Submarine

I don't know about you, but I grew up on a diet of movies involving American teens, whose lives bore no relation to my own. Much as The Breakfast Club and Ferris Bueller's Day Off are seminal teen movies, as Morrissey once warbled, they say nothing to me about my life. I never had an adventure of any kind in detention, and I didn't know anyone whose dad owned a Ferrari. This, then, is the antidote to all that.

Directed by Richard Ayoade, of IT Crowd and much other stuff fame, this is a tale of a teenage boy who's too smart for his own good, growing up in a small town that he clearly feels is beneath him. In this case it's Swansea, but it could be any provincial British town. The boy's name is Oliver Tate, and he's just the kind of amusingly unsufferable prick that I'm sure we all were at his age. And he is about to go through something of a minefield of his life, which includes bullying at school, getting his first girlfriend, his parents going through a sticky patch, his mother taking up with a new age hippy type who's just moved in next door, and so forth.

All of this he navigates, narrating his life as if it were a movie, trying and often failing to do the right thing, and get through it all unscathed and mentally intact.

So far, so Adrian Mole. And in many ways, it's got quite a bit of the Secret Diary Of Adrian Mole about it. Where we part from it, however, is in that it's cruelly funny, with excellent dialogue, and a genuinely hilarious central performance from Craig Roberts (who you may have seen recently in Being Human); it's also a very well judged performance. Oliver Tate is, to put it mildly, a bit of a tit. As he's portrayed, he's amusingly so, with a lot of pathos about him. Any more of a tit, and you'd probably lose patience with him; any less, he wouldn't be funny. Hence, between the director and the actor, they've captured something pretty special, which is a portrayal of a teenager which seems true to life, and yet is still endearing.

It's a highly enjoyable film, and if you're in your mid to late thirties, and grew up thinking that you lived among social and intellectual inferiors, in a small town you couldn't wait to get out of, then you'll also find it hugely nostalgic.

Frankenstein

Directed by Danny Boyle, starring Jonny Lee Miller and Benedict Cumberbatch. If you've not heard of this coming out, and are thinking that maybe you should have, that may well be because it's not strictly a film. It's part of the National Theatre's NT Live programme, which are a series of stage plays broadcast live to cinemas nationwide. This is, without doubt, one of the best, most obvious ideas ever, and one which presumably has only become possible with the advent of digital projection.

This isn't the first one I've been to, but it's the first I'm claiming as my weekly cinema visit; mostly I think because it actually feels pretty cinematic. Also, I went to see it twice, and so I haven't had much time for anything else this month, and I need to pad the numbers somehow.

Why did I go see it twice? Because it's two performances. Miller and Cumberbatch have apparently been switching the roles of Frankestein and Creature night by night. Like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOXnQLiMTpw

Obviously, the story is the classic - Creature is created, thrown out into the cruel world, and thus is educated in the ways of cruelty. It's very interesting to watch two actors take that basis, and interpret exactly the same script in very different ways. In Benedict Cumberbatch's hands, the Creature seems like a person recovering from a debilitating brain injury or stroke, slowly relearning the way his body works, and overcoming its limitations. And thus, the play becomes about how we treat disabled people, and the rage they must feel at being marginalised by society. When it's Johnny Lee Miller's turn, the Creature is more of an infant, new to the world, learning as he goes, and the film is much more about ideas like nature vs nurture, and how people become who they are through how they're treated in formative years.

It's hard to say which is better - and a false dichotomy to believe that one of them has to be. Ultimately, I think the production is better for having these two aspects to it.

Overall, the production isn't without its weakness; I don't think the stage adaptation is particularly brilliant, and early on in the play where the world is being presented as a confusing place for the Creature, the staging is a bit self-indulgent. But once that's done with, and the Creature's off to meet its maker in good old fashioned melodramatic style, and from then on it's full tilt towards the suitably gruesome conclusion.

You should definitely seek out future NT Live productions. You get to see top notch live theatre, and with a bit of luck, the widening audience might go some way towards the arts being cost effective again.

Route Irish

Some background. "Route Irish" is the road from Baghdad International Airport to the secured Green Zone in the centre of the city. It has been described as the most dangerous road in the world, rife with ambushes, IEDs, random gunfire, etc. And of course, it's this road that everybody arriving in Baghdad on some sort of business must travel. And so, there's quite a security trade, private security contractors employing ex-soldiers to bodyguard various people and packages on this route. And it's this that's the basis of the film.

