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-

SHIRLEY : Tuesday 14th July 2020.

'SHIRLEY', which was my first return foray out to my local independent movie theatre earlier this week following four months of cinema closures because of the COVID-19 pandemic, is Directed by Josephine Decker whose previous film making credits include 'Butter on the Latch', 'Thou Wast Mild and Lovely' and 'Madeline's Madeline' most recently in 2018. Based on the 2014 novel of the same name by Susan Scarfe Merrell, the film saw its World Premier screening at the Sundance Film Festival in late January this year, went on general release on June 5th in the US, and here in Australia on July 9th. This biographical drama film charts a period in the life of acclaimed American  horror and mystery author Shirley Jackson who lived from 1916 until 1965 and who penned amongst others 'The Haunting of Hill House', is portrayed by Elisabeth Moss, who also takes a Co-Producer credit. It has generated mostly positive Reviews so far.

The film opens up with Rose (Odessa Young) reading the finishing pages of 'The Lottery' a short story by Shirley Jackson while abroad a train bound for Vermont, and then feeling horny grabs her husband Fred (Logan Lerman) and leads him into the toilet for a quick one.

Arriving at the home of Shirley Jackson (Elisabeth Moss) and her husband Stanley Hyman (Michael Stuhlbarg) during a party, Rose announces to Shirley that they are invited house guests and will be staying for a week or so at the behest of her husband - a literary critic and Professor at Bennington College, in Vermont. Rose and Fred are to continue with their studies, with Fred working alongside Stanley to aid him with his research while he completes his dissertation. Shirley is far from welcoming of Rose and Fred saying that she does not like strangers around the house, and their initial interactions are frosty to say the least.

It doesn't take long before Stanley puts a proposal to Fred for them both to remain at the house for an extended period with free board and lodgings if Rose is prepared to help clean, cook, and look after Shirley throughout the day, on the basis that their last housekeeper just upped sticks and left without warning because of Shirley's mood swings, demands and unpredictable nature. Fred wholeheartedly agrees but Rose is more reluctant as it means that she'll need to drop out of college for the foreseeable future when she thought that she and Fred would both be studying on an equal footing.

Shirley is in the throes of depression, struggles with agoraphobia, suffering from writers block, and spending the majority of her time languishing in her bed all day with a cigarette in one hand and a stiff drink in the other. She is barely only able to surface at dinner time when Stanley and Fred return from their day at College and it's cocktail hour before dinner is served. Slowly, however, Shirley begins to warm towards Rose, and she begins tapping away at her typewriter working on a novel about a missing girl named Paula Jean Welden, that would go on to become 'Hangsaman', who disappeared from the Bennington College campus. Stanley meanwhile, is off to his philandering and controlling ways with young Fred in tow at College for most of the day, and plays the dutiful husband when he gets home at night just in time for cocktail hour, or well beyond it having stayed late to attend the 'Shakespeare Society'. However, it quickly becomes plain that Stanley's motives to get his wife writing again are more driven by the finances her next work will generate, and the kudos he reaps from being the literary critic of his wife's works.

Shirley and Stanley seem to bicker most of the time, sparring off against each other often with a subtle malevolence, but they also relish in belittling Rose and Fred over dinner for their own amusement and for which they offer no apology, and which only goes to show the young couple as lesser mediocre mortals in their eyes. Rose and Fred's relationship begins to deteriorate when Fred begins coming home late from College having attended the Shakespeare Society, and Fred starts seeing the influence that Shirley is having upon Rose. Furthermore, Rose is in the early stages of pregnancy - a fact that Shirley is able to 'sense', and blurts it out one evening over dinner much to the surprise of Fred. As Rose's pregnancy develops so Fred seems increasingly turned off by her ever expanding bump. Ultimately, Shirley tells Rose that there is no such thing as the Shakespeare Society at College, this is just a cover for meeting young female students that the men can take advantage off, and often do.

As Shirley's novel develops so her fascination with the disappearance of Paula intensifies. Shirley imagines Rose, and Rose imagines herself as Paula, the red head walking quickly through the woods wearing a red coat with her face blurred out, looking over her shoulder.

