Film Review: The Hunger Games

Certificate: 12A (intense violent thematic material and disturbing images - all involving teens)
Directed By: Gary Ross
Cast: Jennifer Lawrence, Sam Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, Elizabeth Banks, Wes Bentley, Stanley Tucci, Woody Harrelson, Donald Sutherland, Toby Jones
Budget: $78 million
Runtime: 142 minutes
Trailer: Watch

The Hunger Games is an adaptation of the three-part fictional series penned by Suzanne Collins, set in a post-apocalyptic world where two children chosen are from each of the twelve districts are forced by the state to compete in a battle to the death. When young Katniss Everdeen (Lawrence) volunteers herself as District Twelve's representative in place of her sister at the annual Hunger Games, she embarks on a rigorous training programme with a drunken tutor (Harrelson) in the slim hope coming out the brutal contest as the sole survivor. All cheery stuff then.

Collins' work has often been compared to author Koushun Takami's novel Battle Royale (also adapted to film by Kinji Fukasaku), in fact resembling the concept so strongly that The Hunger Games has invited criticisms of being a direct copy of it. Certainly, despite Collins' adamance that she had never heard of the Japanese cult classic before writing, the conceptual similarities are undeniable. Indeed, the ideas and themes aren't new, inviting comparisons to earlier fictional works such as William Golding's Lord of the Flies or Stephen King's The Running Man. Indeed, this isn't an original piece by any stretch of the imagination.

The premise can be a little difficult to swallow. We are told that there was a big war where afterward as you do, people decided to hold barbaric sacrificial games in order to ensure it doesn't happen again. Riiighhht. There's no real purpose to it, no real justification save some twaddle about remembering this unexplained cataclysmic event (oh the irony), other than it for whatever reason satiates the sadistic apetites of Panem's elites (the fractured nation which rose from the ashes of the former USA). Annoyingly, The Hunger Games never explains how its scenario came to be other than suggesting this past 'event' somehow manifested into a dystopian society where children are forced to kill one another. Such a desultory leap in logic creates an air of incredulity, further compounded by the fact that this supposed future seems to have done away with even most basic of household conveniences and postmodern norms. Such an 'intellectual quandary' only serves to beg for answers as to why. Yes, one might argue that this sort of thing shouldn't be considered in a coming of age teen-series based on a pubescent girl thrust into a death match, but such misnomers make the whole plot feel bitty.

When events do finally take to the battlefield, an enclosed forest space teeming with all sorts of weaponry and genetically modified nasties resembling Zool's hellhounds from Ghostbusters, The Hunger Games instigates an annoying habit of flip-flopping its narrative which one can only assume was intended to be dramatic. Alliances between combatants are forged, and changed, then changed again as the games' inflexible rule of only one being able to survive supposedly creates false pretences among the competitors' motivations. This is largely illustrated through Peeta (Hutcherson), the fellow citizen from District Twelve lucky enough to win the Hunger Games lottery. But rather than create a satiating mystery to our protagonist's inclinations, the constant dithering and failure to take a firm line with any story arc becomes frustrating.

If you're looking for something more meaningful here, one could point to a poignant parallel with today's 99% in the impoverished districts of Panem and the 1% living in the lavish Capitol. In a throwback to something resembling Louis XIV's court, an aristocratic Europe with computers, The Hunger Games dwells mercilessly on the privileged's enslavement of the wider populace dwelling in the twelve districts. It certainly invites some evocative comparisons to today, and actually paints a somewhat disquieting picture on the hopelessness of the average human being in its dreary divide of circumscribed citizens and their opulent oppressors. Ironically perhaps though is how The Hunger Games actually conforms to the empty spectacles designed to distract those dissatisfied with our current situation. It's very easy to become seduced by the notion that this film is actually a much deeper commentary on things like violence, inequality, feminism and an effete media elite. The reality however is that it doesn't actually have much to say on any of these issues, merely raising them in some sort of populist appeal without adding any substance.

