QUEEN & SLIM : Tuesday 17th March 2020.

'QUEEN & SLIM' which I saw this week is a MA15+ Rated American romantic crime drama offering and is Directed by first time film maker Melina Matsoukas who is an already established American music video, television and commercial Director. Amongst her numerous music video's which she has made since 2006 she has worked with Beyonce, Jennifer Lopez, Kylie Minogue, Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, Rihanna, Whitney Houston, Robin Thicke and Christina Aguilera. Her TV commercials credits take in such companies as Diesel, Adidas, Lexus, Nike and Stella McCartney. This film saw its World Premiere at the American Film Institute Fest in mid-November 2019 and was released in the US in late-November. It has so far received generally positive reviews from critics, has grossed US$47M off the back of a circa US$18M production budget, and has garnered ten award wins and a further 27 nominations from around the awards circuit.

Queen (Jodie Turner-Smith) and Slim's (Daniel Kaluuya) first Tinder date at a down-beat Ohio diner takes an unexpected turn when a Policeman pulls them over for a minor traffic violation while Slim is driving Queen home. The Police Officer makes Slim get out of the car, frisks him, and asks him to open the car boot asking if he has any stashed guns, alcohol or drugs therein. Slim retorts with only several boxes of shoes, which the Officer opens up and over turns. Slim asks the Officer if he could hurry up as it's cold. The agitated Officer draws his gun on Slim, and when Queen gets out of the car and tries to record the incident on her mobile phone, the situation quickly escalates, and Queen's leg is grazed by a bullet fired by the Policeman, sending her to the ground. Slim tackles the Officer and a scuffle ensues, resulting in Slim grabbing the officer's gun and shooting him with it in self defence. Slim is a god-fearing family loving kinda guy with no criminal history and straight away wants to call it in, but Queen has other plans for fear of spending the rest of their natural lives behind bars.

And so the pair go on the run, in Slim's white Honda with the registration plate 'TrustGod'. They run out of petrol on a remote highway and are able to flag down a passing pick-up truck for help in getting them to a fuel stop. The kindly driver, Edgar (Benito Martinez) turns out to be local Kentucky Sheriff. Arriving at the petrol station, Sheriff Edgar hears a call out on his radio about the murder of an Officer in Ohio, and a description of Queen and Slim. Holding the Sheriff at gun point, they return to their car, make him get in the boot of the Honda, and drive off in his pick-up truck.

The pair travel onwards to New Orleans to the house of Queen's estranged Uncle Earl (Bokeem Woodbine), a pimp who shacks up with Goddess (Indya Moore) and Naomi (Melanie Halfkenny), for help. Although Earl is reluctant to lend his assistance, Queen convinces him to aid them since she had previously helped him avoid jail time for the accidental killing of her mother. Queen we have subsequently learned is a defence lawyer, and her first case upon qualifying was that of her Uncle Earl. 

Slim proposes that they escape to Cuba, and Earl tells them that when he was serving in Iraq, he saved the life of a Mr. Shepherd who would be able to help them get there from Miami. Queen and Slim plan on staying two nights in New Orleans but their stay is interrupted when a Police Officer calls upon the house late at night, poking around and asking questions. He sees the pick-up truck and asks to look around but Earl fends him off saying he'll need to return with a Warrant. Early the next morning the pair take one of Earl's cars, an envelope with a few thousand dollars in it and head towards Florida, but not before torching the pick-up truck on waste ground on the outskirts of the city. 

As they continue on their drive the couple's car breaks down with steam pouring out from under the bonnet. They take it to a workshop they passed not far back, owned by a black mechanic who says it will cost them $2,500 to repair and will take three days. The pair say they need it done today and the mechanic reluctantly agrees when Slim hands over all the remaining cash they have. Watching over the mechanic, who quickly become agitated and looses his patience, suggests his son, Junior (Jahi Di'Allo Winston), take them for a walk to kill a couple of hours and let him get on with the repair job in peace. Junior states his admiration for them both, and lets them know they have become widely recognisable and a symbol against black oppression.

