What do you do in the group?

Starred Up

(2013)

(SPOILERS) Jack O’Connell can do no wrong right now, it seems. Except maybe taking a supporting role in a 300 prequel. In the space of a couple of years he’s earned his place as the next big British star. The trio of Starred Up, ’71 and Unbroken (Angelina came-a-calling) have cemented a rightfully acclaimed reputation as an immediate and visceral performer. He’s got gigs with Jodie Foster and (maybe, touch wood) Terry Gilliam coming up; it’s probably just as well he didn’t land Reed Richards. Which is a round about way of getting to his performance in Starred Up. It’s a powerhouse turn, one that almost, but ultimately can’t, make up for a movie unable to decide if it’s a serious picture about rehabilitation or your shiv-wielding genre staple replete with vicious guards, duplicitous prison overlords (not Noel Coward), and psycho wardens.

What’s surprising about this, perhaps, is that screenwriter Jonathan Asser has based the picture on his own experiences working with offenders. There’s definitely a sense of a more engaged picture emerging from the folds of a standard nick thriller every time we enter the session groups. Oliver (Rupert Friend) comes into the incarceration situation almost unbelievably ill equipped; he’s well-educated and intimidated. The sort of guy who wouldn’t last five minutes in stir. So we’re as curious as Eddie (O’Connell) about why his group seem so devoted to his methods. And why he is seized to help Eddie in particular.

In tandem with this is the set up of Eddie being incarcerated with his lifer dad Neville (Ben Mendelsohn), a man disinclined to give the son he’s hardly seen any special treatment, but who nevertheless feels the paternal bond. Neville’s inability to express himself (his one attendance at the group leads to its dissolution) is effective, but there’s a strong sense of great performances overcoming the artifice of the set up here. Eddie has come up from young offenders prison for being too much of a handful (“starred up”) and seems set to cause similar disruption. Prison Mr Big Dennis (Peter Ferdinando, memorable as the Black Knight in the none-too memorable Snow White and the Huntsman) instructs Neville to mentor Eddie, so his son’s behaviour doesn’t disrupt the dirty business line Dennis has going with the crook deputy governor Haynes (Sam Spruell).

From that, it may seem as if there’s a lot going on. And there is, too much really. Just a film about Oliver’s anger management classes could have been fascinating; even a film where the focus is as much on the malign bureaucracy of those who don’t want to help offenders as on the offender (Eddie) himself. I don’t think Neville’s presence, as good as Mendelsohn is, is strictly necessary. It brings additional elements of melodrama that undercut the more serious themes. Along with the standard prison tropes, this helps turn Starred Up into another exploitation picture.

The final scenes between father and son are touching, but Asser and director David Mackenzie (whose career has been on the unfocussed side, material-wise) precede this an action-packed, adrenalised finale that speaks the message “there’s nothing quite so effective for bringing a dad and his boy together as beating 7 shades of shit out of some screws”. Mackenzie even douses the attempted hanging of Eddie in a red filter and adds an eerie, horror-movie soundtrack. Spruell’s Deputy Governor may as well be Donald Sutherland in Lock Up, so unspeakably motiveless Machiavellian is he.

And there are the signs of a screenplay that bends itself every which way in order to meet the demands of the moment. Eric’s eloquent insights into his situation and those around him show an empathy beyond his boundless rage, and suggest he’s in touch with his inner self before he starts attending Oliver’s groups. Indeed, when he enrages Oliver, who admits he wants to hurt him, Eric agrees to come to the meeting following the tritest of exchanges (“Good, now we’re getting somewhere”). Stallone could have been so subtle.

On the other hand, the therapy sessions are engrossing, and extremely well performed (one thing I can’t fault here are the performances). Anthony Welsh, David Ajala, Ashley Chin and Gershwyn Eustache Jnr are there for the necessary induction (“It can take a session or two to get used to it”), so it’s a shame that, just as we are gaining an insight into Asser’s method, he decides to move onto matters more lugubrious.

