Today, there just isn’t enough war to go round.

The Avengers

4.20: The Danger Makers

A bit of a plod this one, enlivened by a couple of scenes, admittedly, but not enough to salvage The Danger Makers. The title pretty much tells you the score, as military personnel, dismayed by the lack of conflict in peacetime, create thrill-seeking exercises for themselves. Unfortunately, the thrill seeking only intermittently extends to viewer enthralment.

Robertson: There are very few wars nowadays. They’re rapidly becoming push-button affairs. No, your concept of military life is changing, Mrs Peel. The military man is becoming defunct, obsolete, a dodo.

On the plus side, veteran film director Charles Crichton delivers a polished rendition of Roger Marshall’s screenplay, in which Apollo (revealed to be Dr Long, played by Douglas Wilmer, perhaps best known as the BBC ‘60s Sherlock Holmes, before Peter Cushing took over) has discovered that, in some soldiers, combat fatigue led to mental regression because they actually missed the shock of war – “Yes, you could call it an addiction to danger” – and envisages tapping into “all that potential energy, destructive energy”.

His plan to harness it, having set various veterans on jaunts where they are “dicing with death like irresponsible beatniks” (including Admiral Jackson crossing the Atlantic in Force 8 gale and chemical warfare expert Gordon Lamble “trying to climb the side of St Paul’s Cathedral when he fell”) is to be put into action via a rather mundane plot to steal the Crown Jewels (why not, I guess).

Mrs Peel: What have we got so far?

Steed: Two black roses, three corpses.

Mrs Peel: Four white feathers…

Steed: And a partridge in a pear tree.

The black roses are the Danger Makers symbol (making Steed’s access remarkably easy, announcing himself as a member of their Northern Chapter), the feathers one of failure, both appearing on the crest of Manton House, a military museum run by Colonel Adams (Fabia Drake), oblivious to the goings-on. While Steed fakes being one of the select group, Emma attempts to join up, seeking an in with Major Robertson (an eyepatched Nigel Davenport). Steed suggests: “Show him… (looking at her cleavage) Show him your bumps. He’s a part-time phrenologist”.

Steed: Clearer?

Mrs Peel: Much. A bunch of schizoid, paranoid sociopaths.

Steed: And incidentally dangerous.

Maybe I’m being a bit hard on this one. There are a number of nice moments, such as Steed making up his society name; plumping for a Roman God, he naturally picks Bacchus, and receives a funny look from Peters (Moray Watson, The Quatermass Experiment, Black Orchid). There’s also a lovely punchline to the scene in which Emma receives a box of chocolates from Robertson, and Steed warns her not to touch it while he apparently inspects it for explosives:

Steed: Whatever you do, don’t touch the wrapped ones.

Mrs Peel: Why not?

Steed: Cos I like ‘em.

Mrs Peel’s initiation, in which she plays a deadly, full-scale version of the wire loop game (touch the sides and she’s electrocuted), moving along seesaws, is a masterful set piece, full of sweaty close-ups from the onlookers (and an impromptu cough from Robertson).

And then there’s Steed, who was unable to hoodwink Apollo that he was a member, obviously, facing his would-be executioner with disarming cheerfulness:

Robertson: I’ve got to kill you.

Steed: Don’t make too much noise about it, will you.

Robertson: I said, I’ve got to kill you.

Steed (reading the newspaper): My goodness me, British tin down another point.

Robertson: Stand up.

Steed: Why?

Robertson: Because I’m going to kill you.

Steed: Major, your hand isn’t shaking at all. It’s as steady as rock. There’s more danger in stamp collecting.

He appeals Robertson’s flair for jeopardy, persuading him they should both have an equal chance of taking the gun, placed on the table. They sit opposite each other, the Major beginning a count to three. Robertson doesn’t get to two when Steed plucks up the gun and promptly hits him over the head with it (“Sorry, Major. I never did believe in rules”). Ungentlemanly, but very amusing.

Steed: How did you get out?
Mrs Peel: I knotted some sheets.

Steed: Oh, that old thing.

Mrs Peel: Well, originality didn’t seem imperative at the time.

Emma, of course, proves just as resourceful in her own off-camera way (above). Despite the high points, though, this one tends to the rather dry and militaristic elsewhere, right down to a Journey’s End-inspired character name (Stanhope, played by Adrian Ropes, although he’s more of a Raleigh, plotwise). The laugh-off is similarly breathless to The Girl from Auntie’s verbiage, only with Steed delivering this time, before their stunt doubles head off in go-carts:

Mrs Peel: Steed, I still don’t understand how you stumbled on the Danger Makers.

Steed: Simple, Mrs Peel. When Groves died, I saw Lowry, who put me on to Lamble, who led me to Robertson, through whom I met Stanhope, who later was killed, who passed on info about Manton, where I met Colonel Adams. I simply put two and two together.

Mrs Peel: Elementary.

Steed: Basic.

Mrs Peel: Shall we drive?

Agree? Disagree? Mildly or vehemently? Let me know in the comments below.

Your Mickey Mouse is one big stupid dope!

Enemy Mine (1985) (SPOILERS) The essential dynamic of Enemy Mine – sworn enemies overcome their differences to become firm friends – was a well-ploughed one when it was made, such that it led to TV Tropes assuming, since edited, that it took its title from an existing phrase (Barry Longyear, author of the 1979 novella, made it up, inspired by the 1961 David Niven film The Best of Enemies ). The Film Yearbook Volume 5 opined that that Wolfgang Petersen’s picture “ lacks the gritty sauciness of Hell in the Pacific”; John Boorman’s WWII film stranded Lee Marvin and Toshiro Mifune on a desert island and had them first duking it out before becoming reluctant bedfellows. Perhaps germanely, both movies were box office flops.