Regardless of unoriginality, this is still a very well filmed piece of work. The Hunger Games neatly conveys the idea of gory teen violence with smoke and mirrors, carefully disguising brutality as a suggestion rather than something outright visual. Indeed, all the gore and sex in the books have been cleverly, if not impressively toned down here. Much of the kids bludgeoning each other over the head with bricks is alluded to rather than the actual observable crunch into bone while any sexuality is all but censored. Not that the fate of any of their characters seem to matter much anyway. A lot about The Hunger Games feels perfunctory where, particularly in the case of Woody Harrelson's Haymitch, set up as one of the most interesting characters, is horribly underused. You will find yourself caring little for their journey's or wrench at their inevitable fates. This is true even of Katniss, a seemingly blank sheet who elicits very little in way of personality. Yes, she might be overawed by events, or maybe an example of how girls can also be stoic, but good god girl show us something other than the fact you can use a bow and arrow.

For all its wheezing and allusions to something deeper, you can't help but feel that The Hunger Games amounts to nothing more than a spectacle. It merely toys with grittiness, avoids real brutality when it comes down to it, and never really pushes the boundaries of any issues or themes it raises. The fact that it goes on for two hours and twenty-two minutes like this can also be tedious. Following in the footsteps of Harry Potter and Twilight, it remains to be seen if it will reach the same dizzying heights, although the odds probably aren't in its favour.

Film Review: Rampart

Certificate: 15 (pervasive language, sexual content and some violence)
Directed By: Oren Moverman
Cast: Woody Harrelson, Ned Beatty, Ben Foster, Anne Heche, Ice Cube, Cynthia Nixon, Sigourney Weaver, Robin Wright, Steve Buscemi
Budget: $ n/a
Runtime: 108 minutes
Trailer: Watch

After Woody Harrelson's clusterfuck 'Ask Me Anything' session on Reddit you might wager that its subsequent disastrous showing at the US box office might have had something to do with the self-proclaimed hive mind boycotting the movie. It is a strange one. Certainly the quality of Rampart isn't in doubt, featuring an absorbing series of events and strong performances all round, particularly from new internet boogeyman Woody himself.

Long serving law enforcement officer Dave Brown (Harrelson), or 'Date Rape' as he's affectionately nicknamed in his precinct, is a member of the corruption-riddled 'Rampart Division' in late nineties Los Angeles. When Dave is caught on tape beating a man who rammed his cruiser he vows to clear his name. However, when his vast legal costs begin to take their toll, Dave descends even deeper into malfeasance.

To cops like officer Brown, the sun-kissed streets of LA are a warzone where the racially motivated long arm of the law routinely plants evidence and lines its own pockets. It is a view of turn of the century America well worn in movies, based on the real world resentment against the police which manifested with the 1992 LA riots when four LAPD officers were acquitted after being filmed beating African-American motorist Rodney King. The thrust of this film is the self-affirmation of this conviction, loosely based on another scandal surrounding the real-life Rampart Division in which our anti-hero here is placed.

If anyone were to embody the 'values' of such improbity it is Harrelson's misanthropic 'Date Rape', a scumbag in every sense of the word. Bizarrely he lives with his two exes who both happen to be sisters and who both have a daughter by him. As he sits having a family meal chain smoking he whispers sleazy come-ons to both sisters, proceeding only to drink more and more. Despite being beyond redemption, it is nonetheless a masterful performance and one which takes precedence over plot as we're treated to Harrelson's presence in every scene. He is a man assured that the world is a jungle which can only be survived if you're a badass lion. An old school cop, one of the few which he proudly states "gets it". But what's fascinating is that he doesn't, repeatedly doing the same things over and over again expecting different results.

