Pineapple Express

When people mention Pineapple Express, it is usually in the same breath as Superbad and occasionally Knocked Up. Granted, Evan Goldberg and Seth Rogen were behind all three movies (to varying degrees) and they all come from the Apatow stable - which is now enjoying the inevitable backlash from critics - but to call it a follow-up and imply a more-of-the-same attitude is to do it a disservice. Pineapple Express is not another teen comedy or another frat-boy-comes-of-age movie, where the characters find themselves in embarrassing, socially awkward situations and generally make fools of themselves, while having the breathing room to improv and riff off each other with hilarious results.

No, Pineapple Express is a very different beast. It's a 'genre' movie bringing with it all the associated challenges. It's an Action Comedy. It's a Stoner Action Comedy to be more specific. For a stoner action comedy you're gonna need a significant plot, you're gonna need lengthy elaborate action sequences, you're gonna need the obligatory smoking sequences and cheap stoner gags and on top of that you're gonna need to be funny, so funny in fact, that you don't suffer in comparison to Superbad. That's a tall order. How did they set about achieving it? Well, by doing almost everything differently, something to be roundly applauded.

They keep the plot fairly simple; Seth Rogen's pot-smoking loser, witnesses a murder and has to go on the run with his dealer, getting unwittingly caught up in a war between 2 rival drug gangs in the process. As far as the, action sequences go they stick rigidly to one rule. These guys are not action stars! They are stoners! So we have no athletic, quick-thinking bad-ass action moves, followed by comedic quips ala Lethal Weapon or Rush Hour. Instead the comedy comes from their complete inability to achieve anything remotely physical. There is one sequence in which the pugilists even seem incapable of hurting each other because they are completely lacking in any physical prowess, ingenuity, strength or athleticism. Apparently the idea for this movie came from asking, what if the bad guys had chased Brad Pitt in True Romance instead of Christian Slater. Just like Lebowski was thrown into a Film Noir plot for comedy gold, they throw two everyman stoners into a convoluted action movie set-up and have them react almost realistically to every situation i.e. with utter panic, inarticulacy and incompetence. These guys are not Mel Gibson.

As far as the stoner comedy goes, there almost is none. Don't get us wrong, they mine the fact that the characters are stoned in the most inappropriate situations for all it's worth. They just don't assume for one moment that smoking weed in itself is funny. It's all about the context. One example: Smoking weed = boring. Selling weed to 12-year-olds to get money to flee town, smoking it with them, thinking you're cool but ultimately getting so stoned that you get caught by the police = funny.

In all this perhaps accidental innovation, they don't quite achieve everything. They don't achieve the same comedy hit rate that Superbad managed as they just aren't allowed spend as much time mining for laughs. Also, the success of the their previous efforts has often been down to the audience getting to spend time with a group of friends who have a ready-made sense of humour complete with recognisable rivalries, resentments and raillery. This is more about the burgeoning of a friendship rather than the exploration of an existing one. And yet again Rogen and Goldberg have tooled their script as a love story between two males. Of course buddy comedies always have that undercurrent (witness the countless Brokeback Mountain trailer parodies) but Pineapple Express - and Superbad before it - dispense with the coyness and overtly set up the relationship of a weed smoker and his dealer as essentially a fuck-buddy relationship that turns into love. The attempt to invest this friendship with such metaphorical undertones (or overtones) illustrates the care and attention to detail and the desire to do something a little different with the genre that permeates the whole enterprise and sets it apart from a turgid Ratner rip-off. Still, to step all over our original point, it's no Superbad.

3/5

RocknRolla

RocknRolla is a Guy Ritchie film. From the opening voice over you know what is coming next. It seems that after recent failures Ritchie has decided that the best way to proceed is simply to copy the general outline of his previous success Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. One Two (Butler) and Mumbles (Elba) are two criminals who get in over there heads in a dodgy property deal and end up owing money to Lenny Cole (Wilkinson), a notorious London Gangster. They have a week to come up with the money. As with his previous work there are numerous interlinking subplots.

Ten years ago when Ritchie’s debut Lock, Stock and Two Smocking Barrels hit the silver screen we were impressed. The films many interwoven subplots worked well together, the characters were cool and there was enough humour and action to keep us entertained. A couple of years later he brought us Snatch an undoubtedly enjoyable film, but effectively a sequel. Since then Ritchie’s films have been a commercial and critical failure with Swept Away being a particular low. RocknRolla is not going to change our opinion that Ritchie is a one hit wonder.

