given this, there’s a tremendous urgency to Bigelow’s film, again written by her Hurt Locker scribe, former journalist Mark Boal. Shot with a documentary-like rigour, what fascinates about Zero Dark Thirty – US military speak
for 12.30am, the time the US Navy SEALs stormed Bin Laden’s compound – is how it’s seen primarily through the eyes of one woman. Jessica Chastain plays Maya, a young CIA officer who is brought out to Pakistan in 2003 to focus solely on intelligence-gathering concerning the whereabouts and capture of their terrorist target.
Initially joining colleague Dan (Jason Clarke, excellent) at a covert black site to extract information from a detainee – she watches, shocked, as they subject him to psychological and physical tortures – it’s just the start of a long and complex journey for Maya. Backed by able support – notably James Gandolfini as US Secretary of Defence Leon Panetta – the superlative Chastain dominates, gradually going from a confident, fresh-faced rising star to a world-weary, life-sapped husk, drained by her pursuit in the shadows. You could easily read this as an account of Bigelow’s own rise in the male-dominated world of Hollywood. But, movie industry metaphors aside, Zero Dark Thirty is a gripping, authentic-feeling account of the dark side of the war on terror. (James Mottram) ■ General release from Fri 25 Jan.
Reviews | FILM
BRANDON CRONENBERG
Born Toronto, Canada, 1985 Background
The son of a director you might have heard of called David and his wife Carolyn Zeifman, who have been married since 1979, Brandon Cronenberg premiered his debut feature as a writer/director at last year’s Cannes film festival. Set in a society so celebrity-fixated that punters pay to infect themselves with the diseases of the famous, Antiviral betrays a clear genetic legacy – the dystopian alternative present, the icky body horror, the deader- than-deadpan humour – but it also proves with its skill, style and confidence that Cronenberg the younger merits attention in his own right.
On the origins of Antiviral’s story
'I was sick with a virus, and I had this fever dream about the physicality of the illness – about having something in my body that had come from someone else. Which led me into thinking about celebrities’ bodies: the discon- nect between the celebrity persona and the real person, how they are fictionalised so that the celebrity body has very little to do with the real person. The body ages and dies, but the celebrity body is regarded as this inhuman, perfect thing.' On the film’s undercurrent of black comedy
'I like deadpan humour. Humour gets lost if you’re winking at the audience. I agree that the film is a comedy really. Not everyone thinks that . . . some people have been very, very angry with me about what I’m saying! But for me it’s part of the satirical tradition.'
And on Dad
'I didn’t really watch his films growing up, apart from Fast Company. Really the only weirdness is that we all have such a good relationship. My parents still hold hands; that’s the weird thing. In a way I think I’m too close to him to be influenced . . . although I suppose I’m genetically influenced. It’s not so strange that I would have some of the same interests. I knew everyone would compare us, but I didn’t want to deliberately avoid the same territory . . . that would be defining myself in terms of his career.' On whether he’ll make a romcom next
'This was the romcom.' (Hannah McGill) ■ Antiviral is on selected release from Fri 1 Feb. See review, page 62.
24 Jan–21 Feb 2013 THE LIST 59