Archnemeses! Films reviewed: Kill, Despicable Me 4, Escape
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Classic novels and movies needed a hero or a heroine to save the day. But in really good stories there’s also a nemesis, an enemy to fight and defeat. This week I’m looking at three new movies, from Korea, India and France — two action thrillers and an animated comedy — about arch-nemeses. There’s a former villain in witness protection, a commando on a train heading in a southern direction and a communist sergeant preparing his own defection!
Kill
Co-Wri/Dir: Nikhil Nagesh Bhat
Amrit (Lakshya) is a commando in a special unit of the Indian army. Along with his best buddy Viresh (Abhishek Chauhan) they lead their troops in tactical operations using martial arts and hand-to-hand combat. But he’s in a bit of a jam. The love of his life, Tulika (Tanya Maniktala) is pledged to another man in an arranged marriage. To elope seems too risky; her father is an oligarch with immense power and wealth. Even so, they arrange for a secret meeting aboard the express train her family are riding south from Amritsar to Delhi. And, right there, with the two of them squeezed into a cramped toilet Amrit proposes marriage, complete with ring. But what neither of them realize is the train has been targeted by a brutal gang of bandits for an attack on the sleeper cars. The dacoits kill the guards, and steal watches, jewelry and cash from everyone there. And they sexually threaten the women. They’re led by a capricious Fani (Raghav Juyal) the nefarious son of the clan’s patriarch. But when Amrit and Viresh see what’s happening, they decide it’s time to fight back… but can just two commandos take on an entire family of bandits?
Kill is a non-stop, violent action movie, the first of its kind out of
India. It’s nothing like Bollywood, no songs, dances, or extended flirting. This is heavy-duty fighting all the way through. This is Lakshya’s first starring role — he’s good-looking and intense, a natural leading man. He plays Amrit as a regular Punjabi drawn almost to madness when he sees his lover threatened. Then he goes berserk. He wears a blood-stained shirt for most of the film, and beware: there’s a lot of blood to be spilt. Much of the action takes place in the aisles of an express train, between cars, on the roof, and out the exit doors. Weapons range from sabres, to rifles, a metal fire extinguisher and the fighters’ bare fists. The fighting is superbly choreographed, really well done. And the sound effects are chilling — the sound of skull hitting metal the slash. Off a knife, the thud if fists hitting flesh…I’ve never seen an Indian movie like this, and I quite enjoyed it. If you can get into intensely violent, non-stop action movies — on the scale of the great Indonesian flic The Raid — then I think you’ll really like Kill.
Despicable Me 4
Dir: Chris Renaud, Patrick Delage
Gru (Steve Carell) is a former supervillain who is now on the straight and narrow. He lives with his beloved wife Lucy (Kristen Wiig), their three adopted daughters, Margo, Edith and Agnes, and their newborn baby son. But he has to dive back into the world of villainy when he is sent on a secret assignment: to return to the criminal boarding school of his childhood, the Lycée Pas Bon. Once there he must capture and jail his lifelong rival Maxime Le Mal (Will Ferrell). Now Gru has his Minions — diminutive bright yellow creatures who obey his orders but are always up to no good — but Maxime has minions of his own: cockroaches! He’s built up a veritable army of the insects, and when he escapes from prison, he vows revenge against Gru and all those around him. To safeguard his family, Gru enters a witness protection program where they are all given new names and identities and a suburban home to live, and told to “blend in”.
The problem is their next door neighbours, the Prescotts, have a 
Despicable Me 4 is an animated kids’ comedy about a former villain facing off against a current villain. It’s the latest in an immensely successful French movie franchise (Reviews: Despicable Me, Minions: The Rise of Gru) about a likeable villain and his makeshift family. It combines simple animation with funny lines and goofy characters, Once again, I viewed it in an audience packed with kids who seem to love it. Personally, it seems to be getting a bit tired, like they’re running out of new ideas. The one genuinely funny aspect are the Minions, all voiced by Pierre Coffin. When they’re around, you’ll be laughing with their silly and imaginative slapstick humour. Despicable Me 4 isn’t great, but it did keep me entertained. And the kids will love it.