Unfortunately, Starred Up allows the clichés to win out. If it were that kind of film through-and-through, this wouldn’t matter. But Asser really appeared to have his mind on higher things (I’m less sure of Mackenzie’s motives). What are we to take away when Oliver loses his temper with the warden and so kills his programme? It makes for a dramatic scene, but it serves to undermine his process. Maybe Eric and his fellow groupies will make better situations for themselves due to Oliver’s influence, but in the end the focus is more on father-son reconciliation. The authenticity of filming in an actual prison is resounding in terms of the overall mood and atmosphere, but it isn’t as if that’s a rarity for banged up cinema. If Asser had the courage of his characters’ convictions, Starred Up might have really got its teeth into something. Instead, it gets down tearing new holes.

This risotto is shmackin’, dude.

Stranger Things Season 4: Volume 1 (SPOILERS) I haven’t had cause, or the urge, to revisit earlier seasons of Stranger Things , but I’m fairly certain my (relatively) positive takes on the first two sequel seasons would adjust down somewhat if I did (a Soviet base under Hawkins? DUMB soft disclosure or not, it’s pretty dumb). In my Season Three review, I called the show “ Netflix’s best-packaged junk food. It knows not to outstay its welcome, doesn’t cause bloat and is disposable in mostly good ways ” I fairly certain the Duffer’s weren’t reading, but it’s as if they decided, as a rebuke, that bloat was the only way to go for Season Four. Hence episodes approaching (or exceeding) twice the standard length. So while the other points – that it wouldn’t stray from its cosy identity and seasons tend to merge in the memory – hold fast, you can feel the ambition of an expansive canvas faltering at the hurdle of Stranger Things ’ essential, curated, nostalgia-appeal inconsequentiality.

The Illumi-what-i?

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022) (SPOILERS) In which Sam Raimi proves that he can stand proudly with the best – or worst – of them as a good little foot soldier of the woke apocalypse. You’d expect the wilfully anarchic – and Republican – Raimi to choke on the woke, but instead, he’s sucked it up, grinned and bore it. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is so slavishly a production-line Marvel movie, both in plotting and character, and in nu-Feige progressive sensibilities, there was no chance of Sam staggering out from beneath its suffocating demands with anything more than a few scraps of stylistic flourish intact.

Is this supposed to be me? It’s grotesque.

The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (2022) (SPOILERS) I didn’t hold out much hope for The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent being more than moderately tolerable. Not so much because its relatively untested director and his co-writer are mostly known in the TV sphere (and not so much for anything anyone is raving about). Although, it has to be admitted, the finished movie flourishes a degree of digital flatness typical of small-screen productions (it’s fine, but nothing more). Rather, due to the already over-tapped meta-strain of celebs showing they’re good sports about themselves. When Spike Jonze did it with John Malkovich, it was weird and different. By the time we had JCVD , not so much. And both of them are pre-dated by Arnie in Last Action Hero (“ You brought me nothing but pain ” he is told by Jack Slater). Plus, it isn’t as if Tom Gormican and Kevin Etten have much in the way of an angle on Nic; the movie’s basically there to glorify “him”, give or take a few foibles, do

Haven’t you ever heard of the healing power of laughter?

Batman (1989) (SPOILERS) There’s Jaws , there’s Star Wars , and then there’s Batman in terms of defining the modern blockbuster. Jaws ’ success was so profound, it changed the way movies were made and marketed. Batman’s marketing was so profound, it changed the way tentpoles would be perceived: as cash cows. Disney tried to reproduce the effect the following year with Dick Tracy , to markedly less enthusiastic response. None of this places Batman in the company of Jaws as a classic movie sold well, far from it. It just so happened to hit the spot. As Tim Burton put it, it was “ more of a cultural phenomenon than a great movie ”. It’s difficult to disagree with his verdict that the finished product (for that is what it is) is “ mainly boring ”. Now, of course, the Burton bat has been usurped by the Nolan incarnation (and soon the Snyder). They have some things in common. Both take the character seriously and favour a sombre tone, which was much more of shock to the

Whacking. I'm hell at whacking.

Witness (1985) (SPOILERS) Witness saw the advent of a relatively brief period – just over half a decade –during which Harrison Ford was willing to use his star power in an attempt to branch out. The results were mixed, and abruptly concluded when his typically too late to go where Daniel Day Lewis, Dustin Hoffman and Robert De Niro had gone before (with at bare minimum Oscar-nominated results) – but not “ full retard ” – ended in derision with Regarding Henry . He retreated to the world of Tom Clancy, and it’s the point where his cachet began to crumble. There had always been a stolid quality beneath even his more colourful characters, but now it came to the fore. You can see something of that as John Book in Witness – despite his sole Oscar nom, it might be one of Ford’s least interesting performances of the 80s – but it scarcely matters, or that the screenplay (which won) is by turns nostalgic, reactionary, wistful and formulaic, as director Peter Weir, in his Hollywood debu

Twenty dwarves took turns doing handstands on the carpet.

