Review: Civil War

Alex Garland's Civil War isn't titled Civil War 2 - which is what it technically depicts - or The Second American Civil War or anything like that, because it's not meant to be a prediction of a reality to come. In fact, it strenuously avoids anything in the big picture that could be mistaken for realism. The main military force is an alliance between Texas and California which okay, might happen. As for the actual causes of this civil war, they're never mentioned.

While some have praised the film's commitment to just dropping the viewer into the conflict and letting them figure it out, Garland doesn't really give the viewer enough information to figure anything out - which is a little ironic, considering all the main characters are journalists and at least one of the themes in this murky film is "how far should you go in your commitment to document the truth?" Turns out these guys will do pretty much anything to get the story, they just can't be bothered telling it to anyone.

So while the President (Nick Offerman, seen only briefly at the beginning and end of the film) is presented as a babbler disconnected from reality, well, name a recent President who wasn't. All we know of his political achievements is that he disbanded the FBI, messed around with the rules as far as drone strikes on American citizens, and had a third term. Sure, maybe he's a fascist dictator; maybe he disbanded the FBI because of its long history of abusing civil rights and ran for a third term because the country was already at war with itself. We don't know.

Not only do we have a conflict with no cause, we have a conflict that's clearly not designed to reflect current warfare. There are no drones; the US Navy must have decided to sit it out because one aircraft carrier parked outside Washington DC would have ended the war in about half an hour. Military technology is roughly on the level of the Vietnam War, or maybe Gulf War One: tanks, automatic weapons, rocket launchers, humvees.

The scenes of war we're shown are also generic. There are gun battles and refugee camps, armed guards at stores and looters hung and tortured. There's a mass grave, a sniper who seems to be shooting indiscriminately, a suicide bomber. These scenes are always effective and often chilling, but for a generation of viewers used to zombie movies and The Walking Dead, or just who've seen Spielberg's War of the Worlds, it's all pretty much what you'd expect.

Likewise, our lead characters are the kind of war correspondents that are familiar from wars gone by. These are photojournalists who still shoot on film; while there's one mention of an upload, and we're told there's no phone service, digital cameras don't seem to be a thing. Characters work for Reuters or "what's left of the New York Times"; nobody's posting pictures of war crimes on social media.

So the war is a metaphor; we have to look elsewhere for meaning. It's tempting to look at the characters: Lee (Kirsten Dunst) is a war-weary photographer, Joel (Wagner Moura) is her slightly more enthusiastic journalist buddy. They're planning to go to Washington DC to interview the President before his regime falls. Tagging along is fresh-faced newcomer Jesse (Cailee Spaney), who is just starting out as a photojournalist and who idolises Lee, and Sammy (Stephen McKinley Henderson), a senior writer who is tagging along on what might be the last big story of his career.

There are some obvious moves here. Jessie is going to learn what it takes to make it, Lee is going to have to figure out if this is still what she wants to do with her life. Garland sketches all this stuff in off-handedly, though the performances are strong. It's tempting to suggest this is a film about the cost of being detached and the price you pay as an individual for journalistic detachment.

These are people able to dispassionately observe their own country tear itself apart, working the shutter of their cameras as their homeland dies in front of them. There's a cost to that, and as we get to the climax of the film some characters embrace that cost and others question it. But the film is barely interested in its characters as people; much of the film simply requires them to be observers, their own stories largely kept in the background.

What the film is more interested in is the end of the USA. The opening is the President getting ready to give a speech about how the separatists have been crushed, and the system as we know it is set to be restored. It's not until a few scenes later that we realise he's full of shit. The US government has lost the war, and everyone expects the President to be dead within weeks.

That conversation between journalists also sketches in the basic state of play across the nation; there's at least three separate factions out there, and only their hatred of the President and his forces is keeping them united. While the film as it progresses seems to be driving towards a firm conclusion, we've already been told that no end is in sight.

Everything we see in the film - constant lethal violence, rampant mistrust, an unending sense of threat behind every action - is now and for the foreseeable future the status quo in America. This explains why the war is so basic, so hand-to-hand: it's not about forces fighting for territory or resources, it's about a country where neighbour wants nothing more than to murder their neighbour.