Queen and Slim arrive at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Shepherd (Flea and Chloe Sevigny respectively) in Savannah, but a neighbour recognises them. The Shepherds, over dinner tell them about the bounty of $250K each on their heads. Mrs. Shepherd says they could pay off their mortgage with that kind of money, as she is obviously disapproving of her husbands support towards the pair of outlaws. Mr. Shepherd gives them directions to the next person who will be able to assist them. During dinner, a SWAT team shows up outside and Mr Shepherd hurriedly tells Queen and Slim to hide in a crawlspace under the bed in their room until the coast is clear. Soon after the SWAT team burst through the door and search the house, but find no sign of the couple. 

The next morning, they emerge from the crawlspace, and exit the house to the backyard via the window which is two storeys up. Queens jumps first but dislocates her shoulder when landing awkwardly, followed by Slim who lands and rolls. The couple gain easy entry to a rear garage, and Slim relocates Queen's shoulder, resulting in a muffled cry of pain. This attracts the notice of a young black Officer still stationed outside the front of the house, who goes to investigate. As the couple attempt to flee from the Shepherds' garage in a jump started Mercedes station wagon, the black Officer stumbles upon them, but lets them drive off without alerting his fellow Officers standing guard. The pair drive on to the place where they are to meet their next connection, but being the middle of the night and no one there, they sleep in the car until morning. 

In the morning, they are suddenly woken up by a man (Bertrand E. Boyd II) pointing a shotgun at them through the window. He tells them to follow him to his trailer where he can lead them to a friend with a plane that can get them away to Cuba. After making some calls, and after Slim has stressed the urgency of their departure, he drives them to the airstrip and drops them off hastily where a plane is waiting to take off. 

As the two walk toward the plane thinking they are home free, a convoy of Police patrol cars arrives behind them, and a helicopter circles overhead. Recognising that they are not going anywhere, an Officer on a loud hailer keeps ordering the pair to get on the ground, which they ignore. A female Officer impulsively shoots Queen in the chest, killing her instantly. Devastated, Slim picks up her lifeless body and carries her toward the armed mass of Police Officers. Repeatedly ordering him to halt and get down, Slim ignores their directive leading them to gun him down as well in a hail of bullets. News of the tragic end to the manhunt is widely publicised, with the authorities putting their own spin on the events. The couple's real names - Angela Johnson and Earnest Hines are made public, as hundreds of civilians attend their funeral and commemorative services viewing them as both heroes and martyrs.

'Queen & Slim' is in essence a road movie, but not as you might know it. Sure it's about a couple on the run who hijack a pick-up truck and exchange it for various other vehicles before reaching their final destination, but at the same time it's an evolving love story, a tale of prejudice, anger, resentment, hope, pride, trust, faith and power. The film has a pumping soundtrack obviously coloured by Director Matsoukas's numerous music video works, and a visual aesthetic that shows the southern US in all its downtrodden derelict and at times stunning scenery as the pair travel from Ohio, through Kentucky, onto Louisiana into Florida and all the states in between. The performances by Kaluuya and Turner-Smith are first rate as the one time Tinder dates who weren't even going to go on a second date are thrown together on the lam forging a closeness that ultimately is their undoing, and the supporting cast are equally adept in the limited screen time they are afforded. The moral of the story here is to pick your Tinder dates very wisely as the world of two good people turns bad very quickly and from which there is no return, save for martyrdom and the world knowing your true identities once you're dead . . . and what good is that to ya?

'Queen & Slim' merits four claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard out of a potential five claps.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-

THE SNOWMAN : Tuesday 24th October 2017.

