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Cash
Director: Stephen Milburn
Starring: Sean Bean, Chris Hemsworth, Victoria
Profetta
A zippy
low-budget film in which a suitcase full of money
lands on Chris Hemsworth’s car and he and his wife
set about spending it. Unhappily, the suitcase’s
owner (Sean Bean) – his twin brother threw it from a
van during a police chase – tracks them down. He
moves into their house until they can raise the
money to pay back what they’ve spent. Before you
know it they’re robbing convenience stores whilst
Bean keeps a tally to the last cent.
Bean is suitably threatening, the tone of the film
is a nice mix of menace and humour, there’s a
pleasant enough sub-Tom Waits soundtrack and a neat
little twist after the end credits have started
rolling. Worth a look.
The Merry
Gentleman
Director: Michael Keaton
Starring: Michael Keaton and Kelly MacDonald
Not quite
a thriller but a fine directorial debut from
Michael Keaton, who also plays the titular merry
fellow (not). He’s a troubled hitman who
develops an unlikely friendship with Macdonald -
who is on the run from a troubled marriage - in
the hope she can save him. As there’s a
detective who has also taken a fancy to her you
know there’s going to be trouble ahead.
The film has an indie feel to it: Keaton doesn’t
move his camera around much, the look is
relentlessly unglamorous and the pace is slow as
he takes his time developing the relationship
between two lonely people. Although there are
murders they are mostly off-screen and this is
too quiet a film to count as a thriller. Indeed,
it almost goes against Mr Chekov’s famous dictum
that if you introduce a hitman in the first act
he has to kill someone by the end of the third –
or something.
The film’s focus is on MacDonald and she is
extraordinary. How the homely girl of Gosford
Park turned herself into Texan trash in No
Country For Old Men and now into this complex,
damaged character is proof of her brilliance.
And Keaton, always watchable in front of the
camera, shows he has a good eye behind it. Most
impressive.
The Informant
Director: Stephen Soderbergh
Starring: Matt Damon
This one came and went
without troubling the box office too much, which
is a shame given it’s one of versatile Damon’s
most compelling roles. Any film about a
whistleblower is going to suffer in comparison
to Michael Mann’s magisterial “The Insider” –
the film Rusell Crowe truly deserved an Oscar
for. Perhaps that’s why Soderbergh goes for a
light touch. Damon, who piled on the pounds for
this role, plays fantasist Mark Whitacre who
blows the whistle on corporate fraud in a jokey
spy film. Soderbergh provides his usual added
value with his commentary on the extras.
Katalin Varga
Director: Peter Strickland
Starring: Hilda Peter, Norbert Tanko
A startling debut from
Reading-born, Budapest-living director
Strickland . Filmed on a minimal budget in the
Hungarian countryside it tells the story of a
young mother (Peter) and her son (Tanko) who set
off across Transylvania in a horse-drawn
carriage and on foot to take revenge for a past
crime. Not much happens for much of the film but
the landscape is stunning and the tension builds
and eventually it is a powerful tale of
betrayal, revenge and, of course, redemption.
DVDextras include Strickland himself talking
engagingly about the film to camera. Worth
checking out.
Worth buying for Michael Caine’s commentary
alone. It ranges far wider than this film
Loved the film, still love it on DVD - except
the subtitles are tiny.
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