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All Good Things (2010)

ALL THINGS GOOD is a polished little film based on a true story that while it may not have the visual gruesome detail of the usual thriller tropes of films, it is terrifying in its presentation of personality variations that produce a shuddering reaction on a purely intellectual level for the audience. It is both a love story and a missing persons/murder mystery based on a still unsolved case that continues to haunt New York investigators and reporters and detectives.

What writers Marcus Hinchey and Marc Smerling have created from known and newly discovered facts, speculation and court records results in a psychological examination of a powerful New York family, obsession, love and loss. The film relates incidents that began in 1972 and end in 2003 and at this time the truth is still unknown. Director Andrew Jarecki uses a superb cast and a fine sense of voice-over narration to interweave the puzzling history with the gradual dissolution of each of the characters involved.

Sanford Marks (Frank Langella) is one of the wealthiest owners of Manhattan real estate, the current head of a family that has long dominated the New York scene with its power and money. Marks is aging and is relying on his son David (Ryan Gosling) to take over the family business: he sends David out to the brothels, and filthy hotels and porn houses to collect rent. David is reticent to be a part of his father’s business: he is a deeply disturbed young man, having witnessed his mother’s suicide leap as a child. David meets a tenant in one of the properties – Katie McCarthy (Kirsten Dunst) who longs to go to medical school but at present has no income to support that dream. The chemistry between the two is magnetic and despite David’s father’s objection that Katie is not of ‘their kind of people’, David decides to marry Katie and move to Vermont to open a Health Foods store – a move that makes the couple ecstatic, but is financed by Sanford Marks who eventually convinces David to sell his haven and move to New York to stay with the family business.

In their Manhattan home (and in their country lake front home!) the couple flourishes until Katie mentions she’d like to have children – a force that drives David back into violent behavior resulting form his witnessing his mother’s suicide: David can’t understand why Katie would want anything but the obvious life of wealth they enjoy. The shell is cracked and the subsequent events include Katie becoming pregnant only to be forced by David to terminate the pregnancy, Katie’s disappearance after uncovering the facts about the sources of wealth of the family, David’s descent into drugs and irresponsible behavior, and ultimately his leaving New York for Galveston, Texas where he lives a life disguised as a woman, his only friend being another old runaway Melvin Bump (Philip Baker Hall) who David engages to do away with a ‘problem confidant’ (Lilly Rabe), after which Bump is killed and dissected and tossed into the river. The murders are never solved nor is the mystery of Katie’ disappearance. A trial (the source of the voice-over throughout the film has been the lawyer’s interrogation of David in the year 2003) fails to resolve anything and the film ends with the message that David Marks is at present a real estate broker in Florida.

Frank Langella is superb as the heartless father who drives his family like cattle in the quest of power and wealth. Ryan Gosling offer a multifaceted performance of the deeply disturbed David and is match by Kirsten Dunst’s bravura performance as Katie, the simple bright girl whose life is quashed by a powerful family’s sickness. The brilliant cast, including the performances by Philip Baker Hall and Lilly Rabe – daughter of the deceased Jill Clayburgh), has excellent cameo roles by Diane Venora, Trini Alvarado, David Margulies, Nick Offerman and many more. This is a tough film to watch because at the bottom of it all is that it is true and the cases are unsolved. It makes us cringe but it is a very fine film.

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Ironclad (2011)

There are plenty of lower-budget independent films that have gone on to be more critically acclaimed and more financially profitable than big-budget Hollywood pictures. What is rare, however, is an indie film that masquerades as one of these pictures. A self-labelled “all- star indie action blockbuster” and “inspired by history”,’Ironclad’ is such a film, trying to redefine the boundaries of British cinema.

Whether by intention or by coincidence, ‘Ironclad’ picks up a few years after the end of Ridley Scott’s ‘Robin Hood’. It is England, 1215. King John (Paul Giamatti) has been forced to sign the Magna Carta, which limits his power and ensures the freedom of men.

With the help of a Danish army, the King rampages across the country to regain absolute power. Baron Albany (Brian Cox) and a band of rebels take Rochester Castle in an attempt to stop the tyrant king. A siege takes place, and the rebels must hold the castle until reinforcements arrive.

The film certainly ticks many of the boxes of an action blockbuster. There’s a clear “big bad guy vs. underdog good guy” vibe, plenty of action, and some veterans among the B-list cast. The $25 million budget, although pocket change in Hollywood, shows how badly this indie film wants to be big. A big film, however, is not necessarily a good film.

‘Ironclad’ is at its strongest when it comes to the physical side of things. It does not shy away from gory violence. Heads, hands and feet go flying, blood splatters all over the the camera’s lens, and there’s a particularly nasty bit involving a man and a catapult. The weapons feel like instruments of destruction rather than Medieval-chic accessories, and often succeed in making viewers wince.