We have two ex-army scousers, and best mates, Frankie (John Bishop) and Fergus (Mark Womack). I say we have them; at the outset of the film, we have, sadly, a pine box containing not quite all of Frankie. The pair of them have been working for a private security company in Iraq, and while Fergus has been back in the UK, Frankie's been killed in action on Route Irish, escorting a journalist. We're told by their bosses that it's just an unfortunate case of "wrong place, wrong time". Fergus, however is having none of this.

Being unwilling to believe that no-one is responsible, and tortured by the guilt of having recruited Frankie to work for this company in the first place, Fergus embarks on a crusade to determine just who's responsible, and get justice.

Now, obviously, this is a Ken Loach film, so we aren't talking Matt Damon's Green Zone here. If anything, it feels like the TV Drama Hillsborough, focussing on the grief of the bereaved, and a seemingly unquenchable desire for more justice, regardless of the current findings. In many respects, Fergus is well on his way down the path to the film's conclusion long before he's uncovered any wrongdoing; he has a need to uncover it long before he could reasonably expect it to exist. He's looking for someone else to punish for his own guilt.

And just when you thought it couldn't get any cheerier, there's the waterboarding. I won't get into the specifics of why, but in the later stages of the film there is a very, very graphic scene of torture by waterboarding. And, I find, they managed to film it with such authenticity by actually waterboarding the guy - that is, the actor was actually put through the actual waterboarding process by the other actor in the scene. To the point that he suffered post-traumatic stress afterwards. I don't know how to feel about this; it echoes another thing in the film, the use of actual stock footage of victims of war. In this film, you're not just being asked to think about something appalling happening, you're asked to watch a genuine reconstruction.

It's powerful. It sends a message. It makes you think. But there's a sense of disquiet in watching it that is nothing to do with acting or filmmaking; you get to look into the eyes of a man genuinely in fear of his life. I can't decide or not whether this is responsible thing for them to have done. I feel like I should have been warned, and that it was somehow inappropriate to present such a thing in a fictional context.

In any case, other than that scene, I can't really fault the film much. There are the usual hallmarks of Ken Loach social realism, to the point where you get a couple of scousers shouting at each other, and it's as genuinely unintelligible as the real experience. But it grips you, it moves you, and if there's any fault to the piece at all, it's that it's preaching to the choir somewhat; I don't think there's many people who ever sat down to watch any Ken Loach film who thought waterboarding was a good idea.

The Adjustment Bureau

Based loosely on the short story "Adjustment Team" by Philip K Dick. Which, I can tell you, is a pretty short story, about 8000 words. And of those words, The Adjustment Bureau doesn't really pay attention to many of them. The protagonist of Adjustment Team, for instance, is a mild mannered estate agent, who accidently ends up seeing behind the scenes of an "adjustment", where the supernatural Powers That Be are making small changes to the world in order to make large changes to the course of events. His response is to have a bit of a wibbling fit, and beg the Powers That Be to not kill him, he won't make any trouble. Because Dick didn't write about heroes, he writes about everymen.

Now, for Hollywood, this will not do. Matt Damon is a Big Damn Hero, and Hollywood likes making films about Big Damn Heroes. So the protagonist of the original must be Adjusted.

Instead, Matt Damon is a Congressman and Senatorial hopeful, who flubs his campaign on election night. The PTB didn't plan for this, so an adjustment is called for. The adjustment they make is that they contrive that he meet Emily Blunt, who is essentially his ideal woman, they have a fleeting moment which inspires him to make a concession speech that revives his fortunes, makes him a shoe-in for the next election, and so forth.

Unfortunately for The Adjustment Bureau, it seems that in some sense they're meant to be together, and luck, fate, whatever keeps throwing them together, while the Bureau need them to stay apart in order that their Plan for the world work out right. Then it comes to pass that Matt sees behind the scenes of the stuff they're doing, and so they basically level with him, hoping that he'll see sense and go along with The Plan. Unfortunately, The Plan means that he doesn't get to be with the girl of his dreams, so you can pretty much guess how that conversation goes.