Escape
Dir: Lee Jong-pil
It’s present day at the DMZ in North Korea. The Demilitarized Zone — it separates the north from the south — is full of landmines, with sentinels in towers watching closely for any movement on either side. Kyu-nam (Lee Je-hoon) is a Sergeant in the Korean Peoples Army nearing the end of his ten-year term there, and dreads returning to work in a coal mine. There is no family to go home to. He has firmly embraced the national ideology of Juche, or self-reliance. But in Kyu-nam’s case, self-reliance has taken on new meaning. Each night, he sneaks out of his bunker, climbs through a window, and crawls his way across the minefields toward the border, recording all the safe spots along the way. He plans to defect to the South before the next rainfall causes the landmines to shift. But he runs into trouble when a pudgy private named Dong-hyuk (Hong Sa-bin), who idolizes the Sergeant sees his trial runs. Dong-hyuk longs to be reunited with his mother and sister in South Korea. So he tries to escape on his own, using Kyunam’s map… but he mucks things up, putting them both in danger of a firing squad.
But who appears at the desertion trial, but Hyun-sang (Koo Kyo-hwan), a Major with connections. He has connections with Kyu-nam going way back, and declares him a national hero, and sets him up in a cushy job as an aide-de-camp for a drunk general. But Kyu-nam is committed to his plans. Can he reach the border before Hyun-sang can catch him? Or are they doomed to a violent end?
Escape is a fast-moving action thriller, full of complex schemes 
and near escapes… along with plenty of unexpected surprises. Koo Kyo-hwan plays the major as a slightly effeminate, upper-class nepo-baby who would rather be a concert pianist than an officer. This villain reveals hints of a secret gay past, adding to his mystery. Lee Je-hoon plays a macho, self-reliant soldier who just wants to choose his own future and have enough food to eat (based on what he heard about the South from the propaganda broadcasts he picked up on his transistor radio). The entire film takes place in the North. It portrays a country filled with poverty, malnutrition and class divisions— based on Party membership — where the ordinary people just scrape by, while the effete elites gorge on fine meats and liquors. I have no idea how accurate it is, but I liked the details, from the socialist realist murals, the giant slogans, and the maroon coloured dress-uniforms the officers wear.
And, of course, its gripping plot that will keep you glued to the screen.
Kill, and Despicable Me 4, both open this weekend in Toronto, and you can catch Escape at the TIFF Lightbox; check your local listings. This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Saturday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website culturalmining.com.
Daniel Garber talks with Agam Darshi about her new film Donkeyhead
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Mona is a youngish woman in Regina, Saskatchewan who is living the life of Reilly. She lives rent free in a big old house, received a whopping advance on her first novel, she’s dating a successful lawyer, and she sees her dad regularly. So why is she such a mess? Because she still lives in her crumbling, childhood home, her lover is married with kids, she has perpetual writer’s block and never wrote the book, she spends all her time taking care of her bed-ridden, cancerous father downstairs, and they seem to hate each other’s guts. But when his health takes a turn for the worse she realizes she has to call her siblings to come see him before he dies. But a happy 
reunion it ain’t.
Donkeyhead is the name of a great new tragicomic movie about a dysfunctional Sikh-Canadian family reunited around their dying father’s bed. It’s funny, it’s moving and always surprising. It’s written, directed and produced by Agam Darshi who also performs in the lead role of Mona. Agam is a successful actress and also the co-founder of the Vancouver South Asian Film Festival, but as a director Donkeyhead is her first feature. It deals with family issues, childhood grudges, assimilation vs tradition, and impending death, all set within Regina’s Punjabi Sikh community.
Donkeyhead opened theatrically this weekend in Regina, Saskatoon and Toronto.
I spoke with Agam Darshi from Toronto via ZOOM.
Indoors, Outdoors. Films reviewed: The Black Prince, Dunkirk, A Ghost Story
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Summer is the perfect time to see movies outdoors. There are open air screenings in city parks, free Canadian films at Yonge Dundas square, and an Open Roof festival, complete with music at 99 Sudbury, that is showing the amazing documentary Brimstone and Glory next Tuesday.
