'The Paperboy', 'Side Effects' and 'Outrage Beyond': review round-up

'The Paperboy' - Dir. Lee Daniels (15)

Trashy, pulpy and a little kitsch, Lee Daniels' follow-up to 'Precious' would be much more fun if it weren't also a little po-faced. For a film that has clear arthouse pretensions, this is the movie in which Nicole Kidman's brash, convict-obsessed Charlotte wees on Zac Efron's besotted face. It's the movie which (in one of the most bizarre, awkward and misjudged scenes I've ever seen) sees Charlotte masturbating in front of the assembled cast during a visit to her incarcerated fiance, played by John Cusack - also feverishly masturbating, as hot-shot newspapermen Matthew McConaughey, David Oyelowo and their young driver (Efron) look on speechless: confused and a little aroused. It isn't like anything else you've seen and the there are some enjoyably extreme moments, like those highlighted, but this is funny-bad where the "bad" outweighs the "funny" by some margin.

It's replete with heavy-handed montage sequences and imagery that implies some sort of deep meaning but which under close analysis seems to yield very little. There's a Macy Grey narration that could be excised without harming the film in any way and which seems confused about who it's addressing. Why Grey's housemaid is even telling the story in the first place is never made clear by Pete Dexter's screenplay, based on his own novel. There's also the sort of over the top poverty porn that made parts of 'Precious' so baffling and slightly offensive, with every lower-class character a filthy degenerate with a funny accent. It's fun to see Cusack play against type, but it's an excessive performance - though Kidman is stand-out and the rest of the cast solid - but that's hardly enough to make up for the film's many shortcomings: an investigation storyline that goes nowhere; vague commentary on late-60s racial politics that goes nowhere; and a chase sequence in the third act that is quite possibly the least tense and exciting ever committed to film. It's a mess. Shambolic filmmaking.

'Side Effects' - Dir. Steven Soderbergh (15)

Not the film you expect it to be following a twist at the halfway point, 'Side Effects' - the supposed final film of director Steven Soderbergh - is a gripping thriller that takes many an unusual turn, stretching credibility all in the name of entertainment value. Partly a commentary on the power wielded by big US pharmaceutical companies over the medical profession - and on the power of doctors over patients - and the over-prescription of anti-depressants, the cold and methodical nature of the first half is reminiscent of the dry and earnest 'Contagion'. That section of the movie sees Jude Law's charismatic and plausible psychiatrist coming to the aid of a suicidal depressive played by Rooney Mara - a patient, seduced by advertising, into demanding a particular drug which also happens to be sponsoring several of her doctors.

The second half - which I can't really write about here - is tense, gripping and hugely entertaining, though it's undeniably quite contrived and a little silly. Never more so than whenever Catherine Zeta-Jones appears as a rival psychiatrist who looks more like someone's idea of a "sexy librarian" roleplay fantasy than a medical professional. There's something exploitative about some her scenes with Mara in particular, but it didn't hamper my enjoyment of Soderbergh's latest in a run of recent (and varied) successes - that include 'Magic Mike', 'Haywire', 'The Informant!' and the aforementioned 'Contagion'. Needless to say, I hope this isn't the final feature of a progressive 50 year-old director who appears to be going from strength to strength. Like most vintage Soderbergh, this isn't a film without flaws: but it's interesting, bold and dynamic cinema full of surprises.

'Outrage Beyond' - Dir. Takeshi Kitano (TBC)

Not his most cinematic, stylish or daring work to date - being a thoroughly enjoyable and polished, but otherwise fairly standard Yakuza gangster thriller - 'Outrage Beyond' (a sequel to his earlier 'Outrage') keeps Takeshi Kitano on solid and more commercially viable ground following a period of self-reflection and experimentation. In it he plays a former mob enforcer who just doesn't give a fuck - not about the police or his criminal overlords - making him the rogue element in a society built around deference and respect for authority. He's as enjoyable a screen presence as ever, though the film seems to lose momentum whenever he's not on-screen. Most interesting is the way the film portrays the complicity of the police in mob activity, through the schemes of Fumiyo Kohinata's cynical and manipulative Detective Kataoka - perhaps the real villain of the piece.

'Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows' review:

Since surpassed in the imagination of the British public by a (by all accounts) brilliant BBC TV series, Guy Ritchie's 'Sherlock Holmes' was something of a surprise box office smash back in 2009, despite coming out in the shadow of James Cameron's world-conquering 'Avatar'. The script was alright, Ritchie's direction mercifully restrained and the action marginally above average, so I suspect the chief reason for its success was the appeal of charismatic "women love him, men want to be him" leading man Robert Downey Jr as a scruffy, debauched version of literature's most celebrated detective. His on-screen chemistry with Jude Law's Dr. Watson certainly helped matters and the material was elevated substantially whenever they appeared together, becoming damned funny. The film took over $500 million worldwide and revived Ritchie's flagging career in the process. A sequel was inevitable.

Two years later that sequel has arrived in the form of 'Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows'. It's basically the same film again with a bigger budget, more action, less restrained direction from Ritchie (whose handling of action is cumbersome and over-reliant on slow-mo) and with Rachel McAdams traded in for Sweden's Noomi Rapace (of 'The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo' fame) as a stock fiery gypsy. Stephen Fry is an amusing if underused addition as Holmes' brother Mycroft, whilst 'Mad Men' actor Jared Harris is terrific as long-term adversary Professor Moriarty - the detective's intellectual equal and evil opposite. But all the superficial changes and cast additions are ultimately irrelevant. What matters is that Downey Jr and Law are together again, playing the characters as barely repressed homosexual lovers.



