JOHN WICK : CHAPTER 4 - Tuesday 28th March 2023.

I saw the MA15+ Rated 'JOHN WICK : CHAPTER 4' this week, and here we have the continuing saga in the 'John Wick' franchise that is once again Directed and Co-Produced by Chad Stahelski following his earlier successes with the 2014 debut in the series 'John Wick', then 2017's 'John Wick : Chapter 2' and 2019's 'John Wick : Chapter 3 - Parabellum'. Those first three films grossed globally a total US$587M off the back of combined production budgets of US$145M. Originally set for worldwide cinematic release on 21st May 2021, 'John Wick 4' was delayed first due to the COVID-19 pandemic and then Keanu Reeves's commitments with 2021's 'The Matrix Resurrections'. This film saw its World Premier in London on 6th March and was released worldwide from last week, having garnered positive critical reviews and grossed so far US$153M off the back of a US$100M production budget. 

The film opens up with the Bowery King (Laurence Fishburne) returning to his underground hideaway where John Wick (Keanu Reeves who also Executive Produces here) has been recovering after being shot by Winston (Ian McShane) at the end of the last film, and is in training to get back into shape so that he is best prepared to exact his revenge on the High Table. We next see John riding horseback across the desert sands of Morocco chasing after three horsemen, whom he eventually guns down, before meeting with the Elder, who sits above the High Table, and whom he also shoots dead. 

Responding to this development, the Marquis Vincent de Gramont (Bill Skarsgard), a senior member of the High Table, summons the New York Continental Hotel Manager Winston and his concierge, Charon (Lance Reddick) to his very plush offices overlooking the city skyline and down across to the Continental. De Gramont explains to Winston that the High Table has given him unlimited resources to find and kill John Wick. He berates Winston for his failure to assassinate John when he had the chance to do so. As a consequence, De Gramont strips Winston of his duties as Manager, declares him as 'excommunicado', destroys the Continental, and shoots Charon in the chest, killing him. We next see De Gramont in Paris where he enlists Caine (Donnie Yen), a blind, retired High Table assassin, to kill his old friend John, threatening to murder his daughter if he declines, or fails to do so.

John takes refuge at the Osaka Continental Hotel, run by his long term friend Shimazu Koji (Hiroyuki Sanada). De Gramont's right-hand man Chidi (Marko Zaror), supported by many High Table assassins and Caine, arrive to investigate the hotel, looking for John. Koji's daughter Akira (Rina Sawayama), the hotel's concierge, evacuates the hotel just before Chidi announces that the High Table have 'deconsecrated' it, resulting in a battle royale between Chidi's men, Koji's men, John and Akira. 

John fights through waves of armoured assassins, and a showdown with Caine is interrupted by a bounty hunter who calls himself 'Mr. Nobody' (Shamier Anderson). He helps John's escape after determining the contract money for killing him falls short of his expectations. Caine allows a wounded Akira to flee after killing her father, but upon leaving she swears to exact her revenge on Caine, to which he responds with 'I'll be waiting'. 

John returns to a snow covered New York and meets with Winston at Charon's gravesite. Winston advises John to invoke an old High Table tradition and challenge De Gramont to a duel. Winning will free him of all obligations to the High Table. The over rider is that John can only request a duel on behalf of a crime family. And so John travels to the Berlin headquarters of Ruska Roma, with whom he had severed all ties, to request readmission. His adoptive sister Katia (Natalia Tena) allows John to rejoin in exchange for dispensing with Killa (Scott Adkins), a High Table senior who murdered her father. Although Killa sets up an ambush at his nightclub with both Caine and Nobody there too, John still manages to kill him, but not before taking a beating himself, and wins back his status within Ruska Roma.

Winston takes John's formal challenge to De Gramont, who is initially dismissive of the notion but then reluctantly accepts when he realises he has no choice. As part of the deal he asks that the New York Continental be rebuilt funded in totality by the High Table, with him being reinstated as Manager, should John win, to which De Gramont reluctantly agrees.

