A HAUNTING IN VENICE : Tuesday 19th September 2023

I saw the M Rated 'A HAUNTING IN VENICE' earlier this week, and this American supernatural mystery film is Co-Produced, Directed and stars Kenneth Branagh and is based on the 1969 novel 'Hallowe'en Party' by Agatha Christie. The film serves as the sequel to 2022's 'Death on the Nile' which was itself a sequel to 2017's 'Murder on the Orient Express' in which Branagh portrays the Belgian detective Hercule Poirot, as well as serving as Director on those two previous outings. The film was released in the US and here in Australia last week, has so far grossed US$42M off the back of a US$60M production budget and has garnered generally positive critical reviews.

The film opens with Hercule Poirot (Kenneth Branagh) waking up startled from a nightmare. He is living a life of retirement in 1947 Venice, Italy having become disillusioned with God and humanity having witnessed first hand the cruelty man can bestow upon his fellow man. Poirot employs local retired Police Officer Vitale Portfoglio (Riccardo Scamarcio) as his bodyguard. Having visited the local market later that morning and procured himself his supply of breakfast pastries, there comes a knock at his apartment door. Ariadne Oliver (Tina Fey) is at the door - Poirot's long term friend and novelist who has penned thirty books so far of which twenty-seven were best sellers but the last three not so much. It is Halloween, and Oliver persuades Poirot to attend a seance at the palazzo of renowned opera singer Rowena Drake (Kelly Reilly) and help expose psychic medium Joyce Reynolds (Michelle Yeoh) as a fake.

Later that night, Poirot, Ariadne and Vitale are all taken by gondola along the canals of Venice to Rowena's palazzo, where there is a children's Halloween party in full swing, and we learn through this that the palazzo is on the site of a former children's hospital at which there were numerous children's deaths and the ghosts of those children still haunt the place to this day. After the children have all left for the evening, the adults that remain are Rowena's guests for the seance - they are Joyce Reynolds who Rowena has hired to help her communicate with her daughter Alicia (Rowan Robinson), who committed suicide after her fiance, chef Maxime Gerard (Kyle Allen), broke off their engagement; Rowena's housekeeper Olga Seminoff (Camille Cottin); the Drake family doctor Leslie Ferrier (Jamie Dornan) and his nine year old son Leopold (Jude Hill) and Reynolds' assistant Desdemona Holland (Emma Laird). 

At midnight all the gathered guests assemble in Alicia's bedroom which has remained exactly as she left it the day she died. During the seance, Poirot quickly deduces that Reynolds has not one assistant but two, revealing Desdemona's half-brother Nicholas (Ali Khan) hiding in the chimney of Alicia's bedroom and manipulating a typewriter with a magnetic device that is all part of Reynolds ruse. Reynold's then speaks to Rowena in Alicia's voice, revealing that she was murdered, and states the killer is one of the guests present in the room. Poirot attempts to confront Reynolds about her act, who gives him the brush off and puts her mask and cloak on him and tells him to lighten up. Taking this advice and while attempting to bob for apples, while nobody is watching, Poirot is nearly drowned by an unknown assailant. Reynolds is then found impaled on a statue in the courtyard minutes later. 

Meanwhile, a storm gathers momentum outside, which ultimately cuts off the palazzo until such time as it subsides. Poirot therefore begins his investigations by interviewing the guests, during which time he hallucinates seeing Alicia's ghost, and hears the sound of a female singing, although no one else can hear it. The investigation yields baffling results, namely that Leslie, who is severely traumatised from his experiences at the liberation of Bergen-Belsen, is secretly in love with Rowena. Leopold says he hears the voices from the spirits of children who were left to die back when the palazzo was a plague hospital.
Maxime, who was a last minute addition to the guest list broke off his engagement because he felt Rowena did not approve of him and that Alicia was obsessed with keeping her happy; and Nicholas and Desdemona, both Romani refugees, have been stealing from Joyce and intend to use the money to travel to St. Louis, Missouri, which they fell in love with after seeing the first half of the film 'Meet Me in St. Louis' at a displaced persons camp.

Shortly after, the guests come across a previously hidden basement containing the skeletal remains of the dead children, and Leslie suffers a panic attack and nearly kills Maxime. He is locked inside the music room to recover, with Rowena handing Poirot the only key. After examining Maxime's invitation, Poirot deduces Oliver sent it and that she and Vitale conspired to bring him to the palazzo. Vitale explains he investigated Alicia's death and fished her out of the canal, while Oliver admits she hoped to use Poirot's incapability of explaining the seance as a plot for her next book. Leslie is soon afterward found stabbed to death in the music room to which Poirot had the only means of access.

