CRISIS : Tuesday 30th March 2021.

'CRISIS', which I saw at my local multiplex this week, is an MA15+ Rated crime thriller Directed, Produced, Written and also starring Nicholas Jarecki in only his second feature film making outing following 2012's 'Arbitrage' with Richard Gere, Susan Sarandon and Tim Roth. The film was released in the US in late February, and in Canada and Australia two weeks ago now, having gained mixed or average Reviews along the way. Featuring an ensemble cast that takes in the likes of Gary Oldman, Armie Hammer, Evangeline Lilly, Greg Kinnear, Luke Evans, Michelle Rodriguez, Lily-Rose Depp, Indira Varma, Kid Cudi and Martin Donovan the film has so far grossed US$986K at the Box Office. 

And so the film opens up with an action sequence that sees a white clad camouflaged drug runner pulling a makeshift sleigh thorough a forest and in the snow only to be ambushed and subsequently arrested by Police in a helicopter and on snowmobiles while trying to smuggle Fentanyl across an unpatrolled stretch of the Canadian border, about forty miles south of Montreal.

Meanwhile, back in Detroit, following the arrest, Jake Kelly (Armie Hammer) goes into damage control with a pair of Armenian gangster associates Minas (Michael Aronov) and Armen (Adam Tsekhman). He then risks blowing his cover to visit his drug addled younger sister Emmie (Lily-Rose Depp) seemingly recovering in a rehab facility, but largely non compos mentis. Kelly, who we subsequently learn is in fact an undercover DEA Officer, holds a briefing with his colleagues to bring them up to speed with his operations, which he has been working on for over a year now to infiltrate the Armenian's and gain their confidence that he is on the level. 

While this is going on the second story strand launches with architect Claire Reimann (Evangeline Lilly) attending a drug users survivors meeting recounting her former acute addiction to OxyContin, without realising just how close to home the trade has become in illicit drugs when her sixteen year old mad sports keen fan son David (Billy Bryk) goes missing, and winds up very dead seemingly overdosed on OxyContin. 

The third strand unravels in the hallowed halls of a university campus where charismatic professor of biology Dr. Tyrone Brower (Gary Oldman) teaches a captivated lecture theatre, but may be about to compromise his integrity in his lab by conducting drug trials directly sponsored for the last seven years by a major pharmaceutical company. When Brower’s lab assistants come to the realisation that a new wonder drug, Klaralon, is three times more addictive than other painkillers on mice (and fatal when taken to excess, although claimed to be non-addictive), he’s torn by what to do with this revelation. 

Enter Big Pharma Executive Dr. Bill Simmons (Luke Evans) to offer Brower’s department a US$780K grant in exchange for enhanced nondisclosure terms, updating and making even more watertight those signed seven years previously. But then the Principal of the University, Dean Talbot (Greg Kinnear) basically intervenes and tells him not to worry about the results on the mice, to sign the non-disclosure statement and take the much needed funding to enable Brower to continue with his research. This turn of events puts Brower in an even greater quandary.

In the meantime, Jake Kelly and his DEA partner Stanley Foster (Nicholas Jerecki) are under pressure to bring their undercover operation to a close within the next two weeks, otherwise it will be shut down. Kelly has a meeting with Supervisor Garrett (Michelle Rodriguez) at which this news is broken. Kelly arranges a meeting with the drug smuggling kingpin, known only as Mother (Guy Nadon) in an attempt to fast track a US$3M cash trade for two truck loads of Fentanyl, hidden inside vitamin bottles. Mother is initially reluctant, but ultimately agrees to the manufacture of the drug in the volume required and the sale of it to Kelly. 

At the same time, Claire Reimann is recovering from the tragic loss of her son, smells a rat as a result of the autopsy revealing a substantial bruise to his head, and the manner in which he died. She starts to do some of her own digging, which leads her to Derrick Millebran (Duke Nicholson), a former at arms length associate of her son, where it is revealed that David didn't even know he was acting as a mule for a stash of Fentanyl that he was carrying in his back pack while cycling home. He was poisoned by Mother by forcing on overdose of the drug down his throat.