RocknRolla is not without merit - some parts are well shot, there are a few funny moments but in the end there are no stand out performances, no great dialogue, no great characters, no dramatic twists and not enough hot women. So basically RocknRollla is Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels without the mojo. Having said all that, its reasonably entertaining.

Rating 2.5/5

Babylon A.D.

In a post apocalyptic world where global warming has mucked up the environment and where corporations are the new religion; a mercenary, Thoorop (Vin Diesel), takes a job of transporting a 'special' girl and her minder from Mongolia to New York.

After supposed studio tinkering with the final cut, Babylon AD ends up a vacuous neutered beast of a film. It’s hard to say how much at fault director Mathieu Kassovitz (La Haine) and screenwriter Eric Besnad are since they have publicly stated that this not their intended cut. Despite their protests, we can only judge the work on display; which is greatly flawed.

One would think that director Kassovitz had left his ‘How Actors Should Act’ handbook back in France when dealing with Diesel, Yeoh and lovely actress Melanie Thierry. A particularly guilty scene set in a tent in Alaska where our nuclear family supposedly ‘bond’ and ‘share a laugh’ ends up plain creepy and weird. Like at other points in this film, the scene is misjudged in its direction but there is a resounding feeling that something has been cut immediately preceding this which would make these scenes seem less out of place.

The blame can’t all go on the head of the big nasty studio though (of course, the action scenes are dull since all the money shots have been unceremoniously wrenched to make this a PG12 cert.) the story as it stands is uninteresting and is devoid of character depth. This is not to lecture that all action films have to be character driven, not at all. But what the genre does demand are central characters that either a.) we care about or b.) we enjoy watching them kick the shit out of the big boss’ henchmen. So, because the action has been clipped there is no window for us to like Vin Diesel’s hard man act e.g. ‘Pitch Black’; and because Mr. Diesel’s mercenary is a mono-syllabic oaf we don’t give two flying ones what happens to him.

It’s not all doom and gloom for this venture though. The cinematography and set design conjure a bleak and semi-compelling vision of the future. We may be sick to the teeth of seeing a future filled with scorched skies and radioactive bed sheets but it’s about the only aspect of this film that may be worth the cinema ticket. Otherwise, keep your cash in your pocket and take a look at the director’s cut once it is inevitably is released on DVD.

2/5

The Dark Knight - Masterpiece or Hype?

So what did everybody think of The Dark Knight? Let's hand this one over to you. Instead of a stuffy review why not give us your thoughts instead? Post a comment here and join the debate.

The Wackness

We've spoken at great length on this site about the potential pratfalls involved in making a typical indie movie and there's none so typical as the low-budget coming of age movie with a quirky indie spirit. Sometimes it works to the point where the movie overcomes the inevitability of the teenagers in question being painfully irritating (see Juno for reference). Other times it doesn't.

The Wackness hits screens fresh from success at Sundance (of course) and sounds like a cross between Charlie Bartlett and Thumbsucker in its tale of a loner high-school graduate who takes to selling pot for a day-job whilst attending therapy with a stoner shrink who is his best customer and could be his best friend.

Where The Wackness succeeds in differentiating itself is in its unusual stylistic choices. It's set in the early 90's for almost no discernible reason (the protagonist is a white-boy who listens to hip-hop instead of grunge, which may set him apart in the 90's but surely a similar distinction could have been made today). The colour grade is extreme and stylised with sickly greens and sepia browns making it look almost like a low-budget thriller or prison drama rather than the light hearted dramedy that it is. It could be jarring but what it does is takes us away from expectation and formula and anything that makes us feel like we've seen this sort of thing before.

The two central performances are of the highest order. Ben Kingsley will get all the plaudits for his entertainingly unhinged, eccentric shrink but whilst his performance is undeniably enjoyable and scenery-chewing, it still falls into the category of predictably quirky. The real kudos should go to Josh Peck who impressed so much a few years ago in Mean Creek and who now offers us a subtle, bravely nuanced performance which has the courage to remain stilted and isn't preening for attention or showing off. The kid is somewhat numb to the world, insulating himself at all times and accordingly that's exactly how Peck plays him.