While it is absorbing to watch this character delve into debt and despair as he tries to dig his way out a hole, this unfortunately leaves the rest of the plot rather bare bones. Stylistically Rampart is also rather unusual, featuring discorded cuts and odd camera angles portending to be some sort of art house flick. The whole experience is rather jarring which ruins some potentially great scenes, particularly one where Harrelson, Weaver and Buscemi are gathered round a table. Likewise, the main focus on Dave means these actors disappointingly don't get much time to work their talent.

Tales of dirty cops aren't a new thing, and certainly Rampart doesn't revamp this murky premise either. While sacrificing narrative momentum, what it does do however is film a familiar yarn in peculiar fashion, bringing out a potent performance from old Woody in what might be the most impressive of his career.

Film Review: Bunraku

Set in the future, Bunraku takes place after a devastating world war. So devastating in fact that guns have been banned in an attempt to quell the 'natural' human instinct for violence. A mysterious drifter (Hartnett), no, make that two mysterious drifters (Gackt), travel to a town ruled by the iron fist of a man known as Nicola the Woodcutter (Perlman) and his band of killers. Joining together, the brooding cowboy and honour-bound samurai set out to settle their personal scores against Nicola and free the town from his clutches.

Bunraku is your typical tale of betrayal and revenge, with a somewhat unoriginal Star Wars 'twist' at the end for good measure. In this sense it offers nothing new, even its 'distinctive' artistic style having all been done before. It is a world where East meets West, something akin to the sci-fi television series, Firefly; a Sin City-esque comic book movie in colour, stealing the video game elements and plinky plonky retro arcade music from Scott Pilgrim with a hint of the campness shown in Joel Schumacher's Batman Forever. It's a fusion of styles; vibrant, colourful, but ultimately a splat of paint on a blank canvas. In many ways, writer and director Guy Moshe has achieved something similar to Zack Snyder's teenage boy's wet dream, Sucker Punch. It's all nonsense and exists only to look cool. It neglects narrative and character in much the same fashion, merely plonking one-dimensional archetypes in an epileptic fit inducing world. It even uses the same concept of adding a voiceover who feels its place is to interject every now and again. Pretentious Confucianisms such as "Death has no messengers. It delivers itself" impart its own brand of mangled philosophy, supposedly to sound vaguely East-Asian and so keeping in tone with the film. However, no amount of flowery language compensates for Bunraku's otherwise lack of depth.

If it weren't for its cast Bunraku could have been a whole lot worse. And even then, characters have either been poorly cast or underused. Josh Hartnett just looks too young to pull off gruff, world-weary cowboy drifter while Japanese popstar Gackt is coated in so much eyeliner that he appears too feminine to be a believable formidable bushido warrior. Woody Harrelson, who ordinarily brings so much to anything he's in, skulks in the background, never doing anything more than act as a plot device where necessary (takes our heroes here, tells them to go there). Ron Perlman, normally just as effective as Harrelson in providing films with character and personality, is equally underused. Instead he is saved for the final act, only to have a midlife crisis. Kevin McKidd is probably the best thing about Bunraku, evidently enjoying his role as Killer #2, a vicious stone-cold assassin who looks like something of a cross between John Lennon and a Droog from A Clockwork Orange. Yet again however he falls foul to that Hollywood convention of your typical British villain.

Of course, the ban on firearms has merely caused man to revert back to more primitive methods of hacking and maiming each other. As such, martial arts and swordplay are the order of the day. Indeed, for all its artistic and character blandness, Bunraku should really succeed in its action sequences. After all, this is supposed to be a showcase of nifty combat techniques and astonishing stunts. While there are certainly elements of coolness in places, overall everything just feel shoddily edited together. Bunraku is consequently a jerky experience. The action is hectic and the way in which it is pieced together makes everything go by in a blur to the point where you'll blink and wonder what just happened. After a while what should be the film's bread and butter only becomes tiresome.