Brower, after wrestling with his conscience decides to expose the pharmaceutical company to the FDA as a Whistleblower. Talbot and he have a falling out, with the Principal saying that such tests on mice are deemed inconclusive anyway, and as the pharmaceutical were in the final stages of human trials anyway it really didn't matter. Needless to say, the University and the big pharma company begin dredging up dirt on Brower to discredit him which ultimately costs him his job and his twenty plus year friendship with Dean Talbot. Brower's wife Madira (Indira Varma) is however, very supportive of her husband and remains stoic throughout. After his dismissal from the university, he is attending the FDA hearing with his contact their Ben Walker (Kid Cudi) where basically his findings are dismissed, he is not permitted to speak to give his viewpoint, Klaralon is passed and authorised for public use, Walker is 'reassigned', and the big pharma company walks away with all the spoils, overseen by Dr. Bill Simmons, Meg Holmes the CEO of the company (Veronica Ferres) and the two owner brothers of the company Lawrence (Martin Donovan) and Harold Morgan (Marcel Jeannin).   

Reimann has in between time hired a Private Investigator to do some digging on Mother (bacause as an ordinary citizen she wouldn't have access to the type of intelligence that a PI would of course), and at the same time provide her with a gun, as it has become blatantly obvious that she intends to kill the man responsible for her sons death. Kelly has set up the deal with Mother for him to manufacture the pills, bottle and label them in vitamin canisters, in exchange for US$3M - US$1M of which he has been authorised by Garrett to use, with the other US$2M coming from his Armenian contacts Minas and Armen. A time is set for the exchange in an abandoned warehouse with Stanley Foster in a surveillance truck on standby with the cavalry waiting in the wings poised ready to pounce given the signal. But of course these things never go according to plan and a firefight breaks out with Kelly getting shot cleanly in the chest by Mother who then makes his escape. In the firefight, Kelly recovers having been wearing a bullet proof vest of course, but Foster is shot in the neck, bleeds out and dies in Kelly's arms. Kelly gives chase to Mother but he is gone having been whisked away in a car. 

The PI calls Reimann on her mobile phone and informs her that Mother owns a seaplane that is kept down at the docks, and in all likelihood he'll be headed for there to make his getaway. Kelly meanwhile, sits in front of his Chief with Garrett to be told that the case is now being closed down. Needless to say he in none to pleased at this prospect given that the killer of his partner is still free. He runs off to the bar which Mother owned, beats up on the barman demanding to know where Mother is. Under duress and at gunpoint the barman says that Mothers owns a seaplane down at the docks and that is probably where he's headed. As Kelly pulls up and parks amongst the stacked containers and out of sight, he notices Reimann also parked there, patiently awaiting the arrival of Mother. A car pulls up and out steps Mother and another. Reimann gets out of her vehicle and points her weapon at Mother and calls out to him. He turns and she hesitates, giving him time to pull his weapon. She fires three or fours rounds at Mother killing him, but not before being shot herself in her arm before he went down. Kelly takes care of the other man as he runs to Reimann to lend her assistance. 

With both Mother and his associate dead on the ground, Kelly exchanges Mother's pistol for Reimann's, picks up all the dead rounds from Reimann's gun and places them on the ground next to Mother, and then they both drive off in her car. In a hotel room Kelly is bandaging up Reimann's arm. She asks Kelly if he is now going to take her off to prison, at which he responds with a no.

A lot of comparisons have been drawn between 'Crisis' and 2000's Steven Soderbergh Directed 'Traffic' which tells the story of the lives of four people which intertwine because of the drug trade in America. Each experiences personal loss and despair in the ongoing war on drugs, but is helpless. Sure enough there are similarities but that film was made twenty+ years ago and the war on drugs has moved on since then and there is a whole new audience out there probably unfamiliar with that multi award winning and nominated feature film. Here the plot moves along at a good pace, has certainly got something to say about opioid addiction, and the performances of the principle cast is spot on - particularly that of Evangeline Lilly whose grief stricken role is believable and relatable. The film doesn't take us in a new direction and the third act lurches into predictable familiar territory, but nonetheless this is a solid enough story from second time Director Jerecki that makes this film worth the price of your cinema entry.

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

-Steve, at Odeon Online-

TENET : Tuesday 1st September 2020.

