We’re all stealing from someone.

Paranoia

(2013)

Perhaps Harrison Ford and Gary Oldman can only appear together in not-terribly-good films. Air Force One isn’t terribly good, and neither is Paranoia. Aside from a title that promises much but delivers nothing of the sort, the movie is blandly directed by Robert Luketic, a former-and-still-sometimes romcom guy who has inadvisedly attempted to make the leap to “serious-minded” fare with this and the reasonable-but-should-have-been-better 21. Roundly savaged by the critics and a resounding flop, I don’t think this is quite as bad as has been made out. Paranoia is not unwatchable, but it’s a dumb movie that would desperately like to be smart and about something. It’s also saddled with an unmagnetic performance from the Hemsworth boy who’s not Chris, Liam. So it’s left to Ford and Oldman to do the heavy lifting and attempt to keep down some really stodgy dialogue.

Perhaps Joseph Finder’s corporate espionage novel is a superior piece of work, or perhaps the near-decade between publishing and this adaptation rendered it passé. Screenplay writers Barry L Levy (Vantage Point) and Jason Dean Hall (the upcoming American Sniper; lets hope he does a better job than here) have made it all about smart phone technology, as Oldman’s CEO Nicholas Wyatt blackmails Hemsworth’s low level employee Adam Cassidy into infiltrating the corporation of Wyatt’s rival and former colleague Jock Goddard (Ford) and so steal the plans for a new phone. There’s potential here, and the makers have done their best to talk up the surveillance society and its deleterious effects; Goddard’s new tech promises to be the ultimate user device, one that will encourage zero privacy.

But Luketic directs the movie so listlessly it barely has a pulse. The suggestion of Cassidy under constant watch lack flair, and the logic of this monitoring capability are conviently forgotten when it suits the under-exerted plot. Shouldn’t Wyatt be holding all his conversations in his underpants in a fully debugged environment? If he’s really going around having people knocked off he ought to be much more careful about what he says to who and where (it’s no good having a scene where Wyatt warns about careless words in the presence of a new tailor if he’s showing such disregard the rest of the time). He installs cameras in Cassidy’s apartment and his dad’s house but doesn’t seem to have noticed the FBI calling for a chat with Cassidy.

This is also one of those movies where people are capable of doing magical things with technology; it might as well be an episode of Whiz Kids. Cassidy’s friends are able to come up with genius inventions at a moment’s notice, while Wyatt can facilitate Cassidy’s acceptance into his rival’s firm like it’s nothing (that Wyatt is not suspicious of how easy this is ought to ring alarm bells). If the corporate side had been convincingly portrayed, this might have ended up closer to the Wall Street vibe it’s clearly angling for; young wannabe with a blue collar dad (Richard Dreyfuss here, Martin Sheen there) is manipulated into misdeeds by a Satanic corporate type (Oldman here, Michael Douglas there) yet we just know he will do the right thing in the end (Cassidy even spouts indigestible guff like “I know right from wrong and I’m sorry it took me so long to act on it”).

If Hemsworth is vacant, love interest Amber Heard isn’t much better; I’ve seen her in any number of films but she’s so unmemorable I’m never sure if that’s her. Luketic is obviously under the illusion the pair will fascinate us, since he devotes a further 10 minutes to their relationship following the climax. Julian McMahon plays Wyatt’s heavy; it’s a thankless role, and you wonder why both he and Josh Holloway (as an FBI man; the actor just hasn’t had a decent break post-Lost). Embeth Davidtz fares a little better, but the only reason for watching this is Oldman and Ford.

Oldman uses his own accent, which makes for a nice change, particularly when he’s yelling “Put it in my fucking hand” like he’s Ray Winstone’s bezzie mate. Ford gets a lot of stick these days for sleepwalking through his roles, but he holds his own here and, with his curiously bald head, has a distinctive look to back up his steely business sense. On the technical side, an imaginative director could easily work with David Tattersall’s cinematography but the poor guy is stuck doing the most uninteresting things. There’s even a dreary love scene montage. The surveillance camera POV stuff feels like an afterthought rather than integral (Enemy of the State this is not). Junkie XL’s score isn’t all that either and the in-action is overlaid with some irritating dance anthems that only underline Luketic’s disposition towards lukewarm cheese.

