Flick of The Day: Hugo

Hollywood's current obsession with 3D is yet another gimmick to extract more funds from the wallet of the average movie-goer. Once can only hope that this trend will run its course.  Very often it is used as a substitute for good storytelling and it is a pleasure then to report that Martin Scorsese's smart use of the medium in his recent Oscar nominee, Hugo, never detracts from the story and doesn't feel shoehorned in as it has on so many recent pictures. One could be forgiven for thinking that the director of Goodfellas and Casino would not be an obvious choice to direct a children's tale set in a Paris train station in the 1920's, however the fact that the film is a triumph on all fronts highlights once again that Scorsese is a master filmmaker regardless of genre.

Hugo

The precocious Asa Butterfield plays Paris orphan Hugo Cabret, who after the tragic death of his father (A surprisingly non-irritating Jude Law)  is sent to live with his drunken Uncle Claude played by Ray Winstone who looks after the winding of the clocks in the mammoth Montparnasse station. After his Uncle's disappearance, Hugo maintains the clocks and roams the station while avoiding the watchful eye of the station's police officer played by Sacha Baron Cohen and also attempting to steal clockwork parts from the toy store of Georges Melies, played by a brilliantly cranky Ben Kingsley. Hugo needs the spare parts to fix a clockwork automaton which his father had been attempting to fix at the time of his death. Unfortunately Georges catches Hugo in the act and threatens to turn him over the police however Georges run in with Hugo leads the latter to form a friendship with Georges granddaughter Isabelle played by Chloe Grace Moretz and together they try and fix the automaton while also discovering the mysteries of Georges past.

This is a film with a big heart and a grand sweeping tale of the birth of cinema. Scorsese has always had a fine eye for detail and in his reconstruction of 1920's Paris, he is meticulous. It is a feast for the visual senses as much as anything else. The intricate clock work that hides behind the grand façade of the station is stunningly rendered while the imagery of the early pioneers of cinema is a reminder that this can be a whimsical and colourful art, something which can be forgotten in the race for the next big blockbuster franchise.

"Maybe that's why a broken machine always makes me a little sad, because it isn't able to do what it was meant to do... Maybe it's the same with people. If you lose your purpose... it's like you're broken. "

The real emotional heart of the film is the tale of loss which binds the characters together. Hugo has lost his father and any hope of a normal childhood, Georges has lost his purpose in life and his achievements as a director have been forgotten while Isabelle has also lost her parents and even the police officer pines for the leg he lost in the war. It is this loss which drives them and the plot forward to its conclusion and along the way allows Scorsese to indulge in recreating some of the most well known imagery of the early days of cinema. In a sense, he tries to capture the magic that makes cinema that most accessible of art forms.

He is aided in this effort by a really stellar cast. When an actor of the calibre of Christopher Lee appears in a tiny role as book seller and is joined along the way by the immortal Richard Griffiths then you know you are in for a fine film. It is these small ancillary tales of life in the station that keep things moving along: Griffiths attempts to woo a fellow Parisian despite the murderous intent of her little dog and the budding romance between Baron-Cohen's policeman and Emily Mortimer's flower seller are highlights.

This praise is without even getting to the main characters of which Ben Kingsley gives a typically measured performance as Georges, a man deeply embittered by his personal failures much to the dismay of his wife. The child actors Asa Butterfield and Chloe Grace Moretz manage that almost impossible task of giving both a fine performance and also not treading too far into the land of saccharine.

All in all, this is a really lovely film and manages to hold its own amongst some of Scorsese's best work in terms of its visual sweep and the warmth of its storytelling. It makes uses of 3D without using it as a crutch and saints be praised relies on actors acting and speaking dialogue and other unfashionable things to tell its tale. A triumph.

Flick of The Day: Sneakers

spyIt is strange how often film's can be of their time, existing only in the zeitgeist and seeming out of date very quickly. Some things age very well, comedies like Laurel & Hardy and Some Like It Hot are as funny today as they ever were while others age unfavourably, particularly anything involving technology unless there is a deeper message. Today's film is a high tech thriller from 1992, Sneakers, that has aged well for precisely this reason. It raises questions about the effect of technological advance on how we live rather then focusing on it.