'THE SNOWMAN' which I saw earlier this week is potentially the first in what may turn out to be new film franchise for this Norwegian crime fighting detective Harry Hole, based on the Oslo Crime Squad character created by Norwegian author Jo Nesbo in the popular series of novels that have been translated into forty languages, and having sold over thirty million copies worldwide. Harry Hole appears in eleven novels so far, first launched in 1997 with 'The Bat', taking us up to 2017 with the release of 'The Thirst'. 'The Snowman' upon which this film is based is the seventh book in the series and was published in 2007. This film is Directed by Tomas Alfredson, whose previous Directing credits include the acclaimed 'Let The Right One In' and 'Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy'. The film cost US$35M to bring to the big screen and has so far recouped US$23M, and has garnered generally lacklustre Reviews.

Research reveals that Harry Hole (here portrayed by Michael Fassbender) is a brilliant and driven detective prone to using unorthodox methods in his work, a classic loose cannon in the police force. Hole is unmarried and he has few close friends. He frequently makes enemies among his colleagues who, nevertheless, grudgingly respect him. He is a chain smoker and heavy drinker, although for the most part has his reliance on alcohol under control. The effects of his problems however, sometimes bring him into repeated conflict with his superiors, and some colleagues. Hole is also one of just a handful in the force to have undertaken special interrogation techniques and firearms training with the FBI.

Our film opens up on a desolate snow covered mountain side dwelling. Up pulls a VW Golf Police car, and out steps an overweight getting on in years man who delivers two gas cylinder bottles to the house, stashes them away inside and then sits down at the dining table with the mother of the household and her young teenage son. It is presumed to be sometime in the early 80's. The man tests the young lad on notable dates in history, and when the boy falters or answers incorrectly the women gets a stern beating. One such wrong answer sends the mother crashing backwards off her chair and onto the floor. Next up the young lad is spying on the mother and the man through the bedroom window as they have sex. When the boy is seen, the man hurriedly gets up out of the bed, gets dressed, storms out of the house ranting as he does so and speeds off in his car. The mother and boy give chase in the car across the spartan snow covered landscape. At some point the mother releases her hands from the steering wheel and the car careers off the road onto a frozen lake. The boy is screaming at his mother but she doesn't hear, her gaze fixed firmly on the road ahead, emotionless. The boy pulls on the handbrake and the car skids to a halt. He gets out of the passenger side door hearing the ice crack beneath the vehicle. His mother sits motionless as the boys struggles to open the drivers side door to free his mother. But she doesn't want to be freed as the vehicle slowly sinks into the icy depths below and disappears.

We then cut to the present day and waking up from a drunken stupor in a park shelter is Detective Harry Hole of the Oslo Police. He has been absent without leave for the past week or so, and meanders into the office to check on his mail, and is greeted by his superior officer with a reminder of leave protocols, a quick slap on the wrist and told not to do it again. He then ventures outside to a smoking balcony where he meets new recruit Katrine Bratt (Rebecca Fergusson) who has been assigned to his office. They exchange social niceties and go their separate ways, only to meet up hours later when Hole sees Bratt leaving for the day and catches a ride. She is on her way to a reported missing persons case, and Hole tags along. Meanwhile, in Hole's stash of mail is a handwritten cryptic letter sent directly from a supposed killer with a picture of a snowman at the bottom of the page - its plays on Hole's mind momentarily, but then he seems to dismiss it.

The missing person in question is Birte Becker (Genevieve O'Reilly) a married mother of a six or seven year old daughter. The night before her disappearance we see her car being followed by another on the way home from work. She arrives and is greeted by the young child, but the waiting father Filip Becker (James D'Arcy) is angry at her being late and he storms out of the house with bags packed on his way to some important business meeting out of town, leaving mother and daughter alone in the house. The next morning, the child wakes up and mother is gone. No sign of her, and a neighbour alerted the Police who send Bratt along to investigate. Outside in the garden is a squat snowman, with twigs for arms and coffee beans for a wry smile, gazing up the house.