'TENET' which I saw this week is an M Rated much hyped eagerly awaited spy drama film Directed, Written and Co-Produced by Christopher Nolan, who I'm sure needs no further introduction, other than his film Directing credits have amassed global Box Office returns of about US$4.7B and he has won 137 awards and been nominated 228 other times, so I guess he must be doing something right! Originally slated for a 17th July release, this was subsequently pushed back because of COVID-19 to 31st July, then 12th August and saw its release in seventy countries from last week, before its release in the US and China this week. Costing somewhere in the region of US$220M to make, the film has garnered mostly favourable Reviews from Critics, and has so far recouped US$54M. Riffing off James Bond with exotic locations, extravagant action set pieces, international espionage, a Russian bad guy hell bent on bringing about the end of the world as we know it, and the good guys working for a covert secret outfit this is sure to please . . . if you can get your head around the premise.

The film opens up with all guns blazing setting the scene for the action set pieces to follow. A CIA Agent takes part in an undercover SWAT mission at the Kyiv National Opera in the Ukraine, where he rescues an exposed spy and recovers a strange artefact, but not before members of the performing orchestra are shot and killed and the entire audience is put to sleep with gas. Another masked soldier with a red tag on his back pack rescues the Agent from being shot, but at this point it remains unclear as to their identities. The Agent (John David Washington) comes around tied to a chair on a railway line with a colleague also bound, with a bunch of nasty looking henchmen counting down the time until a train comes hurtling down the tracks to kill them both.

The Agent swallows a cyanide capsule, bur he later wakes to be told that the capsule was fake, his colleagues are all dead, and congratulations, he passed the test - no others before him have got that far. The Agent's superior, Victor (Martin Donovan) tells him that one word 'Tenet' will open doors for him, but to be wary because other doors will be slammed in his face with potentially life threatening consequences, and he is to use several markers to begin his journey.

His journey eventually leads him to Laura (Clemence Poesy), a scientist studying bullets and other retrieved artefacts whose make up has been 'inverted' so that they move backwards through time, demonstrated when the Agent catches the bullet in the chamber of the gun, rather than discharging it. Studying the make up of the bullets, the Agent traces the bullets to Priya (Dimple Kapadia), an arms trafficker living in Mumbai, and also affiliated to Tenet.

Now simply going by the handle of the Protagonist, The Agent is supported by a local named Neil (Robert Pattinson) and they both successfully infiltrate Priya's heavily guarded high rise home, by reverse bungee jumping up the tower, and learn that the bullets are supplied by Andrei Sator (Kenneth Branagh) a Russian Oligarch who is able to communicate with the future. The Protagonist meets with Sator's estranged wife Kat (Elizabeth Debicki), an art auctioneer. He learns that Sator is blackmailing her over a forged Goya painting that she sold him for US$10M, but he discovered her ruse and threatened to hand her over to the authorities if she doesn't comply with his wishes, and at the same time keeping her at arms length from her beloved young son. Kat comments that the last time the couple were truly happy together was on board his super yacht in Vietnam, from which she saw a mystery woman dive when she was leaving on a motor tender with her son.

The Protagonist and Neil work with fixer Mahir (Himesh Patel) to steal the fake Goya painting from the Freeport storage facility (a tax free haven used by investors to secretly store their art works that is heavily fortified, securely guarded and tightly controlled) at Oslo Airport, by crashing a cargo jet into the adjoining hangar as a diversion. By doing so Sator would no longer have a hold over Kat, and she would effectively be free. Inside the facility, they locate a machine from which two masked men emerge, one of which is inverted. After unmasking the normal one, Neil stops the Protagonist from killing the inverted one. Priya later explains that the machine was a 'Turnstile', a time inversion device developed in the future, and that the two masked men were in fact the same person.

The Protagonist subsequently tells Kat that the painting was destroyed in the resultant fire at the Freeport, and she arranges a meeting with Sator who reveals that he had the painting moved before the crash. Sator by now is on to the Protagonist and has him captured, and threatens to kill him. However, the Protagonist mentions the events at the Ukranian Opera, at which Sator has a change of heart - for now. Kat attempts to drown Sator during a boat race but the Protagonist jumps in and saves him. Sator now feels indebted to the Protagonist and so the Protagonist offers to steal a case of plutonium that Sator desires in exchange for Kat's freedom.

