'12 Years A Slave', 'Gloria', 'Short Term 12' and 'Last Vegas': review round-up

'12 Years A Slave' - Dir. Steve McQueen (15)

A towering achievement and one, I suspect, that will loom large over the careers of many involved - not least writer-director Steve McQueen and star Chiwetel Ejiofor. The film follows Solomon Northup (Ejiofor) a free and comfortably middle-class black man in the mid-nineteenth century - a few decades short of the Civil War and abolition of slavery - who's tricked into leaving his wife and family in New York to perform as a violinist in Washington DC, only to be abducted and sold into slavery. As you can guess from the title, and the fact Northup later published the memoir upon which the film is based, his ordeal is not quickly resolved and we see this man accustomed to a certain level of respect and hyper-polite, cravat-wearing cordiality in the free north subjected to number of horrific, dehumanizing abuses once he is sold down south - a contrast that underlines much of the subsequent tragedy.

Soon we're, along with Soloman, witnessing the rape of enslaved women, children torn from mothers and sold to the highest bidder, lynchings, and many other appalling acts of brutality. And we see many faces of slave ownership too, from the paternalism and impotent liberal-guilt of Benedict Cumberbatch to the blind hate of Paul Dano, who seems to take great pleasure in beating and tormenting the slaves as a means to reinforcing his own fragile sense of self-worth. Then there's the mercurial Michael Fassbender as the alcoholic and unpredictable Edwin Epps, whose religious fervor and cold conviction that his slaves are nothing more than property makes for an especially nasty villain - even if, like everybody else, he's played with great humanity. Obsessed with Lupita Nyong'o's Patsey, Epps ends up using the film's most tragic character as an unwilling pawn in a domestic feud with his wife, played by Sarah Paulson, leading to several of the film's most shocking single moments of violence. Though there is a sense that all involved are victims (though some unquestionably bigger victims that others) with slavery an institution that ultimately demeans everybody.

Perhaps Hans Zimmer's conventional and overwrought score (sections of which are lifted note for note from 'Inception') is the film's only real weak-spot, with McQueen's use of diagetic music (songs sung by the slaves and Soloman's violin playing) much more genuinely heartfelt and raw than any moment the orchestra comes in. Indeed some of the sustained close-ups and long takes are made all the more memorable and stunning because they take place in complete silence. Though ultimately Ejiofor's performance is so strong, telegraphing a great deal of subtle character change over the film's titular time-frame, that it's difficult for anything to spoil it. '12 Years a Slave' is manifestly McQueen's most conventional and mainstream film to date, with his visual artist background and arthouse sensibilities more keenly felt in the cold and self-consciously difficult 'Hunger' and 'Shame'. What this film does is wed the director's compassion for difficult characters and interest in exploring unpalatable human truths with something more heartfelt and genuinely emotional - something built for an audience.

'Gloria' - Dir. Sebastián Lelio (15)

Paulina Garcia gives a sensational performance as the title character - a beguiling turn that earned her the Silver Bear for best actress at last year's Berlin Film Festival, playing a divorcee who combats feelings of isolation and unhappiness with hedonism and a slightly desperate attempt at romance. It's a perfect character study which is warm and humorous and sometimes even triumphant without compromising the well observed reality of the character and her underlying sadness. 'Gloria' is a particular joy due to its nuanced and atypical portrayal of a middle-aged woman, with the title character multifaceted and shown engaging in activities - such as clubbing, drug taking, having lots of sex, drinking, gambling - usually restricted to the under-40s as far as movies are concerned, none of which are played for easy laughs (as is the case in 'Last Vegas' - reviewed below).

A claustrophobic film, during which the camera never strays away from the protagonist (I'd be hard pressed to recall a single shot Garcia isn't in), director Sebastián Lelio has crafted something deeply compassionate and empathetic with a deceptive lightness of touch. It isn't showy and there isn't a loose scene or sequence in it, instead this is a well-crafted character piece told with great economy and forward drive that plants the viewer firmly in the shoes of its brilliant and quietly tragic central character.

'Short Term 12' - Dir. Destin Daniel Cretton (15)

More interesting when focused on the kids rather than the equally troubled adult care workers, 'Short Term 12' is an earnest and heartfelt American indie drama about a temporary care home for abused or otherwise traumatised youngsters. Brie Larson stars as Grace, a care worker who finds it difficult to listen to her own advice when it comes to dealing with her own difficult, abuse-ridden past, and she has rightly earned plaudits for the role which she plays with charm and great strength. However the stand-out actor is without doubt Keith Stanfield as Marcus, one of the troubled young people in Grace's care, who unfortunately isn't the focus of the film's main plotline even if he steals every scene he's in. It's tough and emotional without seeming cloying or manipulative, though a few strands are resolved a bit too satisfactorily at the end in a way which, though admittedly heartening, feels dishonest.