This all comes to head when Rose has had her baby and one day while driving in the car together with Shirley, Rose asks Shirley to stop the car. Rose gets out leaving Shirley holding the baby, and off Rose trundles at a goodly pace through the woods, leaving Shirley to traipse after her carrying the crying child. Shirley emerges at a clearing with Rose standing at the edge of a sheer drop, with Shirley begging her to step away from the edge. Is it Rose or Paula standing there, as the figure launches itself into the air. We then cut away to Rose and her baby, and Fred, departing the residence for good in a car, bidding their farewells.

The final scene sees Stanley critiquing Shirley's manuscript of what will be her latest novel, completed. She sits as the dining table dutifully, complete with facial ticks, tweaks and distortions, while Stanley reads the final pages. He rises out of his lounge chair in the background and approaches the table and sits in front of her. Brilliant he exclaims, her best work yet and a sure fire best seller, although he has made some notes as is his want in life.

This is Elisabeth Moss' film for sure - she excels in her portrayal of Shirley Jackson, even down to the dead ringer looks, the think rimmed spectacles, the mane of hair, her frumpy dress style and her seemingly never ending consumption of cigarettes and alcohol. The Director Josephine Decker while taking liberties with the truth, for example portraying Jackson and Hyman as childless when in fact they had four children, and her reliance on short stories and novels in the horror and mystery genre was in fact more successful in writing parenting books and children's works. Despite this poetic license, Decker has crafted an insightful film that lurches from gothic undertones to domestic drama to horror and back again with Young cast as the prefect foil for Moss as they tip toe through their evolving relationship without it ever really going anywhere, and Stuhlbarg as the bigoted womanising holier than thou acerbic husband. All that said, 'Shirley' is at times confusing, its plods along at times at a snails pace, and is more style over substance but is saved by Moss' stellar performance, her razor sharp dialogue, and her uncanny knack for inhibiting this character with a realism and believability that is worthy of an Oscar nod for sure.

'Shirley' merits three claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard, from a potential five claps.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-

FURY - Tuesday 28th October 2014.

This week I saw the new Brad Pitt World War II actioner 'FURY', with a couple of movie buddies at my local multiplex. Written and Directed by David Ayer we are taken back to the closing weeks of WWII with the rapidly advancing Allied Forces making their way to Berlin as Hitler puts just about every man, woman and child on the front line to defend the last vestiges of 'The Fatherland'. It is no easy trek across the German countryside though for the Allies as they are confronted with still heavily armed and at times superior fire powered German troops standing in their way at every turn, on every hilltop, in every village and town, and behind every stand of trees. What David Ayer has delivered is a cold, bleak, grim, violent, and raw account of the bloody battles between German troops and a small American tank command that has travelled more than three years and many thousands of miles to get to this point in our story.

'Fury' is the Sherman Tank commanded by Brad Pitt's Sergeant Don 'Wardaddy' Collier with a crew of four others. As the film opens we see on a muddy bare horizon a lone horseman partially cloaked in mist advancing to a battle scene - the image is surreal - corpses are littered everywhere, still burning armoured cars, destroyed tanks, overturned artillery as the glorious looking white steed and its German Officer rider gradually make their way through the mud and carnage of the battlefield. When you least expect it a soldier hurls himself off the back of a tank at the advancing lone horseman, brings him to the ground and inflicts several deadly knife blows to the chest, and then through the eye socket. And so we are introduced to 'Wardaddy', to his Sherman Tank, 'Fury', and his four other crew. One of them however is dead, having had his face blown off in the heat of battle. The dead crew member is still inside the tank, and with Wardaddy, the three survivors must make their way out of the battlefield to the next camp.