In Paris, John and De Gramont decide the parameters of their duel in a meeting moderated by the Harbinger (Clancy Brown), the Table's emissary. De Gramont nominates Caine to fight in his place. The duel is to take place with duelling pistols on the following sunrise just after 6:00am at Sacre-Coeur, with John and Winston being executed should either fail to appear on time. 

The Bowery King arrives in Paris and meets with Winston and John to give John a weapon and a new ballistic three piece suit.

De Gramont hatches a plan to prevent John from arriving at the duel in time by placing a US$26M bounty on his head, which leads to a frenetic sequence around the Arc de Triomphe with John fighting off hordes of assassins on his way to Sacre-Coeur, including Nobody, who negotiates a bounty increase to US$40M with De Gramont when it looks as though his plan is failing. During their confrontation, John prevents Chidi from killing Nobody's dog, and so a stunned Nobody decides to abandon his pursuit of John, and subsequently kills Chidi on the steps leading up to the Sacre-Coeur. 

After Caine and Nobody assist John in the 220 steps that leads to Sacre-Coeur by taking out another horde of assassins and De Gramont's henchmen, they reach the summit just in time for the duel. Caine takes his place opposite John for the duel, while Nobody watches on from the sidelines with his trusted dog by his side. Each inflicts serious wounds on the other through two rounds of duelling, first at a distance of thirty paces then twenty paces. The third round at a distance of just ten paces, comes to a halt when Caine mortally wounds John with a shot to the gut. Demanding the right to administer the coup de grace, De Gramont immediately steps up and swaps places with Caine. However, as Gramont stands over John pointing the loaded pistol at him, Winston perks up with 'you idiot, he didn't fire his third bullet', with which John shoots and kills an unsuspecting De Gramont with his single pistol bullet cleanly in his forehead. 

The Harbinger grants Caine and John their freedoms from all obligations to the High Table, Winston is reinstated as the Continental Hotel Manager and the hotel will be rebuilt at the High Table's expense. John stands, and turns to Winston and asks that he takes him home. After collapsing on the staircase, John has a vision of his life and marriage before peacefully succumbing to his wounds. Later, back in New York, Winston and the Bowery King say their farewells to John at a gravesite where he is buried next to his late wife, Helen, with the tombstone reading John Wick, Loving Husband, next to his wife's which reads Helen Wick, Loving Wife. 

'John Wick : Chapter 4' certainly ups the ante on the action set pieces, the majestically choreographed fight sequences, the bullet ballet and the trademark gun fu that our titular action hero is renowned for. The body count, which must stretch well into the couple of hundred here all at the hands of one single man, is relentless and I have to say repetitive, with my mind wandering towards the end and thinking when will all this wrap up? And despite John getting thrown off high balconies, crashing through a second storey window and landing on a car roof below, getting hit by various cars and hurled against others and being thrown down 220 steps to land in a crumpled heap at the bottom, he seems to get up, dust himself down, and carry on with killing the bad guys with nary a scratch to show for it - like he's Superman - and maybe he is, until he's not! Including the credits (which you have to sit through if you want to catch the end credits scene) this film borders on three hours, which is easily thirty minutes longer than it needed to be, but that said it never leaves you wanting as it lurches from one action sequence to the next, to the next and so on right up to the satisfactory conclusion that for now at least, seems to put a lid on this franchise that has redefined the action genre and set the standard by which all other films of the ilk will be judged. 

'John Wick : Chapter 4' merits four claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a possible five claps.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-

BULLET TRAIN : Tuesday 9th August 2022.

I saw the MA15+ Rated 'BULLET TRAIN' earlier this week and this American action comedy film is Co-Produced and Directed by David Leitch whose previous film making credits include his uncredited debut on 2014's 'John Wick' with Chad Stahelski, then 'Atomic Blonde' in 2017, 'Deadpool 2' in 2018 and 'Fast and Furious Presents : Hobbs & Shaw' in 2019. The film is based on the Japanese novel 'Maria Beetle' by Kotaro Isaka, and was released in the US last week too, having been originally slated for release on 8th April before being delayed to 15th July then again to 29th July and then finally settling on 5th August. It had its World Premiere in Paris, France on 18th July. The film has grossed so far US$72M from its production budget of about US$88M and has garnered mixed or average reviews.