While Bunraku's basic gruel is admittedly somewhat more nourishing than Sucker Punch, it is still bland, instantly forgettable and not half as eloquent and arty as it likes to think it is. There are some nice touches, such as the use of comic book balloons acting as subtitles for the Japanese parts, but ultimately it just seems gimmicky without a whole load of substance. Its pretentious philosophical musings scarcely compensate and the result is a jumbled world of borrowed ideas and candy colours. Bunraku is like getting an XBox 360 for christmas, only to open the packaging and find that there's no console inside.

Film Review: Friends With Benefits

Friends With Benefits is the second film this year about fuck buddies. Following in the footsteps of No Strings Attached, there seems to be a shift in direction for rom-coms in this post-modern era where the done thing is to mock the traditional format's enshrined conventions. And yet everything it tries to do for reinventing the genre all inevitably comes full circle when you realise that, hang on a second, this is a rom-com.

Dylan (Timberlake) is a successful web designer based in LA recently dumped by his girlfriend on account of being too emotionally unavailable. Jamie (Kunis) is a corporate headhunter in New York, also recently dumped for being "damaged" and having a too idealistic view of love. Both vowing henceforth to act like George Clooney in a bid to not get hurt next time round, the two meet when Jamie sets Dylan up for an interview at GQ magazine. The disillusioned couple become friends and soon hitch upon a plan to service each other without any of those pesky emotions getting involved.

Friends With Benefits ultimately falls foul of the same serendipitously cliched trap Hollywood lays for all its rom-coms. It must follow the formula where one person expresses unreciprocated love, only for the other person to realise they've made a huge mistake whereby the third act they kiss and make up through some grand gesture at an iconic location. There's only one manner in which a film of this nature will be allowed to end, and that's where everything is resolved in a way that will never happen to you. That's not to say that Friends With Benefits isn't fun, but for all it does to profess its difference it eventually succumbs to the same cliches and consequently feels a little hypocritical. Indeed, it goes great lengths to scorning rom-com norms, even inserting a little mock film featuring Jason Segel which rips on every shibboleth used in the genre. Of course this movie wouldn't really work if Dylan and Jamie did their business and went their separate ways at the end, no harm done. Those irksome things called emotions have to get in the way and send their initial agreement down shit creek without a paddle. Consequently it means the characters become slaves to the stereotypes they seek to smash whereby the end was never really in doubt.

But! And yes there is a but! Friends With Benefits has a spark which is much to do with its fantastic cast and script. Timberlake for one seems to be carving out quite a name for himself as an actor, turning out decent performances in The Social Network and Bad Teacher. He's equally adept at Dylan, a slightly effeminate meterosexual with intimacy issues. Kunis also glimmers as an insecure old romantic looking for the same true love shown in the very films she mocks. The banter between the two is sharp. You know when you look back on a moment and you think "fuck, that's what I should have said"? Well, these two cats will say the right thing at the right time without fail. Indeed, Timberlake and Kunis' chemistry add a vitality to proceedings which sets this film apart from the other mush in the genre. You just enjoy watching them, and that's almost enough. The supporting cast are also fantastic. Woody Harrelson is superb as Tommy, a vivaciously gay colleague who offers Dylan the chance to join him and "troll for cock". Likewise, Patricia Clarkson steals more than a scene as Jamie's alcoholic, free-loving Mum while Jenna Elfman is perfect as Dylan's world-weary sister. However, the quietly understated role of Dylan's Alzheimers afflicted father, played by Richard Jenkins, is pure gold. In his lucid moments Mr. Harper grounds proceedings by offering his pearls of wisdom. In his not-so-lucid moments he's running about with his trousers round his ankles.

While Friends With Benefits doesn't add anything new to the genre but it still manages to make this overused formula entertaining. The cast is excellent as is the onscreen chemistry. It's cute and enjoyable (if these things don't already sicken you) and a hell of a lot better than this year's earlier attempt, No Strings Attached. Timberlake and Kunis bring a glib, relaxed aura, never taking themselves too seriously which only makes them more likeable. They just do it better than Kutcher and Portman. If No Strings Attached were the missionary position, Friends With Benefits is the Kama Sutra.