Thought of the Day #19

"The organising principle of any society is for war. The basic authority of the modern state over its people resides in its war powers. Today, it's oil. Tomorrow, water. It's what we like to call 'the G.O.D business'; Guns, Oil and Drugs. But there's a problem...our way of life. It's over. It's unsustainable and in rapid decline. That's why we implement 'demand destruction'. We continue to make money as the world burns. But for this to work, the people have to remain ignorant of the problem until it's too late. That's why we have triggers in place; 9/11, 7/7, WMDs. A population in a permanent state of fear does not ask questions. Our desire for war becomes its desire. A willing sacrifice, you see? Fear is justification. Fear is control. Fear is money" - Gerry, 'The Veteran'.

Film Review: The Veteran

Ex-Para Robert Miller (Kebbel) returns home from Afghanistan to a country which offers very little in the way of opportunity for him. Suffering Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and finding it difficult to adjust to normal life, it appears his military skill set of no use in civvy street. That is until he is put in contact with a shady intelligence officer by an ex-colleague and is thrust onto the real front lines of the War on Terror, the streets of Britain. It's not long before Miller becomes involved in a game of double-crossing and conspiracy.

The Veteran is a reasonable low budget thriller from director Matthew Hope which has a lot of social and political points to make. Foremost it highlights the mistreatment of soldiers who leave the service, often generally ill-prepared to integrate back in with normal society. I once read an interesting statistic that a large majority of the homeless in London are ex-military as a consequence. It is a situation a far-cry from Prime Minister David Lloyd George's famous pledge in 1919 after World War One that he would make Britain a country "fit for heros". As such The Veteran offers a damning indictment on successive governments who have discarded the ex-soldiers they use as pawns in games of foreign policy. And that is the second facet on which The Veteran passes commentary; a cynical, conspiratorial take on British foreign policy as well as its role in the War on Terror and the drug trade.

It's an ambitious if not intriguing effort, however it is weakly executed. Each point the film tries to make feels like it is more standalone rather than existing in synergy with the others. As a result everything's all a little bit of a hodge-podge of theories thrown together with your typical thriller genre cliches. That's not to say they're not interesting, but they are not transferred to film with any clarity or forcefulness. This is unfortunate as by the end some otherwise sound points are lost in a whimper. Consequently the focus shifts to the more personal tale of Miller and how he copes adjusting to civilian life. Kebbel is relatively effective in portraying his trauma and seems genuinely troubled, however he is less convincing in his concern for the female contact, Alayna (Bielski), he is tasked with tracking. While Brian Cox's presence as a Machiavellian Home Office Minister injects a certain gravitas to proceedings, overall The Veteran feels more like a two-part ITV drama.

Its closing sequence is also somewhat absurd when Miller eventually snaps, particularly jarring given an otherwise general phlegmatic tone. Erupting into a cacophonie of rage, Miller wages a personal vendetta with an assault rifle through a South London sink-estate against those who used, beat and betrayed him. Turning into the "real life Call of Duty", as one character calls him, you half expect Miller to stop his rampage, open up a laptop and call for a Predator drone strike. Indeed, it all stretches reality a little too far, further impairing previous good work with a bleak finale which seems a little pretentiously platitudinous. Admittedly there are shades of Taxi Driver in places where parallels with De Niro's Vietnam vet are pretty obvious and while The Veteran does show promise and hints of eminence, it is ultimately flawed.

Film Review: Rise of the Planet of the Apes

Given the shitty reimagining of Tim Burton's Planet of the Apes back in 2001 there might understandably be some trepidation surrounding the latest attempt to reboot the classic ape franchise. Surprisingly however, Rupert Wyatt's latest rendition is actually quite good.

Scientist Will Rodman (Franco) works for a pharmaceutical company called Gen-Sys where he is on the verge of creating a brain-boosting drug he dubs "the cure for Alzheimer's". When an unexpected mishap involving one of the ape test subjects occurs the project is stopped and the remaining apes are ordered to be put down. Motivated by his own father's (Lithgow) struggle with the disease, Rodman smuggles one of the baby apes (Serkis) home and continues his experiments in secret.