So, this film is one part Phil Dick paranoia trip, one part chase movie, one part romantic comedy, in which essentially these sinister guys in trilbies try and interfere and prevent all the key moments of their burgeoning romance from happening.

And crazy as it may sound, it kind of works. The Adjustment Bureau aren't an evil bunch, their plan is to make the world a better place by ensuring that a nice guy with principles becomes a Senator. It's just that the nice guy doesn't want to cooperate. Matt Damon and Emily Blunt have a lot of chemistry, and the romance between them is surprisingly believable and non-sickening. Meanwhile the growing frustration of the Adjustment Bureau, populated by the likes of John Slattery and Terence Stamp is quite understandable; all they want to do is make sure the world is put to rights, and this idiot pair won't stop being lovey dovey and see the big picture.

So, rather than the usual PKD theme of someone wibbling in a corner doubting his own identity and sanity, it's all rather jolly, without really losing sight of the central themes inherent in the original story.

Sadly, and inevitably, the film can't sustain this long enough to reach a satisfactory conclusion, and delivers something as trite as the end of Minority Report which brought us to the climax and then said "and then they all went to live on a farm and live happily ever after" like we're five year olds, with parents who don't want to tell us what happened to the dog. It's not a horrible ending, mind, just a bit of a deux ex machina which leaves you wondering whether much of the preceding couple of hours were even necessary.

Ultimately though, it's a decent enough film which is worth seeing for all the good stuff in it, even if all the good stuff sort of runs out a few minutes before the end.

Drive Angry in 3D.

I want you to consider something with me. I want you to mull it over. Savour it, like a fine wine.

Nicholas Cage has broken out of Hell. He has broken out of Hell because a cult of redneck satanists have killed his daughter and kidnapped his granddaughter, intent on sacrificing her to Satan. Nothing will stand in his way, except for perhaps Satan's right hand man, known as The Accountant, an indestructable guy in a suit who will stop at nothing to bring Cage screaming back to hell.

Now think about it. When was the last time you heard a plot synopsis that balls-out insane? I mean, Machete and The Warrior's Way were pretty crazy, but this kind of leaves them standing, in the Loco stakes.

Of course, if you are a fan of over-the-top, so-bad-it's-awesome action movies, like I am, you will also approach this film with a sense of trepidation. Because it's a formula every bit as hard to get right as your more serious genres. I was reminded of Wanted yesterday, and I recalled how, despite being on the face of it a similarly outrageous action movie, it all seemed a bit forced, like nobody was having any fun. Not so here. Everyone involved here really seems to appreciate what it is they're doing, and are completely committed to that goal, relishing every minute.

And what it is, is a proper grindhouse-style exploitation 3D movie. Not a homage to one, or a spoof of one, this is the real deal in my view. Pick a scene at random, and it's almost certain to be a gunfight, a car chase, a fist fight, a sex scene, or, more likely, any two of the above, or in some cases, three. And for the most part, absolutely well judged in tone in order to make it cackle-inducingly over the top, without tipping over the edge into parody.

The 3D was a breath of fresh air too. Since Hollywood started this latest love affair with 3D, they've tried to be mature about it "It's all about the realism, putting you into the scene, enhancing your experience", whereas classic 3D movies of the 70s and 80s were well aware that's bullshit, and what 3D is for is "OHMYGODITSCOMINGRIGHTATYOU" stuff. And Drive Angry knows this. Bullets, car parts, axes, and god knows what else come whizzing out of the screen at you at a rate of knots. And frankly, that's what 3D is for, and it's the only plausible use for it.

The downsides of the movie are mostly technical in one way or another. The 3D is cheap postproduction. Not, I felt, as with so many films these days, because it was tacked on as an afterthought where it wasn't wanted or needed, but simply because they hadn't the money to spring for real 3D cameras. Similarly, the CGI is pretty cheesy when it happens. The pace and direction is a bit patchy in places; they've got themselves some pretty awesome setpiece scenes, but they don't always seem to know how to get between them.

All this is pretty much nitpicking. This is a low-budget, low-rent exploitation flick, which manages to scale the heights of awesomeness often enough to more than justify the price of admission. In short, if this is the sort of thing that you think might entertain you, it will.