Poirot brings the remaining guests together, and exposes Rowena as the murderer. She was obsessed with keeping Alicia to herself and, after learning she planned to reconcile with Maxime, used honey extracted from poisonous rhododendron blooms to weaken her, using small doses at a time. When Olga unknowingly gave Alicia tea containing a large fatal dose, Rowena staged Alicia's suicide to prevent exposing herself. When she began receiving blackmail threats, Rowena suspected either Joyce or Leslie. She pushed Joyce to her death after mistakenly attempting to drown Poirot and forced Leslie into stabbing himself via the palazzo's internal phone line, threatening to kill Leopold if he refused. Rowena flees to the roof garden in an attempt to escape, followed by Poirot, but Alicia's ghost seemingly appears from behind and pulls Rowena down, causing her to fall to her death in the canal below. 

Come sun up and the case cracked open in a few short hours, Poirot bids goodbye to Oliver, elects not to turn Vitale in to the local Police for his involvement in the seance, and privately exposes Leopold as the blackmailer. Leopold explains he understood the poisoning signs his father missed and made the connection after realising Rowena's first starring role was in an opera whose lead character was known as the 'king of poisons'. Poirot suggests to Leopold and Olga that to clear their consciences they should use the blackmail money to help Desdemona and Nicholas start a new life in St. Louis before returning home to accept a new case.

Three Agatha Christie big screen adaptations in, and Director and lead Actor Kenneth Branagh has more than settled in to his routine of bringing Hercule Poirot to life, with all his eccentricities and idiosyncrasies firmly intact. Branagh has crafted a solid enough film here that is sure to please those that enjoy a good whodunnit, Venice is shot beautifully, the cast is more than up for the task, and this Gothic inspired supernatural thriller for me sits between 'Murder on the Orient Express' and 'Death on the Nile' that offers the audience a more grounded view of Poirot's methods of deduction, even if at times it defies logic. All within the space of four of five hours Poirot is able to solve not one, not two, but three murders and tie up a whole bunch of loose ends very neatly before moving on to his next case before breakfast - if you can believe it!

'A Haunting in Venice' merits three claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a possible five claps.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-

BASTILLE DAY : Friday 13th May 2016.

'BASTILLE DAY' which I saw on Friday evening, for the historians amongst us, will know the significance of 14th July to the French - for it is Bastille Day, marking the date in 1789 when troops stormed The Bastille - a medieval fortress and prison in Paris. It was an important event marking effectively the beginning of the French Revolution. It wasn't until 1880 however, that it officially became a national public holiday, and has as such been celebrated every year since then with great fan fare. So, history lesson over, what about this film which mirrors recent tragic terrorist events in Paris with the January 2015 Charlie Hebdo Offices bombing and that of a Jewish supermarket, and then the more widespread and tragic Stade de France attacks in St. Denis and the Bataclan Theatre attack in November 2015. The similarities with this films central theme are inevitable, but in reality sheer coincidence as filming took place before those events in late 2014, with the movie in the can by Christmas that year. All that said, 'Bastille Day' is Directed by James Watkins, and stars Idris Elba in the main lead doing all he can to prove that he might be a shoe-in for James Bond when Daniel Craig sips his last shaken not stirred Martini.

The films open up on the eve of Bastille Day, with the city well advanced in its celebratory preparations for the national holiday. Working the streets is an American pick-pocket Michael Mason (Richard Madden) doing a very nice job of stealing wallets, smart phones, expensive watches and passports from unsuspecting tourists and passers-by out on a summer's evening enjoying the festivities. With his evenings stash he makes his way to his 'fence' and he exchanges his evenings collection for cash, and then slinks away into the night for a quiet refreshment in a nearby Cafe. Across the city from his offices overlooking the Eiffel Tower is CIA Agent Sean Briar (Idris Elba) pondering what the next 24 hours will bring as the city swings into full on party mode.