The film opens with a distraught father, Yuichi Kimura (Andrew Koji) looking over his young son laying in a hospital bed in a coma having been thrown off a supermarket roof. His father, The Elder (Hiroyuki Sanada) enters the room and asks his son what was he doing while his son was on the supermarket roof? A father is supposed to look out for their children! Kimura swears vengeance on the person who threw his son off the roof. We then cut to former professional assassin codenamed Ladybug (Brad Pitt), who has recently attended therapy, returns to work with a new positive spin on life. He is tasked by his handler, Maria Beetle (Sandra Bullock), to complete what appears to be a simple task - to collect a briefcase aboard a bullet train travelling from Tokyo to Kyoto after her usual contact, Carver, is forced to cancel due to illness. Ladybug is at first reluctant, as his notorious years long run of bad luck continues to haunt him every job he gets, resulting in numerous accidental deaths. 

Unknown to Ladybug, three other assassins are onboard - hitmen brothers Tangerine (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and Lemon (Brian Tyree Henry) and The Prince (Joey King) a mercenary posing as an English schoolgirl. The former two have been tasked by the ruthless Russian, The White Death, head of the world’s largest crime syndicate, who has taken control of the Japanese criminal underworld by force wiping out everyone who gets in his way. The brothers find their employment to be somewhat suspicious given The White Death specifically contracted them for their participation for a job in Bolivia in which the pair singlehandedly took out sixteen goons and an innocent bystander. 

Having retrieved The White Death’s kidnapped son and the briefcase containing his US$10M in ransom monies, the brothers are delivering both to Kyoto. Meanwhile in the First Class cabins, The Prince summons fellow assassin, Yuichi Kimura, to the train, having pushed his young son off the roof of the supermarket. She has already planted an associate at the hospital ready to finish the boy off, should Kimura fail in any way to cooperate with her plan, which involves rigging the briefcase and Kimura’s gun with explosives to kill White Death, who is known for executing his adversaries by turning their own weapons on them. Successfully stealing the briefcase, Ladybug is ambushed by another assassin, code-named The Wolf (Benito A. Martinez Ocasio), who had arrived seeking revenge for the deaths of his wife and his entire cartel, poisoned at their Mexican wedding. After a brief fight, The Wolf is accidentally killed when his knife thrown at Ladybug ricochet's off the briefcase and straight back into his own heart, and then just to add insult to that injury when he collapses backwards he breaks his neck on the briefcase sitting upright at Ladybug's feet. 

After the brothers find the briefcase to be missing, they also then find White Death’s son dead by apparent poisoning. The Prince convinces Tangerine in believing that Ladybug is responsible, while Ladybug attempts to negotiate with Lemon but is forced to render him unconscious. Ladybug runs into the Wolf’s intended target, The Hornet (Zazie Beetz), the poisoner who massacred his wedding, revealed be the one who killed White Death’s son some 42 minutes earlier. She stabs Ladybug with a syringe of boomslang (a large highly venomous snake) venom in the back of the hand but fails to push down the plunger of the syringe, so he removes the syringe and injects her in the arm, ensuring the venom is all injected. Within thirty second The Hornet is dead having bled out from her eyes, nose and mouth, but not before the Hornet injects him with her only dose of anti-venom. 