The next case of a missing person requires a drive out to some remote farmstead for a case of a missing Sylvia Ottersen (Chloe Sevigny), but when they arrive Sylvia Ottersen is alive and well and shrugs it off as a prank call form her jilted boyfriend. Hole and Bratt leave from whence they came, only to be alerted over the Police band radio that Sylvia Ottersen has been reported missing . . . two minutes ago! They hastily turn around and return to the farmstead to be greeted by Ane Pedersen (Chloe Sevigny), Sylvia's identical twin, only to find the decapitated corpse of Sylvia Ottersen on the ground in the chicken shed. At this point Hole and Bratt surmise that the Snowman is playing with them and that he must have been watching them all along, calling in that Sylvia was missing even before she was butchered. Hole surveys the surrounding buildings and locates the head of Sylvia perched on top of a snowman at the bottom of a frozen abandoned silo.

In between time we catch glimpses of a back story featuring some Bergen based ace detective who came close to uncovering the Snowman murders some ten or fifteen years back. Detective Gert Rafto (Val Kilmer) was a drunken no nonsense kinda guy who met with a very sticky end at the hands of the Snowman, that was cleverly masked over to make it look like a suicide. When Hole goes to Bergen to investigate he is met by DC Svensson (Toby Jones) who simply reports that it was a plain and simple suicide and was therefore not investigated further. Hole, however, thinks there was more to it and examines further. His closer examination reveals a connection between Rafto and Bratt.

Another side story involves Arve Stop (J.K. Simmons) as an unscrupulous sinister media mogul who is spearheading Oslo's bid for the Winter Olympic Games which is about to be announced. Bratt has a feeling in her bones about Stop and goes undercover to investigate further, installing a hidden camera in his hotel room where she intends to proposition herself to him. Stop had dealings with Frederick Aasen (Adrian Dunbar) back in 2006 involving some kind of industrial development that went tits up leaving Aasen very bitter indeed. Needless to say it doesn't end well for Bratt as the Snowman gets to her first before Stop retires to his room for the night, and the Snowman has erased all footage from the hidden camera, and any evidence of a struggle.

The final plot scenario is the story of Hole's on again off again long term relationship with his ex-partner and art dealer Rakel (Charlotte Gainsbourg) and her teenage son Oleg (Michael Yates) by her first marriage. Hole feels more than a semi-fatherly connection to Oleg despite Rakel's husband Mathias (Jonas Karlsson) also playing adoptive father duty who works as a medical consultant specialist that sees him away quite often on business or attending conferences, so giving Rakel the chance to rekindle with Hole, albeit temporarily - a fact that Mathias seems to accept.

Meanwhile back to the chilling killing as the body count rises and dismembered corpses turn up in all manner of locations, there seems little to connect the murderous spree other than motherhood, by neglect, abortion, jealousy etc. while their mysterious vanishings seems to coincide with fresh snow fall. Hole seems to do little actual detective work here, leaving all the investigative work to Bratt only to come along at the end and join the dots and bish bash bosh the serial killer is out in the open and exposed back where it all began in that desolate snow covered mountain side dwelling where Rakel and Oleg's lives are hanging in the balance. Hole sits across the table from his two loved ones almost powerless having to answer questions that determine whether the electric motorised garrote held by the Snowman is tightened or loosened around Rakel's neck. Needless to say, it comes down to a face off on a frozen lake with Hole shot to the ground and the Snowman approaching ready to plug him again at close range to finish the job.

This is a disjointed film where, alas, the sum of its parts are not greater than the (Harry) Hole. With a strong ensemble supporting cast who for the most part are left wanting to do more with the little screen time and dialogue afforded them, the film meanders from one grizzly killing to the next while Hole and Bratt join the seemingly simple dots to expose the serial killer. Fassbender and Ferguson are well cast, but that alone can't save this film that is too busy with side stories that go nowhere and add little value instead of getting down and dirty with the detective work and concentrate on what drives The Snowman to commit his unthinkable crimes. When the quality of Scandinavian police driven crime drama film and television is so good, despite the snow covered Norwegian vistas, this film feels like a hurried by the numbers affair that I'm sure will leave the legions of fans of the source novel thinking WTF! If Harry Hole does return to the big screen in another adaptation, and Fassbender could do so easily, let's hope that the lessons learned from this first instalment bode well for any follow-up as there is just enough of a foundation to do so.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-