If I do nothing else, I will convince them that Herbert Stempel knows what won the goddam Academy Award for Best goddam Picture of 1955. That’s what I’m going to accomplish.

Quiz Show (1994) (SPOILERS) Quiz Show perfectly encapsulates a certain brand of Best Picture nominee: the staid, respectable, diligent historical episode, a morality tale in response to which the Academy can nod their heads approvingly and discerningly, feeding as it does their own vainglorious self-image about how times and attitudes have changed, in part thanks to their own virtuousness. Robert Redford’s film about the 1950s Twenty-One quiz show scandals is immaculately made, boasts a notable cast and is guided by a strong screenplay from Paul Attanasio (who, on television, had just created the seminal Homicide: Life on the Streets ), but it lacks that something extra that pushes it into truly memorable territory.

Say hello to the Scream Extractor.

Monsters, Inc. (2001) (SPOILERS) I was never the greatest fan of Monsters, Inc. , even before charges began to be levelled regarding its “true” subtext. I didn’t much care for the characters, and I particularly didn’t like the way Pixar’s directors injected their own parenting/ childhood nostalgia into their plots. Something that just seems to go on with their fare ad infinitum. Which means the Pixars I preferred tended to be the Brad Bird ones. You know, the alleged objectivist. Now, though, we learn Pixar has always been about the adrenochrome, so there’s no going back…

Other monks will meet their deaths here. And they too will have blackened fingers. And blackened tongues.

The Name of the Rose (1986) (SPOILERS) Umberto Eco wasn’t awfully impressed by Jean Jacques-Annaud’s adaptation of his novel – or “ palimpsest of Umberto Eco’s novel ” as the opening titles announce – to the extent that he nixed further movie versions of his work. Later, he amended that view, calling it “ a nice movie ”. He also, for balance, labelled The Name of the Rose his worst novel – “ I hate this book and I hope you hate it too ”. Essentially, he was begrudging its renown at the expense of his later “ superior ” novels. I didn’t hate the novel, although I do prefer the movie, probably because I saw it first and it was everything I wanted from a medieval Sherlock Holmes movie set in a monastery and devoted to forbidden books, knowledge and opinions.

No one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself.

The Matrix (1999) (SPOILERS) Twenty years on, and the articles are on the defining nature of The Matrix are piling up, most of them touching on how its world has become a reality, or maybe always was one. At the time, its premise was engaging enough, but it was the sum total of the package that cast a spell – the bullet time, the fashions, the soundtrack, the comic book-as-live-action framing and styling – not to mention it being probably the first movie to embrace and reflect the burgeoning Internet ( Hackers doesn’t really count), and subsequently to really ride the crest of the DVD boom wave. And now? Now it’s still really, really good.

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

In a few moments, you will have an experience that will seem completely real. It will be the result of your subconscious fears transformed into your conscious awareness.

Brainstorm (1983) (SPOILERS) Might Brainstorm have been the next big thing – a ground-breaking, game-changing cinematic spectacle that had as far reaching consequences as Star Wars (special effects) or Avatar (3D) – if only Douglas Trumbull had been allowed to persevere with his patented “Showscan” process (70mm film photographed and projected at 60 frames per second)? I suspect not; one only has to look at the not-so-far-removed experiment of Ang Lee with Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk , and how that went down like a bag of cold sick, to doubt that any innovation will necessarily catch on (although Trumbull at least had a narrative hinge on which to turn his “more real than real” imagery, whereas Lee’s pretty much boiled down to “because it was there”). Brainstorm ’s story is, though, like its title, possibly too cerebral, too much concerned with the consciousness and touting too little of the cloyingly affirmative that Bruce Rubin inevitably brings to his screenplays. T

You ever heard the saying, “Don’t rob the bank across from the diner that has the best donuts in three counties”?

2 Guns (2013) (SPOILERS) Denzel Washington is such a reliable performer, that it can get a bit boring. You end up knowing every gesture or inflection in advance, whether he’s playing a good guy or a bad guy. And his films are generally at least half decent, so you end up seeing them. Even in Flight (or perhaps especially in Flight ; just watch him chugging down that vodka) where he’s giving it his Oscar-nominatable best, he seems too familiar. I think it may be because he’s an actor who is more effective the less he does. In 2 Guns he’s not doing less, but sometimes it seems like it. That’s because the last person I’d ever expect blows him off the screen; Mark Wahlberg.

Piece by piece, the camel enters the couscous.

The Forgiven (2021) (SPOILERS) By this point, the differences between filmmaker John Michael McDonagh and his younger brother, filmmaker and playwright Martin McDonagh, are fairly clearly established. Both wear badges of irreverence and provocation in their writing, and a willingness to tackle – or take pot-shots – at bigger issues, ones that may find them dangling their toes in hot water. But Martin receives the lion’s share of the critical attention, while John is generally recognised as the slightly lesser light. Sure, some might mistake Seven Psychopaths for a John movie, and Calvary for a Martin one, but there’s a more flagrant sense of attention seeking in John’s work, and concomitantly less substance. The Forgiven is clearly aiming more in the expressly substantial vein of John’s earlier Calvary, but it ultimately bears the same kind of issues in delivery.

Maybe the dingo ate your baby.

Seinfeld 2.9: The Stranded The Premise George and Elaine are stranded at a party in Long Island, with a disgruntled hostess.

Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

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