Tangerine located Ladybug and the pair get into a fight both inside and outside the train, but eventually reach a stalemate with Ladybug helping Tangerine convince White Death’s men that his son and the briefcase are safe. However, their cunning plan is foiled when Ladybugs run of bad luck exposes their ruse. He then kicks Tangerine off the train. Meanwhile, suspicious of Kimura and the Prince, Lemon shoots Kimura in the stomach but falls victim to an innocent looking bottle of water that was drugged by Ladybug earlier with an extra large dose of sleeping powder. He is shot several times in the chest at close range by the Prince. After literally punching his way back onto the train through the front windscreen, Tangerine finds his brother’s body and confronts the Prince, who had a sticker of Diesel, a locomotive from Thomas & Friends, stuck onto her back. Lemon learned everything he knew about people from watching every episode of Thomas the Tank Engine as a child and so believes that Diesel cannot be trusted. The Prince though manipulates Ladybug into fighting Tangerine, resulting in him being fatally shot in the neck and bleeding out before he could warn Ladybug of The Prince. Kimura’s father, The Elder, boards the train and reveals himself as a former Yakuza lieutenant whose wife and associates were killed in White Death’s rise to power.

The Elder in the meantime has ensured that his grandson in hospital is safe by having The Prince's associate minding him killed. He and Ladybug find Kimura and Lemon still alive, with the former nursing a shot to the gut and the latter having worn a bulletproof vest, as he always does. They then all prepare themselves for the ambush awaiting them at their Kyoto destination. 

The train arrives in Kyoto, and Ladybug is met by White Death (Michael Shannon) and his henchmen. The Prince, revealed to be White Death’s very angry daughter, tries to goad him into shooting her with Kimura’s booby-trapped gun, but he instead tells her she was never part of his plan. The White Death goes on to explain that he hired all the assassins aboard the train as revenge for the murder of his wife.

Following the massacre of sixteen of his men by Tangerine and Lemon during 'The Bolivia Job', his wife was called to bail their son out of jail and was killed by Carver (Ryan Reynolds in a blink and you'll miss it cameo), who was meant to take out her husband. The only surgeon that could have saved his wife was poisoned by the Hornet, thereby almost guaranteeing her death. Blaming the brothers, Carver, the Hornet and his own son, White Death had arranged for all the assassins including the Wolf, and Ladybug, who unwittingly replaced Carver on the bullet train to kill each other and his son. However, before White Death can kill Ladybug, the briefcase bomb is triggered by a pair of hapless henchmen, knocking them both back onto the train, which Lemon starts up again at full speed ahead.

As the train hurtles along the tracks out of control, the Elder battles it out with White Death while Kimura and Ladybug fight off his numerous henchmen. Lemon tackles a goon off the train as it traverses a bridge and the both fall into the river below. The train ultimately runs out of tracks and derails, crashing through a forest and then into a nearby town destroying everything, and it, in its path. Ladybug is held at gunpoint by White Death who has The Elders Samurai sword buried deep in his shoulder. He attempts to shoot Ladybug, but is killed himself when Kimura’s gun explodes, ripping off half his face. Ladybug, Kimura, and his father, as they hobble through the wreckage and after The Elder has retrieved his sword from the White Death's shoulder, are confronted by the murderous Prince, who gloats that her luck is what resulted in the White Death’s undoing. As she proclaims herself to be the new White Death, poised with an assault rifle pointed squarely at the three of them, the Prince is mowed down by Lemon driving a truck carrying tangerines. Maria arrives to rescue Ladybug, who has consequently immersed himself in a more optimistic outlook on life and fate.

'Bullet Train' is an entertaining piece of action comedy with the emphasis on the action and less so on the comedy although I did find myself chuckling several times as both the verbal and the sight gags landed. The action comes thick and fast in kinetically choreographed fight sequences, and the melee of characters means you really need to concentrate on who's who in the zoo, but they are all in some way a necessary addition to the at times convoluted and over exaggerated plot. Messrs Pitt, Taylor-Johnson and Tyree Henry carry this film along on their coats tails with a deft touch at the action comedy genre that is as much a nod to Quentin Tarantino as it is to Guy Ritchie, with whom Brad Pitt has worked with both Directors in the past. And in David Leitch, he has once again proven his Directing chops with a fast paced, adrenalin fuelled colourful action fest full of memorable characters, an ensemble cast and a number of great cameo's along the way (including Ryan Reynolds and David Leitch himself), who all look as though they were having a blast shooting this movie. 

