Posts Tagged ‘War’

In The Loop

Monday, March 8th, 2010

companies: BBC Films,
UK Film Council and Aramid
Entertainment Fund
year: 2009
runtime: 106′
country: United Kingdom
director: Armando Iannucci
cast: Peter Capaldi, Tom Hollander,
Gina McKee, James Gandolfini,
Chris Addison, Anna Chlumsky,
Enzo Cilenti, Paul Higgins,
Mimi Kennedy, Alex Macqueen,
Johnny Pemberton, Olivia Poulet,
David Rasche, Joanna Scanlan,
James Smith, Steve Coogan
writers: Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell,
Armando Iannucci, Ian Martin
and Tony Roche
cinematography: Jamie Cairney
music: Adam Ilhan
order this film from Amazon.com:
SD DVD | Blu-ray

“Twelve thousand troops . . . but that’s not enough.  That’s the amount that are going to die, and at the end of a war you need some soldiers left, really, or else it looks like you’ve lost.”

~ Lt. General George Miller

I missed this one when it (briefly) ran in theaters.  It certainly wasn’t a difficult film to miss, seeing as it played on a single screen for a week to two with nothing in the way of local advertising.  The closest I had to a theatrical experience was with regard to the trailer, which played before one of the handful of screenings of The Hurt Locker I attended.  That trailer, a manic flurry of editing backed by Rossinni’s William Tell Overture as re-interpreted by someone in the midst of a cocaine bender, killed with the audience, promising a smart, witty, imminently quotable piece of political satire the likes of which hasn’t been seen in some time.  In The Loop went on to become one of the best-reviewed films of the past year (93 and 83 percentile out of 100 at Rottetomatoes and Metacritic respectively for those who need numbers to chew on), and certainly delivers on all of the trailer’s promises.

In The Loop plays a bit like an episode of NBC’s The West Wing (not surprising given that it’s an off-shoot of the British TV series The Thick of it), only scrubbed clean of any trace of systemic respect and filtered through a ludicrously obscene lens .  There are no appearances by the President, Prime Minister, Secretary of Defense or what have you.  The focus is firmly on the underlings, the mass of supporting players who make things happen through shear determination and hefty doses of luck, good or otherwise.  And if all else fails, there are always plenty of facts to manipulate for the cause.

In fact, the entire narrative for In The Loop is about manipulation, most notably on the person-to-person level.  The plot, such as there is one, concerns the confused cooperation of the United Kingdom and the United States in the build-up to an unspecified conflict in the Middle East and the unlikely Cabinet Minister Simon Foster (Tom Hollander) propelled into the center of things by his awful media appearances.  Directing him into a host of disparate directions is Malcolm Tucker (Peter Capaldi, The Lair of the White Worm), a vulgar enforcer from Downing Street whose job it is to keep bumbling ministers straddling the constantly shifting party line.  Complicating matters on the other side of the pond are anti-war Asst. Sec’y of State Karen Clark (Mimi Kennedy) and Lt. General George Miller (James Gandolfini) and her enemy, conservative war-mongering Asst. Sec’y of State Linton Barwick (David Rasche).

Simon Foster is as close as the film comes to having a central identifiable character, a well-intentioned Minister turned political pawn (he doesn’t even have control of the blinds in his own office) who stumbles through all manner of positions on the issue of the war before being forced into resignation and, ultimately, fired.  He is frequently equated with meat, room filler for meetings and photo-ops, and is tossed about from agenda to agenda before being fed to the dogs (rather, the press) and returned to his rural constituents, forgotten by the world at large.  Through Foster we are witness to the monstrosity of the modern political machine and its ability to destroy those unlucky enough to become trapped in its quickly-moving parts.

Countering Foster’s political naivety is the seasoned Malcolm Tucker, the Downing Street attack dog tasked with keeping Foster in his place – wherever that might happen to be.  Prone to outlandish threats of physical violence (“Stay detached, or that’s what I’ll do to your retinas!”) and vein-popping fits of rage, Tucker is adept at bullying those he sees as beneath him (everyone, in other words) into whatever corner the situation calls for, but is ultimately as worried about his personal stake in events as everyone else.  Capaldi is exceptional, lending credulity to ludicrous phrases like “ass-spraying mayhem” in ways that I think few actors could.  He is responsible for what is, arguably, the film’s finest moment, when Tucker, alone in the mediation room of the United Nations building, has a moment of silent existential panic.