What gives Civil War it's power - and despite its many flaws and flat patches, it does end up a powerful film - is that it ends up gleefully reveling in the disaster it portrays, a zombie movie that says we deserve to be eaten. The state of the nation is a nightmare, the film says, where friend has turned against friend, brother against brother. And the solution is to find someone to blame.

The final act of the film involves the storming of Washington and the White House, and it's easily the high point of the film. Garland kicks things into pure action mode as we follow a military unit (and our tag-along leads) as they fight their way into the war torn city, complete with monuments coming under fire. Civil War is seemingly about the importance of a media committed to objectivity, but the film itself only comes to life when it's reveling in the fruits of bias and division.

Going by the current state of US political discourse no doubt there's a large audience out there right now keen to see either their current or the previous head of state gunned down like a dog. The President here is kept so vague he could be from either party or neither; he's politically a blank slate, simply "The President".

Civil War says the desire for this kind of thing is a poison that will tear the country apart, and then it serves that poison right on up.

- Anthony Morris

Review: Late Night with the Devil

It's proof of the strength of its concept that Late Night with the Devil works as well as it does. Recreating antique television is a tricky job, and this often manages to be a weird mix of on-the-money and slapdash at the very exact same time. Without a note-perfect performance from David Dastmalchian at its heart, this would be little more than an interesting (and creepy) experiment; he's what makes this movie soar even as the talk show within it goes wildly off the rails.

That winning concept is a episode of a late-70s late night talk show, supposedly taken direct from recently discovered master tapes, in which a very special theme night goes horribly wrong. But first there's a documentary-style prologue to get us up to speed on both the era's Satanic Panic and the path to not-quite-success taken by host Jack Delroy, quickly bringing us to the point where a Halloween special featuring psychics, debunkers, and a young girl raised to be a demonic sacrifice who just might be possessed herself seems like a ratings winner.

Australian directors Cameron and Colin Cairnes do a great job with the look of the talk show. It's the kind of thing where you know there are probably flaws there somewhere, but it captures the overall vibe so well that you can forgive some dubious camera angles. But during the ad breaks we cut to "behind-the-scenes" black and white footage that doesn't make (technical) sense at all. It provides useful backstory and fills in some gaps, but it's basically shot like a modern film, the kind of footage they couldn't have taken at the time.

While these scenes are technically jarring, they do make sense (and work pretty well) if you forget all the "this was an actual event that happened" stuff and see this as a horror movie that just happens to take place in a television studio. Which is a reasonable way to look at things, even if it does impose a different set of limitations on the material. If you're not going to pretend it's a real episode of a real show, why bother filming 2/3rds of the film like it is?

Some of the other flaws are more understandable. Events come to a boil early on, followed by a stretch where not a lot overtly happens to further crank up the tension; the whole idea of putting in a big moment early on then letting the (boring) story play out for another half hour or more is so ingrained in current script writing that it's not so much a flaw as just another example of a trend.

But horror, more than any other genre in cinema today, remains one where film makers are encouraged to throw everything at the wall and see what sticks (before slowly sliding down, leaving a bloody trail behind). Audiences expect horror films to be an uneven collection of moments that work and scenes that fail; even slow-burn classics of the genre often have a couple of missteps we forgive them for.

Fortunately here, the good outweighs the bad. The fake show is convincing enough to provide a decent backdrop for the slow descent into nightmare, with just enough reversals to explain why people don't get the hell out of there (plus, as we're told multiple times, this is showbiz, and it's all part of the act). There's a nice variety of horror on display here as well, ranging from the creepy to the gory to the nastily brutal to a few surreal moments - though again, the enemy of terror is over-explanation, and this often spells things out that we already grasped through earlier insinuation.

There's one moment towards the end where the film shifts gears and a character finds themselves in a very different situation from everything that's come before. That "oh shit, they're really going there" realisation threatens to turn this from being merely pretty good into something truly special.

... and then they use that shift to fill in backstory rather than pile on the surreal horror. So close.

- Anthony Morris

 

Review: Monkey Man

 

Dev Patel's directorial debut Monkey Man was heading for a straight-to-streaming Netflix slot before Jordan Peele saw it and decided it was too good to bypass cinemas. It's not hard to see why. Directed with style and energy, it's the kind of full-bore experience that works best on the big screen. But too good for streaming? That depends what kind of streaming you're talking about.