'Last Vegas' - Dir. Jon Turtletaub (12A)

Simultaneously offensive to older people - with "look! Old people doing young people stuff is funny!" being the film's only gag - whilst nakedly making a run on the so-called grey pound, Jon Turtletaub's nostalgic and sentimental romp is a waste of a fine cast. Featuring a fun and terrifically watchable Kevin Kline, a typically winsome Morgan Freeman, a suitably slick and slimy Michael Douglas and another lethargic, "where do I have to stand?" turn from Robert De Niro, 'Last Vegas' alternates between brash 'lads gone wild' antics, with wet t-shirt competitions, strippers and the dubious spectacle of veteran actors drinking spirits from an ice sculptures nipples, and schmaltzy, safe, judgmental moralising - the effect being that this is neither an "oh no they didn't!" amoral farce or a bittersweet foray into the trials of ageing and the power of friendship, though it obviously wants badly to be both. Falls flat as a comedy and as a drama, leaving a sour aftertaste.

'Populaire', 'A Hijacking', 'Fast & Furious 6', 'Behind the Candelabra' and 'The Iceman': review round-up

A bumper edition round-up this week, as I've not updated for a while. Been busy with other stuff, like hosting/writing the Hold Onto Your Butts film quiz at Komedia (in Brighton). Above is the latest of our picture rounds, as drawn by the excellent Joe Blann. Consensus is that this is the hardest of the picture rounds so far... I don't think anybody got the three point question!

'Populaire' - Dir. Regis Roinsard (12A)

Light, colourful and fluffy in a way that won't surprise those familiar with this brand of whimsical, middle-brow French comedy - 'Populaire' is an affable enough movie, mostly thanks to its supremely watchable leads: Deborah Francois as a clumsy, hapless secretary with a special gift for speed-typing and Roman Duris as her cold and competitive boss. Set in the late-50s, at a time when international typing competitions were apparently the hottest ticket in town, and a source of front-page news, it's a formula rom-com that's also equal parts 'Rocky' (with its heavy reliance on sports movie tropes), 'The Secretary' (in its power-imbalanced, sadomasochistic relationship between boss and employee) and 'Mad Men' (if only in its emphasis on the sartorial glamour of the period, as popularised by that TV show). It's chic and mildly diverting stuff, that provides a few gentle laughs - and just as many truly awful lines to go with its questionable gender politics.

'A Hijacking' - Dir. Tobias Lindholm (15)

An exceptional Danish thriller which takes an almost procedural approach to its realistic portrayal of modern day piracy, this is a tense, tightly-wound piece of filmmaking that explores what happens when a large freighter ship is commandeered by armed African pirates and its crew held for months on the open sea: a fate that's become increasingly common in the last decade. As the pirates haggle for ransom with the company that owns the ship, 'A Hijacking' follows both the struggles of the captured crew (mostly via Johan Philip Asbæk's traumatised cook) and the moral dilemmas facing those in the company board room - with Søren Malling's no-nonsense CEO taking a dangerously hands-on approach in negotiations, against the advice of a piracy expert (played with authority by real-life corporate security consultant Gary Skjoldmose-Porter).

Even-handed and intelligent, director Tobias Lindholm's film doesn't lay the blame at the feet of the corporation - it doesn't present the board as villains for not immediately caving in to all the pirates demands - and doesn't even really vilify the pirates (even if they are often quite frightening and capable of great violence). Instead it seems to simply present the experience as what it is: something terrifying and life-changing for everybody involved, right down the anxious families of those held captive. Malling's CEO is shown as a man under great pressure, who - though not subject to the appalling conditions of the ship's crew - has his life upended by events to a very similar degree. What the film doesn't do is explore any of the political or economic conditions that have made piracy increasingly common, but that's the subject for a preachier, less visceral movie: one potentially less devastating, shocking and emotional.