The Protagonist and Neil steal the plutonium in an intricately planned and executed highway heist from an armoured convoy in Estonia, but realise upon opening the carry case that it is in fact another artefact. An inverted Sator captures both the Protagonist and Kat, and shoots her with an inverted bullet, forcing him to reveal where the artefact is. A team of Tenet operatives led by Ives (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) frees the Protagonist forcing Sator to flee. To save Kat's life (for being shot by an inverted bullet is far more deadly that being shot by a conventional bullet), the Protagonist and Neil take her through Sator's Turnstile. They travel back to the Oslo Freeport crash the previous week to un-invert themselves inside the Turnstile there. As they re-infiltrate the airport, the inverted Protagonist fights his non-inverted self, before reaching the Turnstile and un-inverting himself.

Travelling back to Mumbai, Priya explains the artefacts (of which there are nine in total) are parts of a future-developed 'Algorithm' capable of catastrophically inverting the entire world, and that future humans are using Sator to activate it in order to prevent the effects of global warming. Kat advises that Sator is dying from inoperable pancreatic cancer. They conclude that he aims to trigger the Algorithm through suicide and through a dead man's switch, believing the world should die when he does. Kat has suspicions that Sator will choose to die on that day on his yacht in Vietnam when they were last at their happiest together.

Kat inverts back in time to delay Sator's death, while Tenet tracks the assembled Algorithm to an abandoned Soviet closed city and commences a 'temporal pincer movement', meaning that half of their troops move forward in time to the blast zone (the red team led by the Protagonist and Ives), while the other half moves backwards (the blue team led by Neil and Wheeler (Fiona Dourif)). The Protagonist and Ives are prevented from reaching the Algorithm stored underground by a locked gate, until an inverted masked corpse with a red tag on its rucksack springs to life, saving the Protagonist from a gunshot and unlocking the gate. The pair fight with a henchmen, who is intent on sending the assembled component parts of the Algorithm into a chasm below and detonating it, but is prevented from doing so with a bullet to the head. Neil driving an armed vehicle above ground drops a line down into the hole in the ground directly above where the pair are located. Clinging on the assembled Algorithm device they are winched up by Neil, just as the ground below them explodes. 

Meanwhile Kat has lured Sator into a false sense of well being and security on board his yacht in Vietnam. She shoots Sator in the chest and then drops him off the side of the yacht from an upper deck as he tumbles end over end crashing against the side of the boat before landing face down in the sea. Kat then dives from the yacht's deck, where she is witnessed by her past self. Kat calls the Protagonist to let him know that she shot and killed her husband prematurely, hoping that they rescued the Algorithm in time, to which he responds with a yes. The Protagonist, Neil and Ives break up the Algorithm's component into three equal sections each vowing to store them away secretly and without the knowledge of anyone else. The Protagonist notices a familiar red tag on Neil's rucksack, and asks him how he came to be recruited by Tenet. Neil reveals that a future version of the Protagonist recruited him to Tenet years earlier, and this mission is the end of a long friendship that the Protagonist has yet to experience. Neil and Ives depart in a helicopter, leaving the Protagonist on the ground.

Sometime later, and in London, Priya attempts to kill Kat while she is picking her son up from school, but is killed by the Protagonist in the passenger seat of the car where she sat.

I liked 'Tenet' a lot, and this is one film that you need to watch on the big cinema screen where you can immerse yourself in the never before seen stunning visuals, the action set pieces, the surround sound while trying to get your head around the meaning of the inversion of time, that is the core of this films premise. Here Christopher Nolan, who allegedly spent the past two decades or so mulling over the story and his Screenplay, has crafted perhaps his most ambitiously bold and audacious film yet; the lead characters all do a fine job with particular nods to John David Washington, Robert Pattinson, Elizabeth Debicki and Kenneth Branagh in perhaps his most evil and villainous role yet. The physics of inversion aren't fully explained and as Clemence Poesy's character Laura explains 'don't try to understand it, feel it', you'll leave the cinema having been wowed by the sheer size and spectacle this film offers up, but scratching your head trying to grapple with the science behind it. This epic film is supposedly going to re-establish the movie going experience in a Post-COVID world, and in this respect Nolan has delivered a wildly entertaining thrill ride of a movie that deserves all the success it can muster, and repeat viewings to understand it.

'TENET' meets four claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a possible five.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-