In recent years it's become obvious that while at-home isn't the best venue for every film, there are certain genres that can thrive in the streaming environment. Romantic comedies might be having a comeback on the big screen, but that's building on years of re-introducing viewers to their charms via countless direct-to-streaming features. And action films, the kind of bruising, no holds-barred, relentless onslaughts of crippling violence that fans love to see? Streaming is where it's at.

Which is why it's for the best that Monkey Man has gone to cinemas first, because as far as action goes this is good - but not great. Some fights are effectively nasty; others threaten to bring back the much-loathed shaky-cam approach where "action" equals "keeping the camera moving so you can't tell what's going on". There are strong moments here, but there's just not enough of them for a film based around violent vengeance.

So what else does this have to offer? What initially seems like your traditional tale of roaring revenge as the Kid (Patel) inflitrates a luxury hotel built on drugs and prostitution then takes a swerve into the (slightly) mystical as the Kid finds himself rescued by a outcast group of local trans women and realises that the corruption and religious exploitation he's fighting against stretches far beyond his own personal suffering.

The Indian setting (the film was shot in Indonesia) is never quite as distinctive as it promises to be, but the often pointed political commentary provides some useful depth to the cartoony plot. Most recent action films seem eager to avoid having anything to say; this at least says something, and is a better film for it.

Patel himself makes for a strong lead. His tall, wiry physicality is used to good effect, especially early on when his desire for revenge is burning him up from the inside; later scenes, where he's a much more focused character, aren't as threatening as they should be.

As a mix of comic-book plotting (where the hero's first attempt at defeating the bad guys fails, so he has to go and regroup before trying again) and offbeat moments (the Kid's training montage is scored by a local musician while the trans women cheer on his sweaty shirtless antics), it's a good backbone for an action thriller. But once you look past the often flashy style, the thrills aren't quite there.

Patel stages some sequences effectively, but others rely more on energy generated with the camera than what we're seeing in front of it. There's a brief John Wick reference early on, which makes for a nice joke; it's also a reminder that those films were all about showcasing the physical skill of the performers by filming the action clearly and simply. It's a lesson Patel might want to take to heart next time he gets behind the camera.

- Anthony Morris

Review: Road House

 

The original Road House is not a great movie. But it is a weird, silly, and very entertaining movie, which is why it's exactly the kind of movie that deserves a remake. Sure, you can complain that the 2024 version is desecrating the good name of a Hollywood classic; you can also enjoy this version for what it is - another weird, silly and very entertaining movie.

Dalton (Jake Gyllenhaal) is the kind of man who, when he turns up to shady winner-takes-all fights in the middle of nowhere, the other guy just gives up rather than face him. The other guy is played by Post Malone, so maybe it's not as big an achievement as it seems, but it is a nice twist to start off the film with Dalton not fighting someone. 

It's easy money, so it's hardly surprising when Dalton knocks back an offer from Frankie (Jessica Williams) to come work at her roadhouse for a month beating up the endless supply of thugs who are trashing the place. But aimless drifting isn't for everyone, so before long he turns up in the Florida Keys all ready to demolish the thugs - only to discover that the thugs aren't just random bullies, and he's got himself into a situation he might not be able to resolve with his fists.

Or maybe he can, because despite the occasional gesture towards being a traditional movie, this version (directed by Doug Liman) isn't really interested in anything beyond figuring out ways to get Dalton cracking skulls. Dalton's supporting cast are introduced then ignored, while the mechanics of the evil scheme barely seem to matter - which, to be fair, they don't.

Instead, the tension builds from within. Dalton is supernaturally laid back for an ultimate killing machine, casually dismantling goon squads then personally driving them to the hospital. Even as things escalate around him, he remains an easy come, easy go kind of dude - because, as is eventually sketched in, when he does get angry, bad things happen. Will the bad guys find a way to piss him off? Is this movie titled Peaceful Resolution?

While mainstream humanity is all but superfluous here, chief bad guy and perpetual failson Ben Brant (Billy Magnussen) is an enjoyably overmatched chump, and as the most bungling of his bungling goons Arturo Castro gets a few good laughs. The real threat shows up half way through in the form of Knox (Conor McGregor), and while the film semi-successfully sells him as both a loose cannon and a comedy loon in every scene, McGregor himself comes away as a performer you don't really need to see ever again. 