Is Paranoia’s 4% rating on Rotten Tomatoes deserved? Well, it gives a disproportionate impression that it is one of the worst movies ever made. It’s just very average. Coming from a director who is so very average, that shouldn’t be much of a surprise. It blows its opportunities for corporate intrigue, instead favouring clumsy plotting and execution. Still, Ford and Oldman keep the tepid brew just about tolerable.

**1/2

Comments

She writes Twilight fan fiction.

Vampire Academy (2014)
My willingness to give writer Daniel Waters some slack on the grounds of early glories sometimes pays off (Sex and Death 101) and sometimes, as with this messy and indistinct Young Adult adaptation, it doesn’t. If Vampire Academy plods along as a less than innovative smart-mouthed Buffy rip-off that might be because, if you added vampires to Heathers, you would probably get something not so far from the world of Joss Whedon. Unfortunately inspiration is a low ebb throughout, not helped any by tepid direction from Daniel’s sometimes-reliable brother Mark and a couple of hopelessly plankish leads who do their best to dampen down any wit that occasionally attempts to surface.

I can only presume there’s a never-ending pile of Young Adult fiction poised for big screen failure, all of it comprising multi-novel storylines just begging for a moment in the Sun. Every time an adaptation crashes and burns (and the odds are that they will) another one rises, hydra-like, hoping…

My name is Dr. King Schultz, this is my valet, Django, and these are our horses, Fritz, and Tony.

Django Unchained (2012)
(MINOR SPOILERS) Since the painful misstep of Grindhouse/Death Proof, Quentin Tarantino has regained the higher ground like never before. Pulp Fiction, his previous commercial and critical peak, has been at very least equalled by the back-to-back hits of Inglourious Basterds and Django Unchained. Having been underwhelmed by his post Pulp Fiction efforts (albeit, I admired his technical advances as a director in Kill Bill), I was pleasantly surprised by Inglourious Basterds. It was no work of genius (so not Pulp Fiction) by any means, but there was a gleeful irreverence in its treatment of history and even to the nominal heroic status of its titular protagonists. Tonally, it was a good fit for the director’s “cool” aesthetic. As a purveyor of postmodern pastiche, where the surface level is the subtext, in some ways he was operating at his zenith. Django Unchained is a retreat from that position, the director caught in the tug between his all-important aesthetic pr…

I am so sick of Scotland!

Outlaw/King (2018)
(SPOILERS) Proof that it isn't enough just to want to make a historical epic, you have to have some level of vision for it as well. Say what you like about Mel's Braveheart – and it isn't a very good film – it's got sensibility in spades. He knew what he was setting out to achieve, and the audience duly responded. What does David Mackenzie want from Outlaw/King (it's shown with a forward slash on the titles, so I'm going with it)? Ostensibly, and unsurprisingly, to restore the stature of Robert the Bruce after it was rather tarnished by Braveheart, but he has singularly failed to do so. More than that, it isn’t an "idea", something you can recognise or get behind even if you don’t care about the guy. You’ll never forget Mel's Wallace, for better or worse, but the most singular aspect of Chris Pine's Bruce hasn’t been his rousing speeches or heroic valour. No, it's been his kingly winky.

If this is not a place for a priest, Miles, then this is exactly where the Lord wants me.

Bad Times at the El Royale (2018)
(SPOILERS) Sometimes a movie comes along where you instantly know you’re safe in the hands of a master of the craft, someone who knows exactly the story they want to tell and precisely how to achieve it. All you have to do is sit back and exult in the joyful dexterity on display. Bad Times at the El Royale is such a movie, and Drew Goddard has outdone himself. From the first scene, set ten years prior to the main action, he has constructed a dizzyingly deft piece of work, stuffed with indelible characters portrayed by perfectly chosen performers, delirious twists and game-changing flashbacks, the package sealed by an accompanying frequently diegetic soundtrack, playing in as it does to the essential plot beats of the whole. If there's a better movie this year, it will be a pretty damn good one.

