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Hanging off the bones of the true story of the ‘Walkie Talkie Robbery’, The Bank Job covers the tale of a gang of petty thieves and their attempts to tunnel under a bank vault whilst a ham radio enthusiast listens in on their transceiver conversation with their trusty look-out.

Jason Statham stars and he plays to type stamping his own version of butch and cockney onto everything. Butch and cockney - that could sum the film up to be honest. I keep expecting Jack Regan or Gene Hunt to pop up and yell something about putting one’s knickers on. It’s ‘Ocean’s Eleven’ set in grimy seventies London. It’s a humourless ‘Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels’ and yet it drifts between a smack in the face and a friendly punch on the shoulder; from overwhelming seriousness to smiles and joshing. It’s confused about where it belongs - a visceral true portrayal of facts or a comedy crime caper - and, consequently, refuses to flow freely.

With the sub-plot of an implicated Royal Family, a desperate Whitehall, and a horde of bent coppers the film flounders between the various criminal activities leaving you lost about exactly who the good guys are. Yet, it’s not all bad. It’s well-acted with Daniel Mays, as gang-member Dave, and David Suchet, playing an extremely vindictive crime lord, both shining. Also director Roger Donaldson manages to create a good deal of tension by utilising a combination of clever angles, bleak settings and rapid cuts. Throw in an understated yet insistently pulsating soundtrack and a script full of deception and there are many reasons to keep watching. Ultimately that big pay-off arrives but there is quite a long sequence of frustration to endure. Watch it for the true story element and not just because it’s another heist movie.

© John Clarke

Commissioned by Local Secrets online magazine...

A large percentage of cinema-goers who will see the Be Kind Rewind trailer before deciding to see the film will certainly be caught off-guard by this. What initially appears to be another plain old slapstick comedy turns into something far more interesting. Good old Michel Gondry, he’ll always keep you on your toes.

It’s all fairly straightforward. Mr. Fletcher (Danny Glover) owns a run-down video store and he leaves his loyal employee, Mike (Mos Def), in charge while he takes a few days off to work out how to fend off the threat of imminent closure. Mike’s error-prone friend, Jerry (Jack Black), subsequently manages to wipe every single videotape clean by magnetising himself whilst attempting to sabotage the local power-plant. The only way to keep the customers happy is for the hapless pair to film their own versions of the tapes with surprising results.

Sounds like a goof-a-thon, right? Well, partly. Certainly whenever Glover’s character is off-screen it’s a barrel of laughs. Mos Def and Jack Black surprisingly make quite the comic pairing. Cue the hilarity as a sudden horror-movie soundtrack plays with the duo pulling agonized faces as they realise the tapes are all blank. Throw in the neat effect of the whole cinema screen warping and fizzing with static as Black approaches and you’ve got comedy gold. Melonie Diaz’s character adds another dimension as they all set about shooting zero-budget remakes of ‘Ghostbusters’, ‘Rush Hour 2’, ‘King Kong’ - whatever the customers ask for. Director Michel Gondry refused to allow his stars to view the original films before they shot them which might explain why the subsequent mayhem has a particularly random flavour to it. Black, for instance, had never seen ‘Driving Miss Daisy’ and his dismal portrayal of the lead character leads to some clever on-the-spot scripting or possibly witty improvisation by his fellow actors. Each of their quick-fix films features ingenious ways of pulling off those famous scenes - the use of a cement-mixer to recreate the ‘Men In Black’ tunnel car-chase is a fine example of what’s on offer.

On Mr. Fletcher’s return, however, there’s a sudden lull in events. Glover’s character is the father figure embodying the gloom of the financial state of the store. It doesn’t appear to be intentional but his re-introduction effectively instantly changes the impetus of the film from comedy to sentimentality. Despite the anti-climactic feel to subsequent events it brings with it a change of pace, a chance to re-evaluate and inject warmth into the film. Suddenly the importance of the town, its heritage and its people are of higher importance and with the main characters established it gives us a different picture entirely.

In the final analysis there are parts of the plotline that remain undeveloped and there’s a patchy understanding of realism but then, like Gondry’s past films, those things have never been high priority. You could watch this bitter-sweet, and surprisingly quirky, film for many reasons but I feel, perversely, you may end up disappointed by the very reason for which you went.