'Bullet Train' merits four claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a possible five claps. 

-Steve, at Odeon Online-

ARMY OF THE DEAD : Tuesday 6th July 2021.

With Greater Sydney still in COVID lockdown, and as a result all cinema's closed until July 16th at least, once again as with the same time last year I'll be reviewing a few of the latest feature films released recently onto Netflix. As such, I finally got around to seeing the Zack Snyder Directed, Co-Produced, Co-Written, lensed and based on a story he created zombie heist offering 'ARMY OF THE DEAD' earlier this week. It seems that Snyder thought up the idea for 'Army of the Dead' as a spiritual successor to his 2004 debut film 'Dawn of the Dead' which was itself a remake of George A. Romero's classic film of the same name from 1978. That project was originally announced back in 2007 but spent the subsequent twelve years languishing in development hell before Netflix picked up the distribution rights in 2019, with photography kicking off mid that year. With a budget somewhere in the vicinity of US$80M, the film was released in select cinemas Stateside in mid-May this year, and was released on Netflix on 21st May. 'Army of the Dead' went on to become one of the most watched original Netflix films with an estimated 72 million viewers within its first month of release. Two prequels are slated - a film titled 'Army of Thieves' on which production wrapped in December 2020 with Netflix due to release later this year, and an anime series titled 'Army of the Dead : Lost Vegas' scheduled to be released on Netflix too. A potential sequel could also transpire if the planets align. The film has garnered mixed or average Critical Reviews with many criticising the films run time at 148 minutes.

And so the film opens with a US military convoy escorting a heavily guarded crate out of Area 51 along a deserted highway at dusk. The convoy has a head on collision with a car outside of Las Vegas, causing the crate to be jettisoned down the highway a hundred or so metres. When the military personnel approach the crate with automatic weapons raised, the cargo contained therein, a zombie, breaks free, rapidly killing and infecting the majority of soldiers in the detail. The zombie makes it to the outskirts of the city, and accompanied by the now zombified soldiers systematically begin infecting most of the Las Vegas populace. Following a military strike on the city which fails, the government quarantines the city behind huge walls.

Subsequently casino owner Bly Tanaka (Hiroyuki Sanada) and his associate Martin (Garret Dillahunt) approach former mercenary Scott Ward (Dave Bautista) who now works as a line cook in some rundown burger joint, about a job to recover US$200M from his casino vault in Las Vegas before the military sends in a tactical nuclear strike on the city. Ward agrees with the promise of a massive pay day and enlists his former crew Maria Cruz (Ana de la Reguera) and Vanderohe (Omari Hardwick), together with expert helicopter pilot Marianne Peters (Tig Notaro), German safecracker Ludwig Dieter (Matthias Schweighofer), and sharpshooter Mikey Guzman (Raul Castillo), who brings along his associate Chambers (Samantha Win). Martin joins the team so they have access to the casino. Ward's estranged daughter Kate (Ella Purnell), who works at a quarantine camp, points them towards Lily (Nora Arnezeder), a smuggler familiar with the city, who also recruits Burt Cummings (Theo Rossi), an over zealous quarantine camp security guard. When Kate learns Lily escorted her friend Geeta (Huma Qureshi) into Las Vegas, Kate insists on joining the team over her fathers staunch objection.

Fairly soon after leaving the quarantine station the group come across a zombified tiger (a undead surviving big cat of the famed Siegfried & Roy Las Vegas shows) upon entering the city. Lily shoots Cummings in the leg and states that a group of intelligent zombies known as 'Alphas' will permit them safe passage in exchange for a sacrifice. 

An Alpha female known as the Queen (Athena Perample) arrives shortly afterwards and takes Cummings away to the Olympus casino, where the Alpha leader Zeus (Richard Cetrone) infects him. Lily leads the team through a building full of hibernating, normal zombies. Using glow sticks to guide them Ward creates a path through the sleeping zombies. When Chambers accuses Martin of ulterior motives for accompanying them, he diverts her off the path, and she inadvertently disturbs the zombies, waking them. She is quickly overcome and bitten. Guzman shoots at the petrol canister on her back used for fuelling her flame thrower, killing her and the surrounding zombie horde in the resulting explosion. 