Foremost this is an origins story. Out of the original five films in the franchise Rise of the Planet of the Apes most closely follows the fourth in the series, Conquest of the Planet of the Apes. Fans of the original will recognise the little nods given in the reboot, for example the rebellious chimp here is also named Caesar. Likewise, there is a rather nice touch where a news report in the film mentions man's first mission to Mars, later to present the audience with a newspaper headline of 'Lost In Space?'. If you know anything of the original, the premise is that astronauts get caught in a time warp and arrive in a post-apocalyptic future to find Earth inhabited by those damn dirty apes. Indeed, these very brief references can only be alluding to the probable future of the franchise. Other than that however, Rise remains very much its own film.

If you were to go back and watch the 60s/70s classics now you'll see a bunch of people running around in monkey costumes, but Rise has been updated for the twenty-first century audience. You won't see any real monkeys here as Andy Serkis (of Gollum fame) takes the lead in a new generation of CGI apes. The result achieved is actually something quite remarkable and an excellent example of how digital technology can be used for something other than alien spacecraft and explosive light shows. The nuanced dramatic effect of Caesar's increasing alienation and sullen brooding is magnificently captured through Serkis as we get a stark paradoxical portrait of the film's most complex character. While Caesar's aesthetic and movements are clearly that of an ape, an 'animal', Serkis poignantly brings mannerisms and emotions which are very much human. His development is really brought to life in an excellent portion of the film where he is locked away in a Primate Sanctuary for a public order offence. Separated from Rodman, we see Caesar's preternatural intelligence come into its own as he plots how to outsmart his nemesis guard (Felton - or Draco Malfoy) and forge a prison break. For a good period of Rise it becomes an efficacious jailhouse drama showing Caesar's transition into the leader of his species. It's somewhat spellbinding watching Serkis' Caesar evolve and transform a chaotic group of monkeys into an ordered and effective unit of apes. And what's even more compelling is that this is achieved in almost complete silence.

Indeed, this film is all about Caesar. The perfunctory human tales take a backseat where their function is merely to serve as plot devices. Franco and Pinto's love story for example is lacklustre, as is the corporate politics surrounding Gen-Sys. In fact, Pinto's role is just kinda pointless altogether, except for one scene where Caesar looks longingly at the couple sleeping in bed together as if to highlight that he yearns for the same human emotional intimacy but cannot, because he is an ape. Lithgow's Alzheimer's afflicted father is touching, but again is only there as a tool to justify his son's relentless drive in perfecting the film's Chekhov Gun, a wonder drug which accelerates the evolution of the ape's cognitive abilities. Again, Felton's sadistic prison guard serves his purpose of shaking Caesar's faith in human kindness thus motivating him to stage his rebellion. Even though the inevitable ape insurrection has yet to take place, the humans are already subservient to Caesar. As such, the human component to this film is somewhat disappointing, however Caesar's own humanity ironically injects more into proceedings than any person.

Another problem with Rise of the Planet of the Apes is that is suffers from the same affliction as most origins stories. Because it is required to introduce us to the characters it never really gets out of second gear and thus stays reasonably grounded. You'll have to wait right until the end for anything to really happen. Apes take on armed cops in a spectacular set piece on the Golden Gate Bridge where humans forget they are facing an enemy unrestricted by two dimensions and gorilla takes on his old nemesis, the helicopter. However, if you're expecting humanity's total overthrow in one film you'll be disappointed as Caesar seems willing to settle for some sort of autonomous ape zone on the edge of San Francisco. Indeed, it is not apes which will eventually conquer and enslave us, but rather man's own ingenuity as alluded to during the end credits. Where the sixties and seventies saw the spectre of nuclear war lie heavy on the cultural zeitgeist and was reflected in the original Planet of the Ape's explanation for man's demise, the post-cold war society clearly feels more threatened by viruses and asteroids. As such, this version has been spruced up for modern day societal concerns.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes is a reasonably evocative film which tries to make the point that perhaps it's time the Earth had a new dominant species. After all, we haven't been doing the best job, have we? While it suffers in places to the origins concept and is a little bit silly at times, Serkis' performance is a joy to behold. It is a promising start for the rebooted franchise and as the title suggests, expect a sequel. I for one welcome our new Simian overlords!

Film Review: Ironclad

The story of democracy in Britain is often portrayed to begin and end with the signing of the Magna Carta in 1215. However, unbeknownst to many, the signing of this legendary document wasn't the end of it. Never really intending to grant the unprecedented liberties he felt coerced into signing, bad King John quickly sought to reverse the charter by eliminating the rebel barons. Standing in his way was the strategically situated Rochester Castle, manned by only a few-hundred rebels. Ironclad seeks to shed light on this little known annex of British history, but it is less historical fact than it is a rewrite of The Magnificent Seven.