There's something wrong with the sky.

Hold the Dark (2018)
(SPOILERS) Hold the Dark, an adaptation of William Giraldi's 2014 novel, is big on atmosphere, as you'd expect from director Jeremy Saulnier (Blue Ruin, Green Room) and actor-now-director (I Don’t Want to Live in This World Anymore) pal Macon Blair (furnishing the screenplay and appearing in one scene), but contrastingly low on satisfying resolutions. Being wilfully oblique can be a winner if you’re entirely sure what you're trying to achieve, but the effect here is rather that it’s "for the sake of it" than purposeful.

It was one of the most desolate looking places in the world.

They Shall Not Grow Old (2018)
Peter Jackson's They Shall Not Grow Old, broadcast by the BBC on the centenary of Armistice Day, is "sold" on the attraction and curiosity value of restored, colourised and frame rate-enhanced footage. On that level, this World War I documentary, utilising a misquote from Laurence Binyon's poem for its title, is frequently an eye-opener, transforming the stuttering, blurry visuals that have hitherto informed subsequent generations' relationship with the War. However, that's only half the story; the other is the use of archive interviews with veterans to provide a narrative, exerting an effect often more impacting for what isn't said than for what is.

He mobilised the English language and sent it into battle.

Darkest Hour (2017)
(SPOILERS) Watching Joe Wright’s return to the rarefied plane of prestige – and heritage to boot – filmmaking following the execrable folly of the panned Pan, I was struck by the difference an engaged director, one who cares about his characters, makes to material. Only last week, Ridley Scott’s serviceable All the Money in the World made for a pointed illustration of strong material in the hands of someone with no such investment, unless they’re androids. Wright’s dedication to a relatable Winston Churchill ensures that, for the first hour-plus, Darkest Hour is a first-rate affair, a piece of myth-making that barely puts a foot wrong. It has that much in common with Wright’s earlier Word War II tale, Atonement. But then, like Atonement, it comes unstuck.

You kind of look like a slutty Ebola virus.

Crazy Rich Asians (2018)
(SPOILERS) The phenomenal success of Crazy Rich Asians – in the US at any rate, thus far – might lead one to think it's some kind of startling original, but the truth is, whatever its core demographic appeal, this adaptation of Kevin Kwan's novel taps into universally accepted romantic comedy DNA and readily recognisable tropes of family and class, regardless of cultural background. It emerges a smoothly professional product, ticking the expected boxes in those areas – the heroine's highs, lows, rejections, proposals, accompanied by whacky scene-stealing best friend – even if the writing is sometimes a little on the clunky side.

Prepare the Heathen’s Stand! By order of purification!

Apostle (2018)
(SPOILERS) Another week, another undercooked Netflix flick from an undeniably talented director. What’s up with their quality control? Do they have any? Are they so set on attracting an embarrassment of creatives, they give them carte blanche, to hell with whether the results are any good or not? Apostle's an ungainly folk-horror mashup of The Wicker Man (most obviously, but without the remotest trace of that screenplay's finesse) and any cult-centric Brit horror movie you’d care to think of (including Ben Wheatley's, himself an exponent of similar influences-on-sleeve filmmaking with Kill List), taking in tropes from Hammer, torture porn, and pagan lore but revealing nothing much that's different or original beyond them.

It seemed as if I had missed something.

Room 237 (2012)
Stanley Kubrick’s meticulous, obsessive approach towards filmmaking was renowned, so perhaps it should be no surprise to find comparable traits reflected in a section of his worshippers. Legends about the director have taken root (some of them with a factual basis, others bunkum), while the air of secrecy that enshrouded his life and work has duly fostered a range of conspiracy theories. A few of these are aired in Rodney Ascher’s documentary, which indulges five variably coherent advocates of five variably tenuous theories relating to just what The Shining is really all about. Beyond Jack Nicholson turning the crazy up to 11, that is. Ascher has hit on a fascinating subject, one that exposes our capacity to interpret any given information wildly differently according to our disposition. But his execution, which both underlines and undermines the theses of these devotees, leaves something to be desired.

Part of the problem is simply one of production values. The audio tra…

Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

Search This Blog