Unfortunately, the movie is meandering and quite directionless in its story-telling. There seems to be little indication of what anybody wants to do or achieve until right near the end. Consequently, it flags in places and whilst it isn't attempting to be a comedy, it still isn't as funny as it thinks it is. It does finally come together to pack an emotional punch and just about manages to amount to the sum of its modest parts and it deserves extra credit for treating familiar material with a fresh eye. Now that Josh Peck has lost the weight of his younger years, which could have pigeon-holed him, Hollywood should come knocking...if there's any justice (Editors note: there isn't).
3/5

The Mist

The Mist is Frank Darabont first directorial effort since The Majestic. After the success of his earlier films The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile, the Majestic was a failure critically and commercially. The Mist, a horror with a seventies b-movie style, his third adaptation of Steven King material sees Darabont return to form.

As the film begins we are introduced to artist Dave Drayton (Thomas Jane) and his family. As night falls a storm hits their little town in Maine. The following morning as an ominous Mist closes in on the town Drayton, his son and his neighbour head into town to get supplies. By saying more we would run the risk of giving away to much. Which would be a really pity, this is a film where the less you know going in the better.

Suffice to say that The Mist is well worth the trip to the cinema. Strangely for a horror it is observing how the characters react to the pressure they are put under rather than the action itself that makes this film so great. The ensemble cast is excellent here with some great performances. Particularly from Marcia Gay Harden and Toby Jones. Even Thomas Jane, though an actor of limited ability, gives a solid performance in the lead role.

The action though is also great, with some excellent CGI. Despite its 126 minute running time, it doesn’t seem like a long film as Darabont keeps us enthralled throughout. Go enjoy!

4/5

The Visitor

It has long been acknowledged that there is barely such a thing as a real indie movie anymore. Most so-called indie movies are actually financed by specialist arms of major studios or by companies that are ultimately owned by the same corporations as the major studios. If a movie is made independently, it is almost always picked up for distribution by a major. So it seems the term indie is used more as a reference to style/genre/ethos than to a specific financial category. As with any style/genre (we use the term loosely here since it probably doesn't strictly fit the bill) there are formulas and audience expectations that make them feel predictable. This is particularly true of the character-based 'life-affirming' indie as opposed to the low-budget guns and gangsters kind. There's definitely a creeping sense among audiences that we've seen it all before.

It's into this difficult climate that Tom McCarthy's sophomore film The Visitor emerges. McCarthy's is an actor turned director whose debut film The Station Agent was a small, charming gem that deservedly garnered critical acclaim on the festival circuit and arguably added to the template of 'typical indie fare'.

The Visitor is about a lonely college professor who has effectively resigned from life until he finds 2 immigrants squatting in his apartment. The trio become unlikely friends and life lessons are learned, passion for life is re-ignited, residual grief over dead relatives is surmounted, romance is hinted at, but never overtly expedited (nothing so crass!) and credits role amid much ambiguity.

All this is fine and works extremely well in many indie films, in much the same way as a thriller can be formulaic but gripping if it's treated right. As mentioned The Station Agent is so full of easy-going charm that it succeeds brilliantly within this formula. The Visitor however, is a more difficult beast, to be admired for certain reasons and to be given the cold shoulder for others.

What makes this admirable and unusual for a character-based indie movie is its political edge and it's acute sense of anger at the treatment of asylum seekers. It manages to tackle an issue, if not quite head on, then through the indirect prism of the characters' worlds and is all the better for this angle of exploration. It doesn't feel preachy. It doesn't seek to inform but rather to explore and help find understanding.

That said, this causes some associated problems. The film can never quite decide if this is a story about a man rekindling his zest for life or whether it's a story about a man finding his passion through anger and a sense of righteous indignation. It seems the latter scenario would be fresh and interesting for a film of this type (or for any film for that matter - as Jonny Rotten said; anger is an energy - one too often ignored). Instead, what happens is that the zest-for-life moments sit a little incongruously in such a sombre, morose piece with the result that they feel shoehorned in and stick out as what they are, boring staples of the 'genre'.

It seems a strange criticism to level at a movie but this wasn't as enjoyable and entertaining as The Station Agent quite simply because it lacked that movie's charm. Yet it fails to break new ground and be an unusual example of the form, in that it tries too hard to have charm. Damned if you do. Damned if you don't. It's still a damned good effort and worth a look.

3/5