But sometimes it’s nice just to sit inside. This week I’m looking at three movies opening today to watch inside a theatre. There’s a wartime thriller about an army’s retreat, an historical drama about a royal defeat, and an arthouse ghost story… about a white sheet?
The Black Prince
Wri/Dir: Kavi Raz
It’s the Victorian era. Maharaja Duleep Singh (Satinder Sartaaj) is a proper English gentleman. He lives a life of luxury in a country palace furnished with a retinue of servants, fine clothing and sumptuous meals. He spends his free time hunting on his estate. But something is missing. You see, he is the heir to the throne of the Punjab Empire that once stretched across northern India. But palace intrigue and assassinations left the Sikh kingdom in disarray, and the British swooped in and took control. The young prince was shipped off to England where he now lives under under the benevolent but 
watchful eyes of Queen Victoria (Amanda Root) and the prince’s surrogate father, Dr Login (Jason Flemyng). He’s a Sikh but wears no turban and carries no kirpan.
But back in Lahore the crowds are clamouring for his return. And when he is reunited with his mother (Shabana Azmi) he realizes he’s more than just Victoria’s “Black Prince” — he’s a Maharaja! He returns to his faith and starts a lifetime of plots and alliances to restore his kingdom with armed insurrections. But can a single man – and his followers – defeat the British Raj?
The Black Prince is a film filled with beautiful scenery and costumes, and a potentially interesting story. Unfortunatly, it moves at a glacial pace. The exciting parts of the movie — the battles and assassinations — are relegated to quick flashbacks, leaving us with endless scenes of talk, talk, talk. While Shabana Azmi adds fun to the scenes she appears in, the star, singer Satinder Sartaaj, is like a Punjabi Keanu Reeves – wooden and emotionless.
Dunkirk
Wri/Dir: Christopher Nolan
It’s 1944 on the northern tip of France near Belgium. The German Army has taken much of Europe, save for this one beach, called Dunkirk. Hundreds of thousands of British troops, along with French and Belgian allies, are completely surrounded. German bombers fill the skies and U-Boat submarines patrol underwater, shooting torpedoes and dropping bombs on the British ships. It’s time for a massive retreat back to England – but 
how? The film follows three stories.
Tommy (Fionn Whitehead) is a young soldier on the run, after his unit is wiped out. Together with a mute fighter he meets on the beach, they attempt to board departing warships, but with limited success… the boats keep sinking. Meanwhile, back in England, the government has commandeered all private boats, from sailboats to mudskippers, to 
help rescue the soldiers. Mr Dawson (Mark Rylance) along with two teenaged boys, George and Peter, attempt to cross the channel in a pleasure boat… but meet trouble when they rescue a shell-shocked soldier (Cillian Murphy). And above it all, an RAF pilot (Tom Hardy) flies his Spitfire to keep the skies clear of 
German bombers while the boats cross.
Dunkirk is an unusual war movie that celebrates not a triumphant battle but a potentially disastrous retreat. The enemy is invisible, faceless and nameless, and we never see a British soldier raise a gun against the Germans. No fighting, just survival. And though there’s lots of people dying, there is little blood or gore in this strangely clean war. Dunkirk is a non-stop action movie that rarely takes a breather. It’s tense, thrilling and kept my eyes riveted to the screen from beginning to end.
A Ghost Story
Wri/Dir: David Lowery
A nameless married couple (Casey Affleck, Rooney Mara) live with their dog and a standup piano in an ordinary bungalow in the American Southwest. She wants to move to a better place but he feels strangely attached to the house. Perhaps it’s the creaks and 
bumps they hear late at night. Is it haunted? Then disaster strikes. He is killed in a car crash, and she has to identify his body in the hospital morgue. And after she leaves, the sheet covered corpse gets up and walks slowly back to the house. Is he a 
zombie? No, he’s just a ghost moving back into his home where no one can see him.