'Fast & Furious 6' - Dir. Justin Lin (12A)

I haven't seen any of the other films in this increasingly popular series, but I understand the franchise used to be about street racing - something that, save a pointless, mid-film diversion, doesn't really factor in this straight-up action movie. It's all shooting and punching and making things explode, whilst cops hire criminals to catch worse criminals - in a plot that involves some McGuffin weapon that, if sold to an unfriendly nation, could mean war and stuff. It doesn't really matter. What matters is Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson is in it, along with franchise mainstays Vin "The Mumbling" Diesel and Paul "Who Is This Guy" Walker. They drive fast and incredibly shiny cars - and they do ridiculous, physics defying things in the name of punching the bad dudes, scoring with chicks in hot-pants and safeguarding their "family".

That particular F-word gets bandied about a lot here, as the film goes to great lengths to show that it's actually a deeply emotional drama about a group of friends with feelings and character arcs such - just like in a real film. But it isn't and, frankly, it'd be better if they didn't bother pretending otherwise. The film is far more fun when tanks are crushing cars on a Spanish highway than when it's about gruff, musclemen explaining how they've got "to set things right" for some wrong committed five films ago that nobody remembers. Just explode more stuff already. Especially as the film's attempts to have anything approaching a plot always backfire, as our heroes repeatedly interrogate enemies in order to find out stuff they already knew - and one character even travels to another continent, has himself put in prison and very nearly dies, trying to unearth knowledge the rest of the gang seemingly already posses back in England. Very odd.

It's also amusing that nearly every scene in the first half of the film follows the exact same formula: a group of our heroes are ridiculed by unnecessarily rude people after asking a polite question, and respond by beating up everybody in the room. The message seems to be: don't mock Vin Diesel... he's, like, really strong and he'll probably smash your face in until you're unconscious. It's a difficult message to argue with, but it isn't revelatory, even to a 'Fast & Furious' series newcomer like myself. Don't pick on people with big muscles for no apparent reason, y'all.

In all seriousness, it's hard to get over how brazenly sexist this film is in order to sit back and enjoy the popcorn. It's all gyrating women in bikinis, dancing around cars, whilst our protagonists watch and say "damn", possibly whilst bumping bro-fists. At one point a character explains that cars are better than women because "when you trade up for a better model they don't take half your shit". This isn't an ironic statement and it says a lot about who these douche bag characters are and who they think this film is for. The Rock admittedly has a really appealing screen presence - self-aware and charming - but the rest of the lunk-heads that make up the cast, including a sadly under-utilised Gina Carano, are just grunting meat-puppets. Aside from a couple of jaw-droppingly ridiculous set pieces, this is a film that could have been gloriously trashy and over-the-top - in a way that compensated you for the aforementioned stupidity of it all - but ended up merely being a bit dull.

'Behind the Candelabra' - Dir. Steven Soderbergh (15)

Following his supposed "last ever film" - 'Side Effects', released earlier this year - Steven Soderbergh returns to cinemas with this blackly comic and extremely bleak portrait of glamorous entertainer Liberace, which focuses on the famously closeted pianist's peculiar relationship with a man named Scott Thorson, upon whose recollections the film is based. A TV movie in the US, produced by HBO after studios reportedly rejected the film as "too gay" to be commercial, 'Behind the Candelabra' is the fruit of a long-running passion project of the prolific director and sees Michael Douglas and Matt Damon deliver brilliant performances as Liberace and Thorson respectively. Douglas in particular is in inspired form, with his turn potentially career-defining, seemingly coming out of nowhere. In many ways his performance is the obvious joy and appeal of the film, with Liberace an outrageous, larger than life figure, so credit must also go to Damon for being the emotional center that gives meaning to all the mincing.

Even as it follows Liberace in his twilight years, with his peak decades behind him, the film manages to show us the highs and lows of his life: giving us glimpses of his performances on Vegas stages, in front of adoring fans, as well as showing us the loneliness and pitiful sadness born of that mix of hyper-fame/wealth and keeping such a large aspect of his life a (admittedly poorly kept) secret. He's a paranoid figure and a man with few (arguably no) real friends - or meaningful connections of any kind, beyond the revolving door of pretty boys that he keeps in his "palatial kitsch" mansion. We can only speculate about how close to reality the film gets, being based on the memoirs of a man who unsuccessfully sued Liberace, but the film is quite perfect at plunging the viewer headlong into the despair and loneliness we can imagine comes with extreme celebrity.