Bugsy (1991) (SPOILERS) Bugsy is very much a Warren Beatty vanity project (aren’t they all, even the ones that don’t seem that way on the surface?), to the extent of his playing a title character a decade and a half younger than him. As such, it makes sense that producer Warren’s choice of director wouldn’t be inclined to overshadow star Warren, but the effect is to end up with a movie that, for all its considerable merits (including a script from James Toback chock full of incident), never really feels quite focussed, that it’s destined to lead anywhere, even if we know where it’s going.

All the world will be your enemy, Prince with a Thousand Enemies.

Watership Down (1978) (SPOILERS) I only read Watership Down recently, despite having loved the film from the first, and I was immediately impressed with how faithful, albeit inevitably compacted, Martin Rosen’s adaptation is. It manages to translate the lyrical, mythic and metaphysical qualities of Richard Adams’ novel without succumbing to dumbing down or the urge to cater for a broader or younger audience. It may be true that parents are the ones who get most concerned over the more disturbing elements of the picture but, given the maturity of the content, it remains a surprise that, as with 2001: A Space Odyssey (which may on the face of it seem like an odd bedfellow), this doesn’t garner a PG certificate. As the makers noted, Watership Down is at least in part an Exodus story, but the biblical implications extend beyond Hazel merely leading his fluffle to the titular promised land. There is a prevalent spiritual dimension to this rabbit universe, one very much

What’s so bad about being small? You’re not going to be small forever.

Innerspace (1987) There’s no doubt that Innerspace is a flawed movie. Joe Dante finds himself pulling in different directions, his instincts for comic subversion tempered by the need to play the romance plot straight. He tacitly acknowledges this on the DVD commentary for the film, where he notes Pauline Kael’s criticism that he was attempting to make a mainstream movie; and he was. But, as ever with Dante, it never quite turns out that way. Whereas his kids’ movies treat their protagonists earnestly, this doesn’t come so naturally with adults. I’m a bona fide devotee of Innerspace , but I can’t help but be conscious of its problems. For the most part Dante papers over the cracks; the movie hits certain keynotes of standard Hollywood prescription scripting. But his sensibility inevitably suffuses it. That, and human cartoon Martin Short (an ideal “leading man” for the director) ensure what is, at first glance just another “ Steven Spielberg Presents ” sci-fi/fantas

Get away from my burro!

The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948) (SPOILERS) The Treasure of the Sierra Madre is beloved by so many of the cinematic firmament’s luminaries – Stanley Kubrick, Sam Raimi, , Paul Thomas Anderson and who knows maybe also WS, Vince Gilligan, Spike Lee, Daniel Day Lewis; Oliver Stone was going to remake it – not to mention those anteriorly influential Stone Roses, that it seems foolhardy to suggest it isn’t quite all that. There’s no faulting the performances – a career best Humphrey Bogart, with director John Huston’s dad Walter stealing the movie from under him – but the greed-is-bad theme is laid on a little thick, just in case you were a bit too dim to get it yourself the first time, and Huston’s direction may be right there were it counts for the dramatics, but it’s a little too relaxed when it comes to showing the seams between Mexican location and studio.

If that small woman is small enough, she could fit behind a small tree.

Stranger Things Season 4: Volume 2 (SPOILERS) I can’t quite find it within myself to perform the rapturous somersaults that seem to be the prevailing response to this fourth run of the show. I’ve outlined some of my thematic issues in the Volume 1 review, largely borne out here, but the greater concern is one I’ve held since Season Two began – and this is the best run since Season One, at least as far my failing memory can account for – and that’s the purpose-built formula dictated by the Duffer Brothers. It’s there in each new Big Bad, obviously, even to the extent that this is the Big-Bad-who-binds-them-all (except the Upside Down was always there, right?) And it’s there with the resurgent emotional beats, partings, reunions and plaintively stirring music cues. I have to be really on board with a movie or show to embrace such flagrantly shameless manipulation, season after season, and I find myself increasingly immune.

Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

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