When I first heard about this movie – Casey Affleck playing ghost with a sheet over his head – I thought gimme a break. It sounds like a self-conscious bad joke. So I was completely surprised at how emotionally wrenching, how shocking, how wonderful this movie actually is. The silent ghost just stands 
in the background as time passes, observing all as his sheet tumbles majestically around his feet. It shows the passage of time, in a series of linked tableaux, fading one to the next – his wife’s mourning, new residents, a tear-it-down party. It’s like a dream.
Do you remember the Tree of Life, that extremely long movie about creation and the meaning of life? A Ghost Story does that, more simply, and in just 90 minutes. It’s a beautiful and haunting look at love, death, memory and the passage of time.
I like this one a lot.
The Black Prince, Dunkirk and A Ghost Story all open today in Toronto: check your local listings.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Friday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com
March 25, 2011 Morality in Movies. Films Reviewed: Limitless, Outside the Law, West is West
When people are looking for discussions on morality, the last place they’ll look for answers is at the movies — they’re just entertainment, right? Well… not exactly. Actually, traditional Hollywood movies — be they dramas, comedies, westerns, romances, adventures, or even horror movies – always follow a strict moral code: The bad guys are punished or killed, the good guys rewarded in the end. It’s almost puritanical: in a slasher movie, the ones who smoke pot or get drunk or make out are always the first ones killed by the serial killer. In the recent comedy, Hall Pass, the characters who have extramarital sex get physically hurt, while the ones who stay pure are spared.
But occasionally you get movies where the characters themselves face a moral dilemma, and have to decide for themselves whether or not they are doing the right thing, when both options seem terrible. So today I’m going to talk about three movies – one takes place in Pakistan and England, one in Algeria and France, and one in the US – with potential moral dilemmas at their core.
Limitless
Dir: Neil Burger
Eddie Morra (Bradley Cooper) is a novelist with writer’s block. He hasn’t written a word of his first book yet, but he’s already spent his cash advance (I’d love to meet his agent!); he can’t pay his rent, and his girlfriend Lindy has dumped him.
But then he meets a low-life drug dealer from his past who offers him a new type of little, clear pill, an unnamed pharmaceutical, a sort of a super-Ritalin — that will solve all his problems, and he’ll be the only one on these drugs. Suddenly, everything’s as clear as the pill. He knows the answers to all his problems. He can seduce any woman, instantly learn any language, stop any punch before it hits him. He immediately writes his novel, but now he’s forced to consider what to do with his new powers. (Sort of a moral dillema). Will he find the cure for cancer or an HIV vaccine? Will he bring about world peace? Will he be able to save the world from Earthquakes and tsunamis?
Naaah. He goes for money fame and power instead. He borrows cash from a Russian gangster to invest on wall street and meets up with the great financier Van Loon. (The trillionaire is played by Robert de Niro, who is also just in it for the money.) And then there’s a mysterious old guy in a cheap suit who pops up all over the place and who is obviously up to no good.
What’s going to happen to Eddie? Will he make tons of money? Will he get back his girlfriend? And what about the drugs – what happens if they run out? And what about the gangster? And what about Van Loon – will he beat him at his own game? And who’s that creepy guy who’s spying on him?
Limitless is the kind of so-so popcorn movie that’s fun to watch, but crumbles apart immediately afterwards when you try to make sense of it. (Maybe it’s because I’m not on the little clear pill, but I doubt it.) I liked the semi-psychedelic scenes in this movie where he has strange out-of-body experiences in a constant forward movement, speeding through time and space. Cool special effects. And there are some good dramatic moments, but the rest of is pretty stupid. Bradley Cooper plays the same douche-y prick he did in The Hangover, Abbie Cornish is forgettable as his girlfriend, and De Niro is just killing time – he doesn’t even try.
Outside the Law (Hors-la-Loi)
Written and Directed by
Rachid Bouchareb
In 1925, a family gets kicked off its farm in Algeria because he has no written deed, and some French colonist wants the land. The defiant mother and her three young sons are each affected by this, in their own way, but all of them just want back what’s rightfully theirs. Soon the three brothers are all grown up – it’s the 50s and a demonstration is building in the city streets. Abdelkader is an activist marching in the demo, Said is an entrepreneur trying to make money through boxing; and Messaoud is the tough boxer he’s promoting. But once again the French military and police are messing things up, massacring both the political activists and the people just living their lives.
