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The Cry of
The Owl
Director: Jamie Thraves
Starring: Paddy Considine, Julia Stiles,
Patricia
Highsmith story, filmed by Chabrol in 1987 as Le Cri
du Hibou (that’s, er, The Cry of The Owl) now gone
straight to DVD in this new version, despite the
starry cast. Considine is a troubled obsessive,
recovering from a nasty ex-wife, Stiles the object
of his fantasy in his new home-town. He snoops on
her and she invites him into her life. Then her
jealous ex-boyfriend arrives and the temperature
rises. Considine is always worth watching and the
gorgeous Stiles has acting chops when she’s allowed
to show them. The movie is well worth checking out.
Law Abiding
Citizen
Director: F Gary Gray
Starring: Jamie Foxx Gerard Butler
Gerard Butler
produced and stars in this high testosterene, wanna-be
Seven-like chiller. I should own up to my prejudices
here. I loathed director Gray’s wholly unnecessary
remake of The Italian Job; think Jamie Foxx has lost
all nuance in his acting since he became a star; and
don’t get slab-like Butler’s popularity. But, hey,
I’m open-minded. (Hmmm.) The film – a revenge story
– is functional enough and things blow up and Foxx
looks anguished and fierce and Butler looks, well,
slab-like. Passes the time.
SPIRAL
Director: Adam Green & Joel Moore
Starring: Joel Moore, Zachary Levi, Amber
Tamblyn
This
curious little film - obviously close to Avatar
star Joel Moore’s heart as he produces,
co-directs and stars in it – could be terrific
but is too skewed for that. Moore plays a
tormented, twitchy lonely telesales worker who
paints obsessively at night. His latest model is
a co-worker (Amber Tamblyn) who strikes up a
friendship with him. As their friendship, and
the sittings, progress it’s clear that Moore is
struggling with dark emotion. Very dark. Okay,
the viewer is thinking he’s going to kill her,
that he is in fact a serial killer.
There is an excellent twist at the end and the
film holds your attention throughout but its
weakness is that, however innocent or guilty
Moore’s character is, he exudes such creepiness
that no woman would go near him in the first
place with a barge-pole. Which leaves Amber
Tamblyn with the thankless task of making you
believe that her irritatingly kooky love
interest would really be drawn to someone with
Mass Murderer written all over his tormented
face.
Personally, I found her so irritating I was
hoping he would knock her off in the first reel
but you can’t have everything.
An okay time-filler of a film. [Release delayed
until May]
The Men Who Stare
At Goats
Director: Grant Heslov
Starring: George Clooney, Jeff Bridges, Ewan
McGregor, Kevin Spacey
Okay, not really a thriller
or a crime movie but, hey, there are guns and
fights. Besides, this film is pretty un-categorisable
– but it’s well worth seeing. Based on Jon
Ronson’s quirky account of US military
investment in psychic warfare, it’s a darkly
humorous, sometimes laugh out loud funny, movie,
with Clooney on cracking form as the man who can
kill a goat by staring at him. Jeff Bridges,
building on his Big Lebowski persona, is great
as the hippy military commander bringing New Age
babble into the US military. McGregor keeps up
with these two and Spacey (who is a bit
short-changed on screen time). The film’s
shortcoming is that the story that brings
terrific acting and wonderful individual scenes
together is uninvolving and, actually, a bit
tedious. So any individual scene is worth
watching but they don’t really hang together
into an involving narrative. Still worth viewing
though. Usual extras but nice alternative
commentary from Jon Ronson.
Sherlock Holmes
Director: Guy Ritchie
Starring: Robert Downey Jnr Jude Law Mark Strong
Rachel McAdams
I liked this more on DVD –
Downey Jnr and Jude Law are a great double act
and Ritchie presents a suitably fog-shrouded and
spooky London. Ritchie looms large in the extras
where you learn more than you might wish about
the details of the film production. There’s a
great tutorial on baritsu, Holmes’s self-defence
of system – but don’t try it at home.
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