Sneakers (Collector's Edition)

Possessed of a cast to die for and a great script, director Phil Alden Robinson makes good use of both. The cast reads like a who's who of some of the best talent of the last forty years; Robert Redford, Sidney Poitier, James Earl Jones, Ben Kingsley, David Strathairn, River Phoenix and Dan Aykroyd. The film opens with a prologue on a snowy University campus in December 1969. Two students are hacking into bank accounts and making illegal wire transfers from the likes of Richard Nixon to the likes of committee for the legalisation of marijuana. One of them, Martin played by Redford goes for Pizza while the other Cosmo, played Kingsley waits. The police come, Martin escapes while Cosmo is caught and sent to prison. Fast forward to now and Martin runs a private security contractor with his partners ably played by Poitier, Strathairn, Phoenix and Aykroyd.  He is approached by government agents who are aware of his true past and offer to clean his record if he obtains a little black box from a mathematician called Gunther Janik. Of course nothing is as it seems and the box turns out to be a very valuable piece of equipment that can break any code and any encryption.

The film raises some interesting questions about how much we as a society rely on computers and their encryption to manage our everyday lives. As Ben Kingsley's character puts it:

"There's a war out there, old friend. A world war. And it's not about who's got the most bullets. It's about who controls the information. What we see and hear, how we work, what we think... it's all about the information! "

This is as relevant if not more relevant today as it was then. With each passing day we become more reliant on technology. Almost all governmental records in relation to taxation, income, marriage are computerised with no paper record. The question the film poses is what if these records weren't as safe as we thought them. If anything could be accessed, what might the consequences be? 

"Pollution. Crime. Drugs, poverty, disease, hunger, despair - we throw GOBS of money at them and problems only get worse. Why is that? Because money's most powerful ability is to allow bad people to continue doing bad things at the expense of those who don't have it."

The film is a thriller at heart though and it delivers on this front. The attempt to steal the black box back from Cosmo is a highlight with some wonderfully tense moments to keep you involved. Perhaps the film's strongest suit is it ensemble cast. All of the main performers are likeable and Ben Kingsley is devilish as the bad guy with a twisted ideology. The interplay between the team is excellent with some funny sparring matches between Dan Aykroyd's conspiracy theorist and Sidney Poitier's ex-CIA agent.

In summary, this is a memorable film with an interesting story driven by some excellent performances. The film is greater then the sum of its parts and is rounded off nicely with a good ending. There is something enjoyable about the bad guys losing out at the expense of the good guys. Well worth a look.

Flick of The Day: Sexy Beast

British gangster films have developed quite a poor reputation of late, thanks in part to the oeuvre of Guy Richie and Danny Dyer but that is to overlook a rich history of tales of the seamier side of  life with classics such as Brighton Rock, The Long Good Friday, and more recently today's film, Sexy Beast.

Sexy Beast

Gal (Ray Winstone) is an ageing paunched gangster retired to the Spanish countryside where he spends his days idling in the sun beside his pool and his nights relaxing with old friends. All is rosy in the garden until like a Titan from ancient Greece, old acquaintance Don Logan makes a surprise visit. Don wants Gal to take on...One Last Big Job. Suffice as to say, Gal is not keen to go back to England and Don is most insistent.

Ben Kingsley gives one of the great bad guy performances of all time as Don. He exudes evil, and is constantly verbally abusing Gal, taking it to a higher art form as he rants and raves:

"Don: Shut up, cunt. You louse. You got some fuckin' neck ain't you. Retired? Fuck off, you're revolting. Look at your suntan, it's leather, it's like leather man, your skin. We could make a fucking suitcase out of you. Like a crocodile, fat crocodile, fat bastard. You look like fucking Idi Amin, you know what I mean? Stay here? You should be ashamed of yourself. Who do you think you are? King of the castle? Cock of the walk?
[He gut-punches Gal]
Don: What you think this is the wheel of fortune? You think you can make your dough and fuck off? Leave the table? Thanks Don, see you Don, off to sunny Spain now Don, fuck off Don. Lying in your pool like a fat blob laughing at me, you think I'm gonna have that? You really think I'm gonna have that, ya ponce. All right, I'll make it easy for you. God knows you're fucking trying. Are you gonna do the job? It's not a difficult question, are you gonna do the job, yes or no?"

Tense is the only word for every moment Don is on screen. Everyone sits in silence as Don broods, knowing he could snap at any moment, and he frequently does with disastrous consequences for all. The film lags somewhat when Don isn't on screen, but Ray Winstone carries it through to the end. He is made for the character of Gal, a diamond geezer gone to seed in his Spanish villa. 

This film is not in the style of Guy Richie's Lock Stock et al and is all the better for it. It has a style all of its own. It is well worth the effort to seek this one out if you get a chance.