September 2010 briefs (2) : ‘The Other Guys’ [3/10]; ‘The Hole’ [7/10]
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.THE OTHER GUYS. : [3/10] : USA 2010 : Adam McKAY : 107m : {8/28}.
Will Ferrell´s improv gifts are evidently somewhat reliant on having a co-star to bounce off, which is a bit of a problem here as he´s cast opposite Mark Wahlberg – not an actor renowned for his comic gifts.
The duo play a mismatched pair of office-bound cops who get involved in a major case after the demise of their flashier colleagues. The latter, gamely (and hammily) played by Samuel L Jackson and Dwayne Johnson, provide many of the laughs in their first-reel extended cameo as they parody their own tough-guy personas – in an opening sequence ludicrously overloaded with car-chase pyrotechnics.
The basic concept is a promising one – focussing on the background nobodies which Hollywood police spectaculars routinely ignore. But the execution is, after that gangbusters start, decidedly uneven, and there´s some irony in the fact that Ferrell and Wahlberg are often upstaged by supporting players – not just Steve Coogan´s a dodgy banker (topical!) but also unknown Michael Delaney as an even more innocuous backroom drone: the Other Guys in The Other Guys, if you like.
Still, the picture may be notable as surely the first big-budget production to seek giggles by casting a dead-ringer for Chechnya´s “controversial” leader Ramzan Kadyrov – identified only as one of the “Chechen patriots and entrepreneurs” with whom the villains are engaged in business. An audacious touch – though one that the movie´s target audience are decidedly unlikely to appreciate or even notice…
20.9.10
[seen at Empire cinema, Sunderland, 13th September (press).]
.THE HOLE. : [7/10] : US/Can 2009 : Joe DANTE : 92m : {19/28}.
Belated, welcome return to the big screen for veteran horror-meister Joe Dante – though his hour-long 2005 TV Homecoming served notice that he´d lost none of his verve or satirical flair during his absence from the cinematic spotlight. The Hole isn´t so ambitious or bloodthirsty, being instead a rather clever little teen-oriented chiller which, though it may look somewhat old-fashioned to audiences more familiar with the likes of Twilight and Hostel – despite the deployment of 3D – deserves to find an audience appreciative of its old-school tactics.
Said audience would ideally be well up on their horror movies, as Dante dresses up a hand-me-down plot – two brothers, moving into a new house, find a trapdoor in the basement that may be a gateway either to hell or an alternative dimension – with all manner of nods, homages and references to genre favourites (The Fog, Phantasm, Horror Express, The Hands of Orlac, etc.)
Such touches aren´t just self-indulgent window-dressing: the “hole” itself may start out as a metaphor for dawning teenage sexuality, but is ultimately revealed as having much more to do with the idea of catharsis – the traumatic but ultimately beneficial way that one can deal with psychological issues by experiencing them through another form (such as, for example, movies such as this.)
Eschewing the guts-and-gore approach, Dante instead seeks to evoke a clammy creepiness as our heroes – and teenage heroine – are afflicted by various spooky visions and hauntings, and the 3-D is used sparingly but effectively to amp up the fear-factor. Not to be confused with the early Keira Knightley picture of the same name (2001) – but rather a partial remake of early Stephen Dorff vehicle The Gate (1987), The Hole won´t make the splash of Dante peaks like The Howling, Gremlins or Piranha, but will hopefully pave the way for slightly bigger, perhaps better things from the director next time out.
20.9.10
[seen at Empire cinema, Sunderland, 14th September (press).]