So the movie follows the three sons and the paths they take – after being jailed for demonstrating, Abdelkhader becomes a real revolutionary, Said turns to organized crime, prostitution, gambling and nightclubs, and Messaoud who joins the French army becomes a POW in Hanoi.
Algeria is now a part of France – it’s been completely annexed. So they all eventually end up living as
second-class citizens in the slums and shantytowns of Paris, and become involved in the increasing tension and growing political storm In Algeria, and the rise of the FLN, (the Algerian Liberation Front) in which they all end up playing a crucial role.
Abdelkader has to decide his priorities as he’s faced with difficult moral dilemmas. Is it the revolution above all? Or family ties? And does the end justify the means? And what does it mean if he’s behaving as violently as the French he’s revolting against, or resorting to terrorist actions? While politics always makes for strange bedfellows, Abdelkader’s strict puritanism is contrasted with Said the gangster’s devil-may-care attitude. But he also forces his Messaoud to be his muscle and do the dirty deeds that he decides on.
This is a neat movie that combines, using the three brothers, different movie types – it’s a combination historical, political drama, a police thriller (they’re being chased by a cop who was in the left-wing resistance during WWII), a boxing movie, and a Godfather-type family saga. Great acting by the three brothers – Jamal Debbouze as the funny, street hood, Roschdy Zem as the strong and silent bruiser, and Sami Boujila as the troubled, heroic revolutionary – who switch from Arabic to French and back again – in this really well-made movie. I think anyone who saw Gods and Men (the gentle movie about the French monks massacred in Algeria) should also see this one if they want to really understand the politics and history of the two nations.
West is West
Dir: Andy DeEmmony
Sajid is a British schoolkid in Manchester in the 1970’s, whose parents have a chip shop. His father George is Pakistani, his mother’s English, and he’s an irascible foulmouthed brat who is picked on by racist bullies at his school. The headmaster, having spent time in Punjab when it was part of the British Empire, shows his sympathy to Sajid by telling him about Kipling. “Who hold Zam-Zammah, that ‘fire-breathing dragon’, hold the Punjab” he says, but Sajid wants nothing to do with that. And when, in a fight with his father, he uses the P-word, things really look bad. So the next thing you know, he’s being shipped off with his dad to the family homestead in Punjabi Pakistan.
And there’s a whole family there – George hasn’t seen his first wife and daughters since he emigrated thirty years before – he just periodically sent them money to support them. Sajid, who only knows “Salaam aleikum” and a few dirty words in Urdu, begins to study not in a classroom but by following a staff-carrying wise man who claims to be a fool and a local kid he dismissively calls Mowgli.
But he makes a friend, learns about life, and gradually loses his English uniform and ways. West is West
wonders if ever the twain shall meet. Will his older brother, who is obsessed with Nana Mouskouri, ever find a bride that lives up to his image? Will Sajid find a culture to call his own? And what will George do to solve his impossible moral dilemma? The movie has more stories than you can shake a stick at, but it carefully and thoughtfully deals with each one inside the bigger East vs West story. It’s especially touching in the way it deals with the two wives, neither of whom planned their strange predicament.
Superficially, you can compare this to My Big Fat Greek Wedding, but it’s everything that movie is not.
It’s hilarious, but without reverting to camp or slapstick; it deals with cultural differences but not with cheap ethnic stereotypes; it’s adorable, but foul-mouthed enough to never seem cutesie; and above all, it was just a really good movie. It’s not a movie only for South Asians, it’s a lovely and delightful movie for everyone.
Limitless is now playing, and opening today, March 25, in Toronto are Outside the Law, West is West, and A Matter of Size (a movie about people embracing their body-size by becoming sumo wrestlers, which I reviewed last week). Check your local listings.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies for CIUT 89.5 FM, and on my web site, CulturalMining.com.
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