Ironclad pretty much picks up where Ridley Scott's Robin Hood left off. 1215. Having been forced to sign the Magna Carta, King John (Giamatti) hires a bunch of Danish mercenaries to eradicate the Barons which humiliated him. Dispersed and reluctant to fight, only one Baron, William de Albany (Cox) stands in King John's way. Pulling together less than a dozen men, including a highly trained Templar Knight, Marshall (Purefoy), Albany's band of merry men must hold onto the strategically positioned Rochester Castle until the French arrive to bail them out (no joke).

Simply, Ironclad is a gore-fest aimed at indiscriminate action fans. It is not a historical epic by any means, sacrificing accuracy for a cheesy tale of stoic heroism that will appeal to teenage boys' wet dreams of 300-style martyrdom. Indeed, there aren't the hundreds of rebels which history (well, wikipedia) suggests. Instead, the defending rebels have been whittled down to less than twenty, facing a barbaric horde of thousands of vikings in countless monotonous shots of close-up limb hacking.

The characters are the stock standard for this kind of affair. Mackenzie Crook plays some sort of Legolas role as a crack-shot archer, there's some tough guy, some guy with questionable morals but who's probably good at heart, and your quiet, stoic, hero-type who hacks off limbs in really cool ways and speaks little, but when he does it's invariably profound. Of course, Purefoy's Marshall is going to provide the main attraction for any medieval wench, and Kate Mara's Lady Isabel provides the eye candy as a horny harlot bent on destroying Marshall's years of devotion to God through his vow of chastity. It is actually quite cringe-worthy to watch Marshall spend half his time trying to fend off the increasingly comic come-ons of the sex-starved Lady Isabel, who slinks around the castle like a half-minded sex pest. Perhaps the most enjoyable parts however involve Giamatti's King John as a permanently irate arsehole. He's petty and cruel like a deranged toddler with a divine birthright making for a good villain. And yet he inevitably suffers from the same flaws as everybody else in this movie; being wholly one-dimensional.

Ironclad is your quintessential prefabricated medieval romp but feels about as epic as a TV mini-series. You can never really take it very seriously, even being slightly reminiscent of Monty Python and the Holy Grail  in some parts as King John and the Albany hurl insults at each other over the battlements. "You're no more a king than the boil on my arse" bellows the Baron as you half expect the retort "I fart in your general direction. Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries". Like sieges in general, Ironclad is slow, dull and monotonous, punctuated by the occasional gratuitous violence.

Film Review: RED

Warren Ellis and Cull Hamner's graphic novel, RED, is a darker affair than the movie would have you believe. Eminently light hearted, RED is nonetheless still an enjoyable romp, following a group of Retired, Extremely Dangerous geriatrics who have been targeted for termination on account of knowing too much.

Bored and lonely retiree Victor Moses (Bruce Willis) fills his mundane life by finding excuses to call civil servant Sarah (Mary-Louise Parker), who deals with his pension, so he can flirt with her. Longing for some excitement, Victor is soon visited by a squad of assassins and forced to flee his home. He concludes the reason must be down to something in his CIA past, and thus embarks on a mission to get the 'old band' back together, designated 'Retired: Extremely Dangerous'.

Willis still plays the role of wisecracking badass, and while accusations of typecasting may be abound, it doesn't matter. It's Bruce Willis goddamn it! And frankly, no one in Hollywood is more suited to the part. Yet RED isn't the Willis show. As he journeys across the United States to reunite the gang, we are introduced to Joe (Morgan Freeman) living it up in a New Orleans retirement home, paranoid crackpot Marvin (John Malkovich) and former MI6 liquidator, Victoria (Helen Mirren), who is now running a B&B. All share one thing in common; their nostalgic fondness for the 'good old days'. Indeed, age hasn't left them rusty, rather RED points out the value of seasoned wisdom.

Fans of the graphic novel may not find this more effervescent version, which glosses over the character's grim pasts, to their liking. Indeed, the plot is not particularly innovative and so the film relies more on its star power than story, but RED is still a very likable and fun film which glistens with a certain charm. Who said retirement was all about the onset of Alzheimers and afternoon Countdown?