Back to work on a momentumless Monday morning. Fully rested from the weekend but always craving more. Right now I remain resentful of the bus-ride that jostles and jolts and keeps me awake. I could have caught another 10 minutes kip if it weren’t for these fucking roads. Someone should do something about that.
The bus screeches as it slows and I lift my head to meet one of Marble Arches statues, one of its many monuments. Among historical figures and battle horses stand more artistic endeavours, a little more surreal and expressive. A circus act: a man with a wide stance to accommodate the weight above him, his outstretched arm meeting the equally rigid trunk of an elephant balanced above.
This had stood out initially but you grow indifferent to even the most beautiful sunset should you sleep on the horizon – and the commute is inextricably cuffed to work. With such norms accepted it didn’t surprise me when I lifted my head that morning to see a large black figure standing taller than the double-decker’s top deck from which I viewed it: a winged feline, a deranged beast. A wild eyed, open jawed demonic cat, cutting a hole in the sky with its towering stature and razor tipped wings.
At a glance the beast was nothing more than another battle animal – something like the impressionist feral lions that decorate our most culturally significant grounds – but what caught me after a couple of seconds was it’s crazed expression. It looked as though the flesh had burnt away from its face, left frozen in a black maniacal scream.
I was left staring at this creature until the bus creeped forward once again, revealing the base of the monument – there standing a vicar with a train of suited folk behind him. Just on the outskirts a couple dozen Romanians lay unconscious in the morning sun, fallen at the feet of this behemoth as some kind of sacrifice. I am no longer tired. I am paying full attention to a world I no longer understand.
The bus pulls forward once more and reveals a little more to this already burgeoning picture – a camera crew. Okay. This grounds everything in a reality I can comprehend. Although in the coming days the monument remains and so too do the crowds collapsed below. A shrine for a Satanist religion perhaps. Only fair that all are represented I guess. I wonder where I apply to join.
I hadn’t seen a single episode of popular English spy-drama Spooks before watching the new film – and it looks like it’ll stay that way. It had been described to me as less clean-cut and more toned down than its American counterparts but had started to grow more farfetched over its seven series stretch.
Spooks: The Greater Good opens to a London skyline behind a curtain of rain and queues of traffic stretching to the horizon – this seems realistic enough – but not the most desirable situation for the MI5 agents at the centre of this hold-up, guarding Adem Qasim (Elyes Gabel) a terrorist in transit. Something is wrong. Soon Qasim will make his escape and heads will roll.
Held responsible for this debacle, Spooks stalwart and Head of Counter Terrorism Harry Pearce (Peter Firth) is forced to resign and disappears soon after. With the organisation now under threat – they look to a fresh face to find Harry and the truth behind his disappearance.
Kit Harrington has traded Longclaw sword for government issued pistol as Holloway – the sharp, fast-thinking ex-MI5 agent who believes Harry is still alive. Speaking mostly in a gruff whisper, in need of a Strepsil, he’s most impressive when in action, and luckily for us he rarely stops for breath.
Spooks: The Greater Good certainly has its impressive set-pieces including Qasim’s breakout and a final shootout, both making the most of their locations. But in-between these bookended sequences there is barely anything other than hammy exposition-laden dialogue: suspicions running high, and characters just running. In these instances the locations become a distracting backdrop. When the film isn’t darting to Berlin and Moscow with sweeping aerials, it’s hopping about through postcard London skylines.
Amidst all the toing and froing there’s everything you’d expect from a twisting espionage, filled with double crosses and conversations at the barrel of a gun. Surprisingly though, most of the film revolves around paranoia among the bods back home at ‘The Grid’ and as such the action scenes give way to TV melodrama. Qasim seems a more complex and rational villain, but he is talked about more than he is seen.
When the action sequences are in full swing the film is gripping but caught up in whom to trust, the film loses sight of the threat and the tension suffers for it.
Queen and Country is John Boorman’s follow up to his Oscar nominated classic Hope and Glory – where the first film told a semi-autobiographic tale of his childhood during WW2 through the character Bill Rohan, this sentimental sequel picks up in his late teens when called for National Service in the Korean war.
Luckily for Boorman, and his film equivalent played by Callum Turner, his duties consist of teaching recruits to type before they are shipped out to the frontline. The biggest threat to Bill is his pedantic Sgt. Major Bradley (David Thewlis) who has the manual of military offences committed to memory. Bill catches some of his righteous fury when accused of seducing a soldier from the course of his duty after speaking out against the war, and so too does his close pal Percy after meddling with the RSM’s precious clock.
By focussing on the pair’s frivolousness antics against the backdrop of a hellish war, Boorman once again explores his own personal, perhaps wilfully naïve, experience – continuing on from Hope and Glory with the same light-hearted whimsy. The film is certainly a comedy with a traditional more campy approach but this later effort edges closer to romance. Where he once sought companionship from local kids rummaging around bomb sites for trophies of shrapnel, Bill now longs for a girl known only to him as Ophelia.
Turner is pleasantly understated as Bill, though this may just be in contrast to Caleb Landry Jones who gives a strange and strained performance as his sidekick, pursing his lips and chewing scenery when given half the chance. Aside from this pair, it is the supporting cast who steal the film – Pat Shortt’s professional skiver and David Thewlis’ uptight Sgt Major carry the laughs, whilst Vanessa Kirby adds a dose of dynamism as Bill’s sister back home.
A Most Violent Year moves with a steady and deliberate pace, captivating with an intensity that feels like it could turn at any moment – much like the self-made businessman at the centre of the story.
Abel Morales is an oil man. A Columbian immigrant who has striven to succeed legitimately and carve out a piece of the American Dream for him and his family. The first things we see in the film are Abel (Oscar Isaac) his lawyer (Albert Brooks) and one of his trucks emblazoned with Standard Heating Oil – the same name as Isaac’s character in Drive in which he starred alongside Brooks. Where Drive had the garish stylism of the 80s, A Most Violent Year – set in 1981 – couldn’t be more different: it mutes its colours and completely tones down the style to create a dulled wintry New York more in line with Sidney Lumet.
A more mature and meditative film that carries the measured approach of its cool-headed protagonist. Where Gosling’s Driver was liable to crash the film into sudden chaos, Abel exercises a control that keeps the film levelled, intent on maintaining his companies growth and keeping his hands clean. This is becoming something of struggle however, considering that his growing success is making him the target of multiple hijackings, and subject of criminal investigations simultaneously.
Another film promising blood – delivering oil
The films title, though misleading in terms of genre, references the peak crime rates of New York in 1981, the climate in which Abel’s drivers are hunted down. Abel, a man of morals, knows that he must resist the temptation to retaliate, especially whilst being monitored so closely by the assistant DA (David Oyelowo) and whilst he tries to secure a sizeable loan for a property in which he has invested everything. This doesn’t actually seem to be the prime motivator for Abel though, a first-generation immigrant who is defined more by his principles: a resilient man tested only by his wife, a steely Brooklyn mob-daughter who threatens constantly to take things into her own hands – her emasculating shadow captured perfectly during a roadside incident with an injured deer.
In the pursuit of power there comes the exchange of exposure and vulnerability, which is communicated through the lighting in each scene. Most deals take place inside under heavy-set shadows, or with curtains drawn, or silhouetted against the sun. Only when someone is exposed are they lit from the front – it’s almost jarring the first time this happens as it feels so out of place in the film. It seems the pacing and filming style are intrinsically tied to themes within the film and work subtly enhance the performances, which are impressive in their own right.
A Most Violent Year is a boldly confident film – and it deserves to be.
samcooney 