Much, much more importantly, there are numerous brutal and aggressively filmed fights, organised in such a way so as to ensure the pummelings steadily escalate from the aborted underground fight at the opening to a climax involving a murderous and physics-defying clash of near-naked godlings in the ruins of civilisation itself. 

While Liman has been complaining that his film didn't get a cinema release, it's much more in tune with the current wave of ultra-bruising direct-to-streaming actioners - and seen as such, this road house is well worth a visit.

- Anthony Morris

Review: The Color Purple

The film to stage musical to musical film pipeline has been going strong for a while now, with results best described as "mixed". Even great musicals can become average films, and with a perfectly good film version already in place a musical take has even more obstacles to overcome.

So it's a relief that that the new musical version of The Color Purple - featuring songs from the 2005 musical, which in turn built on both the 1985 Spielberg film and the 1982 novel by Alice Walker - feels like a natural extension of what went before. Directed by Beyonce collaborator Blitz Bazawule, it's in turn riotously energetic and sombre, music thrumming through the Georgia of a century ago like a heartbeat.

Celie (Phylicia Pearl Mpasi) has it rough from the start. Pregnant at 14 with her second child to her father Alfonso (Deon Cole) raising her, it's only her younger sister Nettie (Halle Bailey) that provides her with any joy. After Alfonso gives away her newborn (delivered by a midwife played, in a nice cameo, by Whoopi Goldberg, who made her screen debut in the 1985 film), he marries her off to the superficially charming "Mister" (Colman Domingo). 

It is not a happy marriage. When Nettie flees Alfonso's clutches, she finds safety with her sister - for a time, as Mister is no better. Resisting his advances as well, she's thrown out, leaving Celie alone in a loveless house. 

Years pass and other women come into her life. There's force of nature Sofia (Danielle Brooks), who won't accept the violence and abuse Celie (now played by Fantasia Barrino) sees as her lot in life. And Shug Avery (Taraji P Henson) local girl made good singing the blues and love of Mister's life, rolls back into town stinking drunk. She's looking for a place to dry out; what she finds helps rekindle her passion for performing and her love of... well, her relationship with Celie is largely a matter of suggestion here.

There's a lot of heartbreak and pain here, and no shortage of brutality either. A big part of what makes the musical numbers work is the way they tap into the inner lives of Celie and those around her, the sorrow that fills their lives and the strength they find to keep going. Occasionally shading into the fantastic, the big group numbers underline the sense of community that runs throughout the story, while the solo songs driving home the sadness and isolation the characters struggle with.

As with all musicals, different songs will connect with different people; for mine, the earlier, more blues-influenced songs hit harder, and Shug's big numbers are always a stand-out. But across the board, the songs are strong enough to justify this film all on their own.

That's not to take away from the performances, or from Bazawule's direction. Swerving between authentically lived-in and woozy fantasy, this first and foremost feels like it's coming from the heart. It's a powerful, all-encompassing experience, one that - to use an over-used phrase - takes audiences on a journey. 

The feel-good ending (even for some of the nastier characters) is both joyous and earned; it's a hard road to travel, and everyone on it deserves a shot at redemption.

- Anthony Morris

 

 

 

*

Review: Priscilla

There's a lot of index cards that make up the Elvis story, and Priscilla Presley is usually shuffled a fair way down the pack. She doesn't have much of an impact on the music side of things; you'd think being his wife would make her central to his personal life, but it seems most of the good stuff - the drugs, the affairs, the trip to visit President Nixon - took place without her.

Sophia Coppola's take on Priscilla's biography is one that fits her own filmography like a glove: Priscilla (Cailee Spaeny) was a young woman trapped in a gilded cage. Pretty much from the moment the fourteen year-old was introduced to the 24 year-old Elvis (Jacob Elordi) on an US Army base in Germany she was kept from maturing, stuck living a life that seemed ideal yet increasingly failed to give her what she wanted and needed.

It's the early courting scenes that (intentionally) have the most life here, with Elvis as a good ol' boy with pure intentions and a lot of heartbreak and loneliness after the death of his mother. Priscilla is a young woman on the verge of something she can't name, only to make the one choice that erases any chance of her finding out.