Siting there minding his own business in quiet reflection, Mason spies a distraught woman, Zoe Neville (Charlotte Le Bon) with a carrier bag - she removes her blond wig and stuffs it into the bag, and holds her head in her hands sobbing. An easy target thinks Mason, and while she sits on a step not paying attention he's in there, bag removed and on his way. In a side street out of view he rummages through the bag to see what he can find - a cuddly toy bear, the blond wig, a mobile phone, and other sundry paraphernalia. Nothing much - he stuffs the bear back in and the wig, holds onto the phone and makes his way back to the Cafe precinct from whence he came, depositing the bag in the garbage bin as he goes. Within a few seconds, the garbage bin explodes and the street is strewn with debris, and bodies - four dead! Mason gets to his feet, grabs the phone and makes off, stunned by what just happened, and not before being caught on CCTV. Within no time, Briar is on the case, the prime suspect in this terror attack is identified, tracked down and brought in for questioning but not before a roof top foot chase that comes to rest in a busy market - the like of which you seen in a hundred other movies of this ilk, but it is reasonably well handled nonetheless.

Cue the unofficial safe house interrogation room and Briar and Mason are nose to nose with Briar coming on strong as the tough take no prisoners kinda guy, and Mason as the in out of his depth WTF just happened I'm just a wannabe Med student trying to make a fast buck to pay my way through college low life loser. Pretty soon, the city goes into lock down and Briar realises that Mason is probably telling the truth and he is just a patsy caught up in this mess unawares. So Briar decides to use the pick-pocket to track down Zoe using the phone that Mason stole, and which is all they have to go on. And so begins another hunt, another chase and more truths revealed that only add to this web of intrigue as the two unlikely partners now chase all over Paris.

While all of this is going on Briar's superior officer Karen Dacre (Kelly Reilly) is monitoring the unfolding scenario back at CIA HQ in downtown Paris and is in contact with long term friend and counterpart in the French authorities Victor Gamieux (Jose Garcia). He has a hidden agenda and enlists the RAPID Team (a seemingly elite  special forces arm of the police) with his full authority to track down the alleged terrorist and Zoe, for fear that their plan may come undone - and the boys from RAPID are in on the game with a huge pay day coming their way if their rigorously detailed plans come off. Its up to Briar, Mason and Neville to uncover the further plot twists as they go, playing the inevitable cat & mouse game across Paris as the hunters becomes the hunted, and then vice versa.

Meanwhile the RAPID guys are inciting unrest amongst the masses and manufacturing scenes of police brutality that they post all over social media encouraging unrest, rioting in the streets, looting, random acts of violence and holding the authorities to ransom on the day of celebration. They use hashtags to get their messages across whilst creating a smokescreen for their plan to be executed - to rob the national bank of US$500M in plain sight and with the full authority from the government, represented here by Gamieux. But of course they didn't count on the machismo of Briar and the sleight of hand of Mason to thwart their plans when they least expect it, and with the help of thousands of Parisians who help turn the tables unexpectedly.

Of course, before they get to this point, there's more shoot 'em up, beat 'em down bravado in the back of a truck, which again, you've seen a hundred times before, but also reasonably well handled. In the end, good overcomes evil, a few more people get killed - both good and bad, and the mastermind behind all of this gets locked up, and the aspiring Med student decides that a job in the CIA may not be such a bad option after all, given his one and only successful track record in bringing down a major crime, capturing the king pin and preventing a shit storm on Bastille Day.

On the positive, the film moves along at a good pace and for its short running time of 92 minutes you won't get bored and it is entertaining enough. But, this is everything you would expect it to be - formulaic, plot holes that you could drive a truck through, implausible story and it really contains nothing you have not seen before in Bourne and Bond (roof top foot chase sequences and close quartered hand to hand combat), 'V for Vendetta' (a masked population rising up against authority driven by one man) and 'Die Hard' (create an intricate smokescreen to commit a robbery). You don't need to see this on the big screen, and can easily wait for the DVD and Bluray release.
  

-Steve, at Odeon Online-

SHERLOCK HOLMES - GAME OF SHADOWS : archive from 18th January 2012.

Saw the second instalment of this new 'SHERLOCK HOLMES' movie franchise last night - 'GAME OF SHADOWS'. Not much has changed here from the first outing with Robert Downey Jnr. and Jude Law clearly relishing in their roles second time around as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes and Doctor John Watson respectively.

It is 1891 and this time around we have arch enemy Professor James Moriarty (Jared Harris) pitting his wits and his criminal mastery to foil Holmes and Watson, as he commits acts of terror, murder and mayhem against the worlds key business communities and personalities. The chase is on as Holmes thwarts various plans by Moriarty to commit further dastardly acts against others including Watson and his new bride Mary (Kelly Reilly) which is attempted on the train en route to their honeymoon. Enter Mycroft Holmes (Stephen Fry) - brother to Sherlock to save Mary when she is dispatched from the train  rather unceremoniously to save her life so that Sherlock and Watson can continue the chase unencumbered.

