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Shutter Island
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"a minor entry in the Martin Scorsese canon."
The words "A Martin Scorsese picture" on the poster for 'Shutter Island' are a badge of rare quality, and the movie's first thirty minutes
suggest the great director's very much on form as he enters his fifth decade in the front rank of American film-makers.
The movie looks wonderful, and the powerful flavour of 50s movies like 'Vertigo' extends beyond the costumes and production design to the way the film is lit and shot - as you might expect when Scorsese may well know more about the history of American cinema than anyone else on the planet.
Sadly, after this moody, exciting, deliberately confusing opening, 'Shutter Island' slows to a plodding pace. Despite some moments of real brilliance which hint at what the film might have been, its growing sense of self-importance is reinforced by an ever more heavy-handed music score and one overly-talky scene follows another.
These failings aren't serious enough to derail the film completely by any means, partly because the performances of Leonardo DiCaprio and Mark Ruffalo are every bit as good as you would expect.
But as psycho-thrillers go, this one went - without leaving a huge impact behind it. Had it been directed by a lesser talent, I'd probably have found it surprisingly enjoyable, rather than the let down which it proved to be - a minor entry in the Martin Scorsese canon. -
Green Zone
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"the movie really has bitten off more than it can chew."
When 'The Hurt Locker' has achieved such notable success at this year's awards ceremonies, it's inevitable that 'Green Zone' will be weighed up
against Kathryn Bigelow's Academy Award winner.
It's not a particularly flattering comparison as far as this latest film from Paul Greengrass is concerned - or a particularly helpful one. 'Green Zone' doesn't have the same ring of truth or intimacy that set 'The Hurt Locker' apart from all the other movies about the invasion of Iraq and
the "war on terror”, but in some senses it's also much more ambitious.
Which is to its credit of course. The problem being that it's trying to pull off quite a trick - to stage an intelligent action thriller while examining the nature of modern warfare and the legitimacy of this conflict in particular.
And if that sounds a little indigestible, it might just indicate that the movie really has bitten off more than it can chew, and that none of the elements quite come off. There's plenty of action, but it becomes rather samey, and
squeezes out the development of characters who remain rather two- dimensional.
There's no doubting the integrity and talent which Matt Damon and Paul Greengrass bring to all this, but what they've produced here lacks the
sheer thrills of their Bourne collaborations or the more complex kind of political impact and insight they seem to be reaching for. -
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
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"Suspenseful and very watchable, it's gripping stuff."
Though the many enthusiastic readers of Stieg Larsson's 'Millennium' trilogy may not need too much convincing to see 'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo', two and a half hours in Swedish isn't going to be everyone's idea of a fun visit to the cinema, and I must admit I had some misgivings of my own.
As it turned out, the film does feel its length, and as with so many American movies today, would have benefited from someone taking the scissors to it. But happily the similarities with the majority of Hollywood thrillers end there.
First up, the two leads are characters you just wouldn't see in a mainstream commercial film from the States. The hero, if that's the right word, is the kind of intelligent everyman writers of Swedish thrillers seem to have found a knack for turning out, while Lisbeth Salander exists on a different planet from Hollywood. And how refreshing that these two unusual but completely credible characters form a believable connection which has got nothing to do with romance.
So though you might have to be in the mood for it - and it's definitely very Scandanavian -
'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo' pretty much lives up to its billing. Suspenseful and very watchable, it's gripping stuff, with a plot that's satisfyingly packed with red herrings…
Credits
- Production Manager
- Marian Lacey
- Sound Recordist
- Phil Clayton
- Presenter
- Jonathan Ross
- Director
- Bex Palmer
- Producer
- Tom Webber
- Assistant Producer
- Emma Pollock
- Assistant Producer
- Howard Brenner