If in the first film the duo's status as quarreling lovers was arguably just a gag: a riff on the incongruity of two ostensibly straight men having "domestic" arguments. In the sequel this subtext is much more pronounced, being felt in the plot as, for instance, one catalytic event sees Holmes, in drag, preventing a newlywed Watson's honeymoon. McAdams reprises her love interest role at the beginning but, tellingly, she is removed from the equation before the credits.

Rapace is nominally her replacement, yet there is never even the pretense of a romance this time round. Holmes even cuts short a dance with her in favour of his handsomely moustached friend. Holmes, who is vocally opposed to Watson getting married, is even openly pleased when he is forced to delay the consummation of Watson's marriage, announcing that their own "relationship" is not over. "Relationship?" queries Watson. "Partnership", says Holmes as though to correct himself - though we know the best mind of his generation never misspeaks.

This conflicted, unspoken love is deeply embedded in Holmes' character arc and the resolution of the story. He only bothers defeat Moriarty because he refuses to leave Watson alone and it is only through Holmes exiting the picture that Watson might be able to go along with married life. The filmmakers of course will tell you this love is Platonic, but through their sly delivery and knowing glances Law and Downey Jr infuse this otherwise rote action flick with a delicious hint of sexual ambiguity. The implicit romance between these male leads is what gives the film its slightly subversive energy, allows the madcap bits to work and provides the emotional bits some semblance of weight.

'Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows' is out now and rated '12A' by the BBFC.

'Contagion' review:

In the 21st century, doomsday scenarios don't come much more frightening than the threat of a sudden worldwide viral outbreak. More than two decades since the end of the Cold War, the atomic bomb ceases to seem like a credible threat to our day to day lives - however frightening the prospect of those weapons might remain. But a deadly and highly contagious epidemic, rapidly spreading around the globe in the age of frequent air travel and increased global trade? That danger resonates stronger than ever with the public, as the sensationalist tabloid reporting on SARS and Avian Flu in the last decade can confirm. It's a fear that helped propel 'Contagion' to the top of the US box office last month, with Steven Soderbergh's latest star-studded ensemble movie exploiting our paranoia with deadly precision as we witness a queasily realistic depiction of a disease which kills tens of millions of people in less than a year.

Opening shots focus on human interaction and with great economy depict the dozens of ways such an outbreak might spread, as people shake hands, hand over money or serve food. These sinister close-ups turn everyday items and normal social behaviour into something out of a horror film. The ominous electronic score composed by Cliff Martinez (whose work was so crucial to the success of 'Drive' earlier this year) helps compound this air of tension as the sickly (and soon-to-be-dead) Gwyneth Paltrow makes her way from Hong Kong to Minnesota, stopping in Illinois along the way for some extra-marital sex, unknowingly providing us with one more example of how such an infection might be passed amongst the population.



In the wake of this first death we are introduced to nearly a dozen scarcely connecting characters who could feel more like experimental lab chimps than people, each existing to show us another face of the tragedy in a film which is primarily concerned with the mechanics of how such an event would take place and how the authorities might seek to contain it. They are for the most part ciphers, but the calibre of actor Soderbergh can attract ensures that performances are strong across the board, with Matt Damon (a grieving husband), Kate Winslet, Marion Cotillard, Jennifer Ehle, Laurence Fishburne and Elliott Gould (as assorted determined scientist types), Bryan Cranston (a military man) and Jude Law (an online conspiracy theorist) helping to add personality to this determinedly sterile, macro account of events. And with one Oscar winner already in a body bag shortly after the credits, it's clear that even A-list status might not be enough to ensure survival.

As the year rolls on and the death toll climbs new problems emerge off the back of the epidemic, including widespread social unrest (looting, arson, violence, murder), political scandal and manipulation of the media - courtesy of misinformation and distrust spread by Law's popular blogger. Meanwhile doctors struggle to provide a cure and supermarkets run out of food. The wide-ranging consequences of the outbreak - presented in a hyper-realistic way - only heighten our fear of such an event, which here turns major cities like Minneapolis and San Francisco into something resembling a third world war zone. Though in spite of the film's pursuit of gritty realism, Scott Z. Burns' dense, medical jargon heavy script is still (I think playfully) peppered with disaster movie clichés ("it's figuring us out quicker than we're figuring it out!"), the best of which sees one city official oppose telling citizens to stay in their homes in the run up to Thanksgiving ("the busiest shopping week of the year!").



If his public declaration that he is retiring from cinema (pending completion of his next two projects: 'Haywire' and 'Magic Mike') is to be believed, 'Contagion' looks set to be one of Soderbergh's final films, which would be a great pity: he's often been as interesting as he is prolific. After all, he's been responsible for works as diverse as 'Sex, Lies and Videotape', 'Traffic', and 'Che', in a career spent alternating between the defiantly commercial likes of 'Ocean's Eleven' and such wilfully obscure titles as 'The Girlfriend Experience' and 'Bubble' (an experiment in simultaneous theatrical, DVD and TV on demand releasing). A few of his films have been near great, whilst others can be chalked up as folly without too much cause for controversy, but Soderbergh - one of a few directors who acts as his own cinematographer - is always worth a watch. And never more so than with 'Contagion'.

It feels slightly too long (I was surprised to find it only lasted 106 minutes) and, in terms of narrative focus, it's every bit as scattershot as its director's filmography - with some characters unceremoniously forgotten, whilst others reappear just as you've forgotten they were in the film to begin with. Yet it's gripping, frightening, filled with haunting images and, I suspect, it will come to be seen as the definitive film about worldwide medical crisis. If the worst should happen and such an event does take place in our lifetimes, you will likely here someone say "it's just like in that movie 'Contagion'" as an army roadblock closes your town. It certainly left me wanting to stockpile supplies and seal the exits, too frightened to touch my own face. And that's the sign of a good film.

'Contagion' is out in the UK now where it is rated '12A' by the BBFC.