The fight choreography is particularly impressive – characters look like soldiers trying to tear each others’ hearts out, as opposed to actors trying to high-five each other’s swords. The action sacrifices style and appearance for physicality and brutality, which results in a refreshing level of authenticity.

The 13th century England recreated looks good enough to fool anyone but a history buff. Giamatti and Cox play their roles with conviction and succeed in getting the story moving. Giamatti is particularly watchable, playing King John as an unhinged sadist.

The narrative is where ‘Ironclad’ falters. Fully aware that the film is essentially about a group of soldiers in a building, the writers have tried to spice things up. One of the rebels (James Purefoy) happens to be a Templar Knight. He regrets killing people for God, so he goes on a diet of silence and chastity, the latter of which is tested (of course) by the lady of the castle (Kate Mara). These are ill-advised attempts at emotional content and only serve to distract from what should have been a simpler, more polished affair.

Regrettably, the filmmakers decided to emulate that most repulsive staple of modern action blockbusters – the shaky-cam. Specifically namechecking ‘Transformers 2′ and the ‘Bourne’ sequels as influences (not a good sign), they decided to shake the picture to create “a very real sense of action”.

What is achieved instead is a very real sense of frustration every time the action is made unnecessarily incoherent. Once again, the “Michael Bay Effect” has ruined a film that would have otherwise looked excellent, and wasted the work of an obviously talented action choreographer.

Despite its flaws, fans of mud’n'blood, hack’n'slash mini-epics will find plenty to like in ‘Ironclad’. It is comparable to ‘Robin Hood’ despite costing $130 million less to make. Director Jonathan English wanted to create an action blockbuster. In terms of scale and ambition, he has succeeded. But blockbusters aren’t perfect, and neither is this.

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Rango Spoiler (2011)

This animated feature is set in the Wild West and focuses on a chameleon (voiced by Johnny Depp). This little creature considers himself an actor and tries to put on performances with inanimate objects in his glass tank. After somehow breaking out, he’s left to contend with the perils of the desert. Escaping the dangers of a hawk, the chameleon takes refuge with another lizard named Beans (Isla Fisher) who is heading back to her town of Dirt.

When he arrives there himself, he finds that the town is continuously suspicious of outsiders. This is primarily because the town’s water supplies are so low. There’s barely enough to last for the next six days. To prove himself to his sceptics, the chameleon pretends to be a fierce outlaw, telling tales about his heroics. Winning the respect of the people, the chameleon calls himself Rango and is made the sheriff of Dirt. But the ambiguity surrounding Dirt’s Mayor (Ned Beatty) and his stranglehold on the remaining water supply remains.

Rango compensates for some familiar tropes and situations with a superior visual style and an expressive voice cast. Gore Verbinski’s film is foremost a parody of the Western genre and it borrows heavily from the Chevy Chase spoof iThree Amigos! That film, a take on The Magnificent Seven itself, was also about a group of actors who entered a village and were mistaken for real gunslingers. I suspect there’s a more contemporary political message running throughout Rango though. The town of Dirt lives off the idea of hope for a better future.

But for a sheriff promising stability, Rango is reliably destructive and irresponsible, failing to keep order. Then there’s the town’s necessity for a precious resource, overshadowed by a tyrannic prospector. These political undertones are contained in a relatively foreseeable and familiar narrative, working with a common idea of so many animated pictures that the smallest person can make a difference. Nonetheless, the film rides high on an abundance of charm, provided by its inventive and textured visuals.

The tone of the film remains light and playful but the visuals distinguish themselves from highly saturated pictures like Tangled and Toy Story 3, with grittier palettes. The arid, sunburnt planes are naturally fitting for a Western and the film compliments this hardened tone with equally dark character models too. There’s more of an edge to the design of these characters because many of them are halfway between being anthropomorphic and more grotesque creatures.

Abigail Breslin’s Priscilla is for example a walking and talking rat. But she’s also dressed like a school girl, with plaits, not unlike Hailee Steinfeld’s character from True Grit. It’s particularly funny how they resemble token characters from the Western genre too. It gives a unique but also more unsettling feel to the town, fitting of Rango’s experience as an outsider. Adults will enjoy picking up on these genre references.

Thankfully, the film is also regularly witty, courtesy of a funny screenplay script by John Logan. The slapstick action, moving from elaborate set pieces to more subtle visual gags, is equally humorous and beautiful, slickly controlled by Verbinski, working from his experience on the Pirates films. The voice cast is even more impressive, an enthusiastic line-up that gives life to even the smallest character.

Johnny Depp, Abigail Breslin, Bill Nighy as a very creepy snake, Ray Winstone and many others are excellent. A lot of publicity has been given to the preparation of the voice work, specifically using the voice actors to act out the scenes themselves. Given the near-perfection of how Depp captures Rango’s clumsiness, I would say that this technique has been a great success in drawing the actors closer to the scenarios and providing them with a greater understanding of their characters mannerisms.


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