Where the film really excels is in its portrayal of the power imbalance shown in the relationship between Thorson and his self-described "father, brother, lover and best friend" Liberace. This has a universal quality, as Thorson - so in thrall to, and financially dependent on his partner - has almost no agency. He is in a precarious position, and is all too aware of that fact, which means he is to a certain extent unable to resist much of his cruel and often abusive treatment. He's a man who offers and gives so much to his lover but whose contributions are overlooked and frequently denied the moment there's an argument - a situation that's probably familiar to many. It's this transcendent bit of drama, along with Soderbergh's hauntingly sterile cinematography, the black wit of the script and the fine central performances, that means the film stands up very well next to the director's other minor masterpieces of recent years.

'The Iceman' - Dir. Ariel Vromen (15)

An impressive cast - lead by the intensely watchable Michael Shannon - doesn't stop this "based on a true story" biopic about a notorious hitman from being deadly dull. Basically, it's the tale of a guy who murders hundreds of people in cold blood - seemingly because he has a cold detachment that renders him indifferent to human life, brought on by an abusive childhood and lapsed Catholicism - but who's alright really because he doesn't want anything bad to happen to his young daughters. That's about the depth of it. Chris Evans and David Schwimmer are nearly unrecognisable in supporting roles, which is at least mildly interesting, but otherwise we have Ray Liotta as the schlubby, unpredictable head of an Italian crime family and Winona Ryder as the shiny-eyed innocent who doesn't know where her husbands money comes from. Maybe it's a victim of art imitating life, but it's a story we've seen played out a million times before, and with a lot more vigour and imagination.

For a movie about a contract killer, there's no style or panache to how he does his business. Some key "hits" occur off-screen and most are left to montage - with the only exception being a hit on James Franco, which many may find cathartic in the wake of his extreme over-exposure. This is fine if we aren't being sold the crime as glamour bit we usually get in mob movies, but the film offers nothing compelling in its place. The only consequence to violence and a life of crime that we see is that, eventually, people might be violent towards you and your loved ones. Aside from that it's a passionless film with nothing to offer.

'Haywire' review:

With the most perfunctory of plots and a pleasingly slender running time, Steven Soderbergh's action-thriller 'Haywire' feels like little more than a slight, if effective, vehicle for its authentic female action star. Gina Carano - a former champion mixed martial artist in her first major film role - gets to beat up a lot of people and looks great doing so, wiping the floor with the likes of Michael Fassbender and Channing Tatum in a series of brutal, brilliantly choreographed punch-ups.

She plays Mallory, a contract killer working for a private firm (headed up by Ewen McGregor) who handles contracts for a secretive US government agency (headed up by Michael Douglas). Bill Paxton plays her father - a writer of trashy thriller novels, Antonio Banderas is a shady, Spanish antagonist and Michael Angarano is some average guy she steals a car from/speaks exposition at during a terrific driving sequence which ends unexpectedly.

After a routine assignment, Mallory finds herself framed by the agency without much of an idea why. Like Jason Bourne before her, she spends the film travelling around world cities (Barcelona, Dublin, San Diego) in an attempt to uncover the conspiracy and get revenge on those who betrayed her. Unlike the Bourne films there isn't a lot of character work going on here, with a half-dozen stars given very little screentime, but the action scenes are so far ahead of the curve (and the film so brief) that it would seem a little churlish to complain.

In what seems like a direct challenge to the modern action movie, Soderbergh shoots his hyper-realistic fight scenes with an unfashionably immobile camera - give or take a few lengthy tracking shots. He allows action to unfold within the frame for long spells, giving us an unobstructed view. This decision is no doubt influenced by the fact that he's not having to play tricks in the edit to convince us that Carano can kick ass: she really can and we're allowed to see that.

The choice of a non-actor in the lead is reminiscent of the decision to cast top porn star Sasha Grey as the lead in 'The Girlfriend Experience' - Soderbergh's film about a highly paid sex industry worker. Both represent a bold gambit, especially seeing as how the rest of the cast (along with that of last year's ensemble hit 'Contagion', not to mention the 'Ocean's Eleven' series) confirm Soderbergh's ability to draw from Hollywood's A-list - but in this instance it's vindicated without a doubt.

As well as the fighting, the use of various inner-city locations is also eye-catching. They are all shot in a recognisable and spatially consistent way which feels bracingly ordinary. For instance Mallory escapes pursuers by running through the back of a Burger King, emerging in front of an HMV, during her jaunt through Dublin town centre, ultimately escaping by taxi. Soderbergh creates a very realistic world - one in which Mallory picks up bruises in fights and is winded after falling on her back. This only heightens the excitement and (illusion of) authenticity throughout.

'Haywire' is rated '15' and out now in the UK.