After negotiating the city's desolate landscape the group make it to Bly's casino. Ward and Kate turn on the power, Peters prepares a trashed helicopter which they were told would be waiting on the roof but she didn't expect it to be such poor mechanical condition, and Dieter sets about working on the vault with his second-to-none safe cracking expertise. 

Martin and Lily stay outside to maintain watch but instead lure the Queen out into the open. Martin snares her, beheads her and stuffs her still alive head in to a bag saying that it will be invaluable for research purposes. Zeus discovers her headless body and returns her to the Olympus casino, revealing that the Queen was pregnant with a zombie foetus. Enraged, Zeus directs the Alphas to Bly's casino. The team hear of a news bulletin reporting that the government has brought forward the nuclear strike to ninety minutes hence, adding a new sense of urgency to the whole operation. As Dieter opens the vault, Ward discovers Kate had left to look for Geeta. As Ward and Cruz go in search for her, Alphas appear and kill Cruz.

Martin traps the team in the basement, stating that Bly is only interested in the zombie head, which is worth more than the money in the vault, as the government seeks to create a zombie army. When he steps outside the casino, he discovers Lily exchanged the Queen's head for something of a similar weight and size. The zombified tiger approaches, looks him and up and down and then pounces mauling him to death. Vanderohe attempts to fight Zeus but is easily overpowered. Dieter sacrifices himself to enable Vanderohe safe refuge inside the vault. Ward, Lily, and Guzman make it to the casino lobby, where zombies attack them from all directions and pounce on Guzman, who detonates his grenades, killing himself, the zombies and destroying the stash of cash he carried. Zeus confronts them on the roof as Peters prepares the helicopter for take-off. 

Lily distracts Zeus with the Queen's head as Ward and Peters escape. Zeus impales Lily to the wall, who in her death throes drops the Queen's head off the roof sending it careering down to the ground below where is shatters in a bloody mess. Peters takes Ward to the Olympus casino in a bid to locate Kate. Inside, Kate finds Geeta and kills the infected Cummings. Ward finds Kate and Geeta and together they exit the scene aboard the helicopter. Zeus jumps onto the helicopter and a fight breaks out between him and Ward. Zeus overpowers Ward and bites him. As the nuke lays waste to Las Vegas, Zeus is momentarily distracted by the bomb flash, giving Ward the opportunity to kill him and throw him out. The resultant shockwave causes the helicopter to crash, killing Peters and Geeta. Kate survives and finds Ward who had been thrown clear but is badly injured. Ward produces a stash of cash from his inside pocket that he had secretly hidden away and gives Kate the money to begin life anew, before turning into a zombie. Kate kills him as a rescue helicopter arrives. 

In the closing scene, Vanderohe survives the blast and exits the vault emerging somewhere on the outskirts of the city with two holdall's of cash. He drives to Utah and rents a private plane, paying well over the odds in cash of course, to take him to Mexico City. On the flight, he discovers that he has been bitten.

I have to say that I enjoy a good zombie flick, and 'Army of the Dead' doesn't disappoint. Sure it's run time of close to two and a half hours is overstretched, but what Zack Snyder delivers here is plenty of rapid fire action, enough bloodshed and gore to satisfy those with a taste for such things, sufficient character development to appease those wanting some emotional heft and a palette of a post zombie apocalyptic Las Vegas that is spot on. The cast led by Dave Bautista seemed to have a ball making this film, the production values are top notch and the end result is a satisfying gore fest, that won't go down in the history books as the greatest zombie film ever made, but you can leave your brain on remote and just watch the spectacle unfold and be entertained for 148 minutes. Snyder is back to form here following perhaps his most successful outings since his debut with 'Dawn of the Dead' in 2004 and his successive films with 2006's '300' and 2009's 'Watchmen', by doing what he does best - living it up with the undead! It's just a shame that this movie didn't get the big screen surround sound cinematic release it deserves to truly appreciate the scale of Snyder's vision.