Fast forward to Paris and Holmes and Watson catch up with Madame Simza Heron (Noomi Rapace) who was the intended recipient of a ticking bomb courtesy of one Mr. Moriarty. Upon discovering that a bomb is supposedly planted under the Paris Opera, and subsequently being fooled by Moriarty as the expense of more local businessmen meeting in a nearby Hotel. This takes the action to Germany where Moriarty is set to gain control of an arms factory as a result of the death of its owner back in Paris - at the hands of Moriarty himself. At the factory a struggle ensues an Moriarty captures Holmes and an interrogation begins with Holmes having deduced Moriarty's plans by this time. Meanwhile Watson is off on the sidelines fighting his own battles against various no good henchmen but saves the day with a cannon that he happened to have handy in his back pocket, and in so doing brings down the factory so that Holmes, Watson and Simza can make their escape . . . but of course so does Moriarty.

What unfolds is that Moriarty has plans to target an international peace summit in Switzerland so triggering an international incident that is likely to result in widespread war - an outcome that Moriarty would relish and would profit from considerably given his arms manufacturing interests. Eventually confronting Moriarty on the balcony of the mountain side castle where the summit is being held, a fight develops and both topple over the cliff edge into the torrential waterfall far below - both are presumed dead!

With Moriarty's plans foiled Watson and his wife Mary return to London and to 221B Baker Street after the funeral of Holmes, but all is not quite what it seems . . . 

The cast is once again strong and the additions of Stephen Fry and Noomi Rapace add supporting character weight and Guy Ritchie Directs convincingly with some sharp witty dialogue and close up slo-mo action set pieces - both of which he has used convincingly in the past. I found this reasonably entertaining, but generally quite formulaic stuff offering pretty much what you would expect now that the characters are settled, and the story lines are fairly predictable.

Nonetheless off a US$125M production budget this film earned US$545M at the global Box Office (the first film did US$524M off US$90M) certainly paving the way for a third film in the series which in October last year (2014) was muted once a strong script had been agreed upon by all stakeholders. This film picked up two award wins and ten other nominations, and as for dollars and bums on seats, it certainly did the trick!

-Steve, at Odeon Online-

CALVARY - Thursday 3rd July 2014

After all the rave Reviews I just had to go see 'CALVARY' last night, and did so at The Cremorne Orpheum Picture Palace . . . and was not disappointed, at all! This is a stirring, bleak, haunting film that will leave you thinking well after the credits have rolled. Once again after the 2011 'The Guard' made such an impact, the pairing of Director/Writer John Michael McDonagh and his actor compadre Brendan Gleeson, have delivered a film that hits many high notes.

Set in County Sligo on the unforgiving north-west coast of Ireland we have Father James Lavelle (Brendan Gleeson, never better!) who has come to the Priesthood later on in life following the death of his beloved wife, and a period it seems where he crawled inside a bottle of Irish Whiskey. Turning his back on his daughter Fiona (an excellent Kelly Reilly playing 'fractured' beautifully) he chose to pursue his 'calling' and ultimately ended up in Sligo. With a small local flock to attend to, one day while taking Confessional a member of his congregation enters the box and we learn that from aged seven was abused every other day for five years by the local Priest, who has since died! But this member of the congregation (who is unknown to us at this stage) wants to exact revenge on the Catholic Church for letting this be, and for letting countless other Priests do likewise throughout their history. Now, someone must answer for those heinous sins, and so the gauntlet is thrown down that this confession giver will kill Father James Lavelle seven days from now down at the beach. Father James therefore has seven days to get his house in order before an innocent Priest will be murdered, on a Sunday, and held to account for all the prior sins of the Catholic Church.

The film therefore is set over the following seven days, and during that time we learn more of Father James and the relationship he has with his daughter Fiona, who visits on Monday and stays until Friday. We learn more of the relationships with the other members of the congregation all of whom have lost faith in the Catholic Church and what is stands/stood for, all of whom are damaged goods in some way and carry emotional baggage from previous lives/experiences/relationships, and all of whom could potentially be our would-be killer.

Included in this strong supporting cast are Dylan Moran (as Michael Fitzgerald - the local lord of the manor, self made multi-millionaire but desperately unhappy); Chris O'Dowd (Jack Brennan - the local butcher, nursing a totally broken marital relationship); M. Emmet Walsh (the local ageing Writer and best selling American Author now resident in remote Sligo);  and Aidan Gillen (Dr. Franke Harte who you probably wouldn't want by your bedside in the event of an emergency!). As the story unfolds day by day, local character by local character, and there are more 'mishaps' as Sunday approaches we learn of the underlying hatred for the Catholic Church and even Father James as its representative, because of it.