Arriving at camp, we learn that 'Fury' is all that remains of that last campaign having seen many casualties at the hands of the well fortified and armoured German troops. Outwardly Wardaddy is battle hardened, cold, calculating, scarred, war weary and a tightly coiled spring who will inflict violence on any German soldier, civilian, or officer to protect himself, his crew, his tank and to support the American and Allied Forces war effort. Inwardly however, he is fighting his own demons having seen more human atrocities, lost more friends and comrades, and been on the road for more than three years. At camp he is introduced to replacement Assistant Gunner Norman Ellison (Logan Lerman) who was drafted only seven months ago, has never seen battle let alone a dead body and has been punching on a type writer for the last three months at sixty words per minute. Ellison is clueless, believes a terrible mistake has been made and pleads to be discharged from this duty. Unfortunately for Ellison these are desperate times, and his initiation is to clean out the tank of the remains of his predecessor - which includes scraping up his face from the floor of the tank and mopping up all the blood . . . Welcome to Fury!

What soon follows after an intense tank battle sequence across an open field is Ellison's Baptism by blood as he is forced to shoot a captive German soldier in the back. As the story progresses Ellison has no choice but to engage in the heat of battle and gun down advancing German troops to protect himself, his crew, his tank and his fellow infantrymen. Under the watchful eye of Wardaddy, Ellison develops a taste for killing Nazi's and in doing so gains acceptance from the remaining crew. We learn nothing of the crew of 'Fury' or their back stories other than the present moment through open dialogue between them during brief moments of quiet. We learn that there is Boyd 'Bible' Swan (Shia LaBeouf) a God fearing, bible preaching good Samaritan who takes his daily prayers inside the tank and is the religious anchor of the crew - he however, thinks nothing of gunning down the enemy because it is Gods work and he is chosen to carry it out. Then there is Trini 'Gordo' Garcia (Michael Pena) the Mexican tank driver who is battle weary too, burnt out and on the edge. The tanks mechanic and loader is Grady 'Coon-Ass' Travis (Jon Bernthal) who has a very short fuse, is bad tempered, almost permanently angry, swears a lot and is an Italian thug - he is one can short of a six pack - but, in a fire fight he would be the guy you want to be standing next to!

We also learn that the crew, aside from Ellison, have been together for more than three years - longer than any other, and which they all acknowledge is thanks to Wardaddy's skill, wits and fortitude in battle and inside 'Fury'. As Wardaddy says - he started killing Germans in North Africa and now he is killing Germans in Germany. En route they have been through Spain, France, and Belgium to bring them to this point. Further battles ensue as the tank advances with an ever depleted battalion of soldiers in tow. There are scenes of close quarter combat in a small village where much carnage is inflicted on both sides. When they move out four tanks including 'Fury' go head to head in an open field with a far superior Tiger Tank, and in the closing sequence 'Fury' must go it alone with its five occupants against a battalion of three hundred or so SS Troops - needless to say it doesn't end well for anyone!

Brad Pitt plays it well as grizzled war hardened 'Wardaddy'. Shia LaBeouf is convincing too as the bible bashing righteous soldier of God 'Bible'. 'Gordo' has a lesser role, but nonetheless is convincing as a knock-about weary Mexican, but Bernthal as 'Coon-Ass' overplays his role too much and there is nothing likable or redeeming about his hooligan character. Logan Lerman wins his 'war name' toward the end as a sign of acceptance from the crew and 'Machine' comes of age inside the tank when all hell breaks loose outside.

David Ayer as Writer and Director has delivered a story in which really little happens except for tanks and infantrymen doing battle, and we probably could have seen more of this and less of the drawn out sequences seemingly filling screen time in between. There is plenty of expected war time violence, dismemberment of limbs and heads in the heat of cross-fire and the ferociousness and tenacity of battle between heavily armed foes. There is no real sense either of the sheer claustrophobia of five men being confined for prolonged periods inside an armoured tin can, and without any sense of their back stories it is hard to relate to the crew as individuals or a close knit team.

'Saving Private Ryan' rewrote the rule book by which all others are so far judged, and this film doesn't match that one on many levels. 'Enemy at the Gates' did a good job subsequently, but 'Fury' is not genre defining by any means. All that said, it is worth a look, and filmed in the English countryside with a US$68M budget it is entertaining enough, when the action comes it is well handled but it won't leave you pondering after the credits have rolled like the two aforementioned films did, or others for that matter depicting the conflict in Vietnam.

  
-Steve, at Odeon Online-