'Army of the Dead' warrants four claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a possible five claps.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-

MINAMATA : Tuesday 8th June 2021.

I saw the MA15+ Rated 'MINAMATA' at my local independent movie theatre earlier this week. This US and UK Co-Produced drama film is Directed and Co-Produced by Andrew Levitas who has sixteen Actor credits to his name, twenty as Producer, three as Writer and two as Director, with his previous film making offering being 2014's 'Lullaby' which starred Garrett Hedlund, Richard Jenkins, Anne Archer, Amy Adams, Terrence Howard and Jennifer Hudson. Based on the book of the same name by Eugene Smith and Aileen Mioko Smith, the film saw its World Premier screening at the Berlin International Film Festival back in late February 2020, was released in the US in early February this year, here in Australia last week and not in the UK until early August. It has so far generated mixed or average Reviews. 

Eugene Smith, here portrayed by Johnny Depp who also Co-Produces, was an American photojournalist who lived from 1918 until 1978 and has been described as 'perhaps the single most important American photographer in the development of the editorial photo essay'. His major photo essays include World War II photographs, the dedication of an American country doctor and a nurse midwife, the clinic of Dr Schweitzer in French Equatorial Africa, the city of Pittsburgh, and the pollution which damaged the health of the residents of Minamata in Japan.

The film opens up with Gene Smith, living in his rented New York apartment, processing black and white photographic images in his make shift dark room. It is 1971, he's at a low ebb in his life, he's drunk, smokes like a chimney, in debt, hasn't seen his children in years, is compelled to sell his photographic gear and accept an endorsement deal from a photographic film maker even though he has never taken a colour photo, ever, preferring the 35mm black and white medium which has been the mainstay of his career. 

He resorts to snapping away at the locals in his neighbourhood through cuts outs in his blacked out windows, until one day Aileen (Minami), a Japanese woman comes knocking on his door. She is hoping that the famous photographer will be able to assist her in raising awareness of mercury poisoning in the small Japanese town of Minamata, at the hands of chemical manufacturing giant Chisso Corporation that is dumping its toxic chemical by-products directly in to the local water supply. She hands him an envelope, and asks him to take a look.

At first Gene is dismissive, but then later that night when he can't sleep he studies the photographs and scant newspaper articles that Aileen left him earlier in the day, and is convinced that there's a story in there that needs to be told on a worldwide scale and that he should take up the job. He pitches the idea to Robert Hayes (Bill Nighy) the Editor of Life Magazine, and although the pair have worked together for the past twenty-five years, their relationship it seems is on the brink of collapse due to Gene's lack of responsibility and reliability and the mounting pressure on Hayes to keep his magazine relevant with the ever increasing emergence of television. Any way, Hayes, commits to Gene that he can fly to Japan and investigate the matter further, but not to leave him hanging and to report back with photographic evidence within two weeks when the next deadline is up.

Upon arriving in Minamata, Gene and Aileen are almost straightaway confronted with evidence of chemical poisoning - in the bent arms and legs, gnarled hands and deformed facial features of many of the children and adults they come across. Whilst Gene is out with his camera snapping away it quickly becomes apparent that many of the locals don't want to be photographed - probably out of fear of reprisal from the corporate Chisso organisation, on whom many of them are either directly or indirectly dependent for jobs. Later Gene, Aileen and local organiser Mitsuo Yamazaki (Hiroyuki Sanada) gain access to the local hospital where they secretly infiltrate the wards and research labs where many of Chisso Corp. patients are being treated for mercury, and whatever else, poisoning. Whilst there, Gene, with permission from the patients, takes photographs of deformed limbs and faces. 

Later, during a protest staged outside the main entry to the Chisso manufacturing plant, Gene is invited in by the CEO of the company Junichi Nojima (Jun Kunimura) for a tour of the facility and an explanation of exactly what they do there - heavily sanitised of course! Towards the end of the tour, and on an upper catwalk away from prying eyes and ears Nojima hands Gene an envelope containing US$50K to hand over all of his negatives, forget the plight of the locals, and head back to New York no further questions asked by either party. Needless to say Gene tells him in no uncertain terms to go forth and multiply!