Brendan Gleeson shines as Father James Lavelle and is in practically every scene on screen. He delivers his character with conviction and with a steadfast resolve despite his community seemingly rising up against him and his Church. Director John Michael McDonagh gives us a rich dialogue; the humour is black; the story is as confronting as it is moving; the location is bleak, harsh and desperate; and when the final showdown comes you might find it as unexpected as it is a relief!

This is truly an engrossing film, and a must-watch for 2014.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-                                                                        

   

    

What's new in Odeon's this week - Thursday 15th May 2014.

Following last weeks bucket load of new releases, this week we have slightly slimmer pickings to choose from, but nonetheless plenty of block buster action, independent offerings, formulaic big studio fluff and foreign language outings still doing the rounds to keep you occupied on a cooler autumnal evening in May. This week, we do have another mega budget monster action flick to numb your senses; we have cinema's auteur of the weird, wonderful and whacky with a new unique offering; there is a thought provoking film that might just leave you thinking about the existence of heaven & hell; and a Romanian offering for those that like their films served with subtitles.

GODZILLA - this big scary all chewing all stomping lizard creature first appeared on big screens in 1954 courtesy of Japan's Toho Studio's, and since then there have been 28 films dedicated to this scaly monster of all monster's. Last seen in 1998 courtesy of the master of disaster movies, Roland Emmerich, this 2014 outing should bear no resemblance to that turkey! For this film to be endorsed by Toho Studio's it must be getting something right, and Director, Gareth Edwards, has taken us back to the source of the original film to stay true to that early premise. That is, that Godzilla is born out of a nuclear incident, and that the action takes place mostly in Japan. And so it does, and we have Bryan Cranston as the physicist based in Japan investigating with his Navy bomb disposal expert son (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) a nuclear incident dating back to 1999 to uncover the real truth of what happened and why. Needless to say along the way the truth is uncovered, whole city blocks are trashed and they duly discover some big shit going down . . . really big, like, monstrously big!

THE ZERO THEOREM - Terry Gilliam is back, and thank God! He knows how to spin a yarn; create something fantastical; weave the whacky, weird and wonderful; and assemble a convincing cast to deliver a movie experience that is a feast for the senses, will play with your mind, and will make you think! He keeps on delivering such films going back to 'Time Bandits', 'Brazil', '12 Monkeys' and more recently 'The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus' all of which take us to an alternative universe, another dimension, some future dystopian world yet somehow grounded in what we know with a sense of familiarity. Here we have Christoph Waltz taking the lead with Matt Damon, Tilda Swinton, Ben Wishaw and David Thewlis all supporting as our eccentric computer hacker mathematics whizz Waltz, works away on a project set by the mysterious 'Management', with the end game being to determine if there is a purpose to human existence. . . The Zero Theorem! This will be quirky to the nth degree, visually mesmerising, and totally immersing - a must see for fans of Gilliam's work.

HEAVEN IS FOR REAL - Greg Kinnear, Thomas Haden-Church, and Kelly Reilly star in this story of a family coming to terms with the ramifications of their four year old son's life changing near death experience. Playing the small town father, Kinnear witnesses the impact of his son's fleeting moment in Heaven after he died briefly on the operating table, and has to come to terms with what he saw, who he met and what was said when he was on 'the other side'. This film could test your faith, it will be thought provoking, and it will leave you wondering 'what if'? Needless to say this film has created a bit of a sensation across America's bible belt - watch it and decide for yourself.

CHILD'S POSE - A Romanian film about justice being sought by the family of a young child killed following a car crash involving the son of a Romanian socialite. The child killed in the car accident and the family are polar opposites, simple folk, peasants almost. The mother of the man at the wheel of the car is overbearing toward her son, engulfing him with love and affection at every turn and firmly believing he is innocent of any crime despite all the evidence to the contrary. What follows when families meet is satirical, the Police are sidetracked, the truth is covered up and this overbearing mother will do just about anything to protect her son. This won the 'Golden Bear' at the Berlin Film Festival and was an Oscar contender for Best Foreign Language Film earlier this year.

A mix then this week of monster action, future adventure, family drama, and emotional imbalance. Check one out at least, and let me know what you think!

Movies . . . see as many as you can!

-Steve, at Odeon Online-