| SOMMER '09 (p3): Mesrine I [5/10], 'Orphan' [6/10], 'A Perfect Getaway' [8/10] : ONLINE SUN.16.AUG. |
|
|
 Where Quentin Tarantino led with Kill Bill and Steven Soderbergh followed with Che, we now find director Jean-Francois Richet and writer Abdel Raouf Dafri with their two-part biopic of 1970s French superstar-criminal Jacques Mesrine. Part one, Killer Instinct, traces Mesrine's career from his brutal army experiences in Algeria, through various civilian small-time-crook escapades, until he graduates to bank-robbery and politically-tinged revolutionary activities during a sojourn in Quebec. It's a lively, incident-packed story, to be sure - but by the end of this first half, there's considerable room to doubt whether Mesrine really deserves such elaborate and extended attention. Because while Vincent Cassel is just fine in the central role, Mesrine's loutish treatment of his aged parents and his long-suffering Spanish wife (Elena Anaya) keep him pretty much constantly beyond reach our sympathies - and our interest. Nor does he ever become a fascinating amoral anti-hero in the guise of, say, Patricia Highsmith's Tom Ripley, or the eponymous real-life subject of Cedric Kahn's 2001 Roberto Succo (a smaller-scale but rather more effective variation on similar themes.) Ploddingly episodic, Mesrine - Killer Instinct is reasonably watchable, thanks to the efforts of the performers involved: Cassel; Cecile de France (as his glamorous partner-in-crimer); a worryingly corpulent but gloriously sleazy Gerard Depardieu (a shady nightclub boss); and that engagingly rugged French-Canadian star Roy Dupuis, as a Quebecois separatist whose credibility-straining jailbreak with Mesrine represents the picture's most pulsating action set-piece. While Richet handles the latter with relative aplomb, too often he's guilty of rather lazily ripping off techniques and stylistic tricks from Martin Scorsese's crime-epics. It's the kind of flagrant larceny for which Mesrine himself became notorious, but the cumulative cinematic effect is to make the movie feel like an extended directorial audition for the next big Hollywood action-movie. Not that it can exactly be termed a "calling-card" from an ambitious newcomer - Richet has already tried his luck Stateside with 2005's Assault on Precinct 13 redo. On this evidence, his desire to get back over the pond is all too palpable. Killer Instinct was filmed back-to-back with the second part of the saga, Public Enemy Number One, but audiences who get through the first segment's unwieldy two-hour running-time would be forgiven for exclaiming "ca suffit" and swerving the follow-up. A Perfect Getaway is, by contrast, that rare Hollywood enterprise which actually cries out a sequel (or prequel) - although its distinctly underwhelming opening weekend at the US box-office renders such a prospect unlikely, unless it enjoys word-of-mouth success via DVD. An audaciously twisty Hawai'i-set thriller from David Twohy - bouncing back after the badly-received Chronicles of Riddick - it pivots on an outrageous third-act twist that initially feels absurd and more than a little cheaty, but which does hold water in retrospect once you examine how the overall narrative puzzle fits together (preferably via a second viewing, where one can relish the carefully-calibrated ambiguities of Twoy's script.) We follow a pair of fairly straight-laced, white-bread newlyweds - played by Steve Zahn and Milla Jovovich - honeymooning in a remote corner of the 50th state, where they encounter a pair of rather more unorthodox couples: a seemingly "low-class" pair of hitchhikers (Chris Hemsworth, Marley Shelton), and then two lovey-dovey adrenaline junkies from the Deep South: Nick (Timothy Olyphant) and Gina (Kiele Sanchez). When word gets out that a pair of killers - identified only as a youngish man and woman - have embarked on a murderous spree elsewhere on the islands, it doesn't take long for suspicions and tensions to mount. Red herrings abound in a picture which has a knowing, post-modern edge - Zahn's character is a screenwriter; former special-forces operative Nick (correctly) reckons his crazily colourful life-story would make an ideal movie (working title American Jedi) - that thankfully never quite crosses the line into clever-clever territory. Consistently striking to look at - vibrantly verdant Hawai'ian scenery, plus Twohy's imaginatively, eye-catchingly kinetic visual sense - and packed full of weird, offhand dialogue and narrative developments, A Perfect Getaway isn't the most substantial thriller of the year but it's certainly among the most entertaining and stimulating. And in the character of Nick (aka 'Nicko') a swaggeringly charismatic outdoorsman with a wicked sense of humour, a sharklike grin, and an incurable romantic streak, Twohy has come up with one of the most outstanding creations of recent US cinema. Let's hope he's already started thinking about American Jedi... If there's rather more to A Perfect Getaway than a head-scratching jaw-dropper of a twist, Orphan tends to the "M Night Shyamalan school" of rug-pulling narrative development - i.e., take away the colossal, late-in-the-day narrative switcheroo, and there's really not that much else going on. A full-bloodedly grand guignol homage to /update of 1950s evil-kiddie shocker The Bad Seed - in which a well-heeled middle-class couple (Vera Farmiga, Peter Sarsgaard), grieving after a stillbirth, ill-advisedly decide to adopt a sweet but slightly spooky Russian child (Isabelle Fuhrmann) - Orphan is overlong, overcooked and founded on a conceit that's both daft and more than a little offensive. On the plus side, little Ms Fuhrmann is rather splendid in a role whose daunting range - from angel to devil, and then some - would tax a performer twice her age, and both Farmiga and Sarsgaard manage to transcend the pulpy, sub-Stephen-King material to craft rounded three-dimensional characterisations. Little Aryana Engineer is a scene-stealing delight as their hearing-impaired younger daughter (the hearing-loss is imaginatively integrated into the story), and the whole thing is handled with a sufficiently straight face that even as developments spiral into third-act campy absurdity, we're never massively troubled by the numerous gaping plausibility-gaps. Neil Young 16th/17th August 2009  MESRINE - KILLER INSTINCT : [5/10] : L'instinct de mort aka Mesrine - L'Instinct de mort : France (/Can/Ity) 2008 : Jean-Francois RICHET : 113m (BBFC) seen at The Tyneside Cinema, Newcastle : 9th August (digital projection of a 35mm film; £7.00) ORPHAN : [6/10] : USA (/Can/Ger/Fr) 2009 : Jaume COLLET-SERRA : 123m (BBFC) seen at Empire, Sunderland : 10th August (35mm; £5.80) A PERFECT GETAWAY : [8/10] : USA 2009 : David TWOHY : 97m (BBFC) seen (1) at Cineworld, Parrs Wood, Manchester : 14th August (35mm; £6.50) - original rating 7+/10 and (2) at Empire, Sunderland, 16th August (35mm; £5.80) further reading : Adam Nayman, Eye Weekly |
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|