A few days later undercover of darkness Gene's makeshift dark room which had been set up by Yamazaki as a near replication of his home dark room back in New York, is torched and all of his prints and negatives are burned to the ground. At that Gene rebels against Aileen and Hayes back in New York whom he calls in a drunken stupor in the dead of night, wakes from his sleep and tells him that he can't carry on, that's he's had enough and that all his images have been destroyed. However, 24 hours later, he returns and asks the gathered locals to help him so that he can help them. He asks them for unrestricted access to their homes and their families to take photographs of their deformed sons and daughters and family members yet done with the utmost respect, care and integrity. They all agree with a unanimous show of hands. 

Come the day of a shareholders meeting at Chisso and some 500 protesters are gathered outside the main gates of the chemical plant, with about fifty having infiltrated the main building and lie in wait outside the meeting room to confront Nojima in the hope of making him see sense and agree to financial compensation. 

Outside the main gates, things escalate quickly as protesters and security guards clash. In the ensuing melee Gene and Aileen become separated and Gene is man handled to within the factory gates and is then punched repeatedly to the face, kicked to the stomach and his hands trodden on. He falls in a heap on the ground. Meanwhile, inside the meeting room, the gathered protesters speak their mind some of which recount their own personal stories of the impact of the mass chemical poisoning which has inflicted their children. Nojima is speechless. After reaching an impasse, Nojima excuses himself to consult with his Financial Manager as to the possibility of monetary compensation, but returns saying there are no funds available and that's the end of it. 

Gene later comes round in a hospital bed with bandages wrapped around both arms and hands and across his head covering one eye. A man enters the room whom Gene recognises as the man who beat him to the ground earlier. While trying to shield himself from the possibility of another attack, the man thrusts into his hands a thick package which upon inspection reveals to contain all the negatives and many of the prints believed to have been destroyed when his dark room was torched. Discharging himself from his hospital bed, he and Aileen go back to Minamata and take what is regarded as the centrepiece photograph of Gene's photo essay into exposing Minamata Disease 'Tomoko Uemura in Her Bath' depicting the severe deformation of a child in her mother's arms in a traditional Japanese bath together after the child was exposed to the effects of Chisso's contamination of the water supply. 

Gene sends his collection of black and white photographs to Hayes at Life Magazine just in time to meet the deadline, and the magazine goes to print with his stark images for all the world to see. A copy lands on Nojima's desk, who then finally relents and agrees that his company must pay compensation. In a final scene, the protesters are seen outside a court building rejoicing that they won their case against Chisso, but stating that while the battle was won, the war was not yet over. Afterwards Gene and Aileen were married. Gene died in mid-October 1978 with his injuries sustained in the factory attack being a contributing factor to his passing. 

Johnny Depp is barely recognisable in his portrayal of William Eugene Smith with his grey beard, grey hair, facial blood spots and his gaunt expression brought about by a doubtless poor diet and excessive alcohol and cigarette consumption, but he is right on cue with his performance and about as far removed from any character he has played in quite some time. This is hardly an uplifting film, but neither is its subject matter which Director Levitas plays it as he sees it without too much nuance, subtlety or care for what the viewer may think of the bent contorted bodies seen on screen, or the corporate giant waging a war of denial against the locals over its 34 year long pollution of the water supply. Instead this is clearly a passion project for the Director who himself rose through the art world as a painter, sculptor, and photographer and who here has crafted a story that needs to be told which is at times an emotional heart felt film that pays tribute to Smith and the victims of this tragedy while still being as highly relevant today as it was fifty years ago. And to this end, during the closing credits we are reminded, by way of stills photographs, of the all too many acts of negligent pollution by governments and corporations that have impacted populations around our fragile planet throughout very recent history.

'MINAMATA' warrants four claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a potential five claps.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-