This website is well worth a peek at. From here you can view trailers of all the film remakes the cast did: http://www.bekindmovie.com/


© John Clarke

Commissioned by Local Secrets online magazine...

Hi folks. Thank you very much for your continued interest in my blog. All your comments and subscriptions are very much appreciated. Now that I have a large enough number of music reviews, me and my colleague are creating a dedicated music site called Sonic Dice to house them in. It's actually looking pretty damn nice and is well worth visiting! This blog will remain open and I'll continue to add all my other reviews (including movie reviews) from time to time.


My new music website can be found at http://www.sonicdice.com.

Hotel Chevalier, the short film before the main event, was first shown at the Venice Film Festival and has since been gracing the small screens of digital music players far and wide. It’s a pretentious and unnecessary pre-cursor that introduces the character of Jack Whitman (Jason Schwartzman) as he woos his ex-girlfriend (Natalie Portman) into bed. One can’t help but suspect that Schwartzman’s co-writing credits included this whole scene for his own good.

Thirteen minutes of posturing and pouting and thankfully the main show begins. It’s an intriguing tale of three Whitman brothers, who’ve drifted apart since the death of their father, and their journey of spiritual enlightenment to find their errant mother (Angelica Huston) through the colourful backdrop of India. Each brother has his own set of neuroses that he brings to the melting pot. Jack is quiet and often thoughtless, Peter (Adrien Brody) has many insecurities and Francis (Owen Wilson) is overwhelmingly controlling.

Cut to the bare bones, it’s basically Wes Anderson doing a buddy road movie. He’s as clever as ever in his attention to detail and the framing of his shots is excellent - often a character will be missing from the crop only for his head to fill the small remaining gap as he leans in to deliver a line. The beautiful landscapes of India have been captured in a multitude of vibrant blues, oranges and reds. The slow pace of the film suits its surroundings but it does tend to blunt the impact of certain scenes.

It’s a film that both delights visually and infuriates emotionally in equal measure. The inert and meandering script can leave one feeling rather detached from events. With actors like Bill Murray and Owen Wilson on display there is a smattering of humour, even if it is rather black humour, which lifts the oppression albeit briefly. Ultimately, The Darjeeling Limited is certainly not going to be, ahem, every one’s cup of tea.

For fans of: The Royal Tenenbaums, The Life Aquatic, Rushmore

Adapted from the graphic novel by Steve Niles and Ben Templesmith, 30 Days Of Night whisks us to Barrow, the most northern town in Alaska. Bleak, barren and freezing, only the hardiest of souls can survive in such an environment. As the sun falls below the horizon for the last time for 30 days, the first of many brutal killings alert the townsfolk that they’re not alone.

Eben (Josh Hartnett), the town sheriff, is handed the task of protecting his own and in the middle of the mayhem he manages to get as many as possible holed up in a hidden attic from where they view a killing spree initiated by a large group of particularly brutal Nosferatu hell-bent on the town’s complete annihilation. “Their heads must be separated from their bodies. Do not turn them”, drawls head-vamp Marlow (Danny Huston).

The director, David Slade, has made a good attempt at translating the grim novel from page to screen and employs some clever camerawork in places. The overhead pan as the vampires attack their victims is particularly effective; a bird's-eye view of bright-red blood stains on pure-white snow, gun shots fired aimlessly, and dark figures fleeing and chasing; an eerie detached way of viewing the carnage. Unfortunately, he subsequently allows the continual doom and gloom to suffocate the film without respite.

There are some particularly gruesome effects and, in places, the make-up work is terrifying. Danny Huston’s is particularly effective as he’s transformed from everyman into the worst kind of walking nightmare. Barrow's isolation from the world certainly comes across well as it slowly becomes a ghost-town, resembling scenes from a Western only with snow in place of dust.

The casting of Josh Hartnett is both a blessing and a curse. He’s particularly adept at depicting the off-camera horror in his face but, in general, having a well-known actor for the lead detracts from the impact of the film. Ben Foster, bringing a particularly nasty evilness to his role as The Stranger, and Mark Boone Junior (Beau Brower) were both deserving of more screen-time.

It’s, at first, a particularly intense and effective vampire chiller, but eventually it ends up overwrought, wallowing in its own bleakness, and lacking in innovation. The final nail in the coffin is the ending which is both rushed and inconsistent. Those 30 days have passed and I still haven’t seen the light.

© John Clarke

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