The issue of the creepy age gap is largely defused - seems Elvis wasn't all that interested in her sexually no matter what her age. But the question of exactly what Elvis did want from her remains up in the air, even as he woos both her and her parents, getting them to agree to her staying (chaperoned) at Graceland.

Elvis clearly has firm opinions about her behaviour and dress that he's not afraid to impress upon her - if it'd give her an external life it was ruled out, though considering his massive fame keeping her close wasn't entirely unjustified. But the result was that much of her life with him was one of benign neglect, leaving her at home or out of things while he was busy being Elvis outside of Graceland. 

Best guess is she represented an ideal of womanhood Presley felt he needed in his life, even as he was popping pills, sleeping with Ann-Margaret and partying with the Memphis Mafia. Priscilla seemingly has everything she could want, only nobody ever asks her what she needs.

Priscilla is on the fringe of big things, but Coppola never leaves us feeling that we're missing out. Elvis' life is big but bland and unexamined - it's Priscilla's growth, her realisation that she's never going to be anything more than an object in her marriage, that's the real action here.

Not that "action" is quite the right word. The usual biopic list-checking of big events shows up from time to time, but the insights into The King are limited (there isn't a single Elvis song on the soundtrack) and stakes are rarely all that high. Priscilla is frustrated and stifled, Elvis is more neglectful than anything else, and when she finally decides she wants out Elvis knows it's time to let her go.

Still, both lead performances are spot-on, and the hazy vibe of life in Graceland is evocative and effective. It's a story in a minor key; if it feels like bigger things are just out of sight - for both Elvis and Priscilla - that's kind of the point.

- Anthony Morris

Review: Ferrari

The latest in Michael Mann's examinations of men under the pump, Ferrari features something of a gear change. Now pushing eighty, Mann is usually drawn to men of action, even in biographies (Ali). This look at a month or so of the life of Enzo Ferrari (Adam Driver) takes place in 1957, when his racing days are long behind him. In a world of kinetic frenzy, Ferrari is on the sidelines directing; read into that what you will.

Not that this is two hours of Enzo lying by the pool sipping a Negroni. The opening sees him slipping silently away from one woman - his secret lover Lina (Shailene Woodley), with whom he has a son about to be confirmed (but will Enzo give him the Ferrari name?) - to return to his wife Laura (Penelope Cruz). She says hello by shooting at him. 

Work isn't going much better. Partly because Laura owns half the company but their personal life is in ruins after the death of their son, mostly because Enzo is focused entirely on racing but it's selling cars that pays the bills. When a new driver comes a-knocking, Enzo is watching his current top driver flinging a car around the track in order to reclaim a speed record they lost just hours earlier. Enzo says he doesn't need a new driver; no prizes for guessing how quickly that changes.

No one event can solve all his problems, but winning the 1000 mile cross country Mille Miglia promises to steady his speed wobbles. If you know the details of the 1957 race, then you know what to expect; if you don't, Mann and scriptwriter Troy Kennedy Martin provide just enough red herrings (hang on, that driver didn't properly check in!) to keep you in suspense. 

Or maybe just dread. The constant spectre of death hangs over the racers' camaraderie, which Enzo clearly still craves even as he remains apart. The scene before the race begins where the drivers write farewell letters to their loved ones like WWI fighter pilots is moving stuff.

The family dramas are a little more melodramatic (one major plot is Laura slowly figuring out the existence of Lina, then remorselessly tracking her down), but an at times astonishingly raw performance from Cruz more than makes up for it. And while Woodley pales a little by comparison, that feels intentional: in a life that seems constantly on the verge of flying apart, she's what keeps things grounded - for the brief moments Enzo's with her.

Driver plays Enzo as a steely (literally in his grey suits) figure of determination. But there's no fraying around the edges. The control required comes off as second nature. He's got a handle on things, whether selling cars to kings or trading banter at the barbers; now he's pushing them to the limit like he once did on the track. 

Mann's film is full of speed and velocity - the car scenes are white-knuckle visceral - but Ferrari is on a different track. Even when standing still, he's constantly driving himself forward; each victory only sets the stage for the next race.

- Anthony Morris