There’s a lot of seriousness to In The Loop, not the least of which being the subject it tackles (obviously inspired by the build-up to the Iraq War in 2003).  The country the United States and the United Kingdom are joining forces against goes unnamed throughout, re-enforcing one of the important points of the film: The governments don’t want a war against any nation in particular, they just want a war.  There’s no escaping the fact that the decision the film’s mountain of supporting characters are awkwardly racing towards is going to cost real lives (per the quote at the head of this article).

The screenplay (by director Armando Iannucci, with Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell, Ian Martin and Tony Roche, the crew behind The Thick of It) blends comedy seamlessly with a manic pacing and the serious elements of the narrative.  The jokes are non-stop from the start, the sense of humor bleakly sardonic throughout.  Every other line is a jab at something or someone and I found myself, for perhaps the first time ever, watching an English-language film with subtitles enabled just to be sure I wasn’t missing anything (a big thanks to MPI Home Video for including them on their DVD).  In The Loop is, in a word, vicious, an outright condemnation of a system that sends young men to die for little more than the personal political gain of those at the top.  It’s also uproariously funny, and I haven’t laughed so much during a film in a long, long time.

Iannucci’s direction is a bit too television for my taste, and all-handheld HD camera work is starting to lose some of its effective immediacy after all the other feature films (particularly in the horror genre) and television series (The Office, et al) that have utilized the technique.  His sense of pacing is spot-on, however, and In The Loop roars forward at full-tilt from the first frames.  Exceptional casting rules the day, the long list of performers taking the swift-footed screenwriting in the appropriate stride.  Capaldi and Paul Haggins reprise their enforcer roles from the television series, while Mimi Kennedy and David Rasche make for memorable dueling Assistant Secretaries of State.  Steve Coogan (Hamlet 2) makes an important bit appearance as a constituent disgruntled about a collapsing wall, and Tom Hollander brings pathos to the dim-witted and quickly fading political star Simon Foster.

MPI Home Video released In The Loop to both DVD and Blu-ray on the 12th of January, and I highly recommend that those who, like myself, missed it in its limited theatrical run take the opportunity to catch up to it now.  Both do the job of capturing the HD-cam photography, the Blu-ray being noticeably clearer and sharper if not much else.  Extras are limited – a trailer, a tv spot, a nice collection of deleted scenes (28 minutes worth), and an extremely short (3 minutes, 17 seconds) look behind-the-scenes – but the film itself is more than enough to make the discs worthwhile and the price is certainly right (under $20 retail for the Blu-ray and considerably less for the SD DVD).  Both English SDH and Spanish subtitles are available for the feature, the former of which I found very useful in preparing for this review.

This is a wonderful piece of acid political satire with surprising depth lurking beneath all the cock jokes (and believe me, there are a lot of them).  I’ll stop short of calling it brilliant for my own petty reasons, but don’t let that dissuade you.  In The Loop comes very highly recommended.

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SD DVD | Blu-ray

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Cannibal Mercenary

Saturday, November 21st, 2009
cover for the long-OOP English language VHS release

cover for the long-OOP English language VHS release

a.k.a. Mercenary / Employ For Die
company: unknown
year: 1983
runtime: 104′
country: Thailand
director: Hong Lu Wong
cast: Lek Songphon, Sugud Namcham,
Sormud Chiarekcheua, Chaw Mekhunkud,
Rom Rachan, Uthane Boon Ying,
Thoon Thankphrom
not available on home video in the USA

Plot: Wilson, a Thai veteran of the Vietnam War and all around master of combat, leads a group of men on a daring mission into the jungles of Vietnam to topple a dangerous drug lord and his cannibal army.

Well, that was weird.  I never thought much about just how far the short-lived cannibal craze that dominated Italian exploitation cinema in the first couple of years of the 80’s might have reached, but here is evidence that it was indeed a worldwide phenomenon.  CANNIBAL MERCENARY is an obscure yet notorious Thai actioner that does just what its title suggests – it merges the popularity of macho jungle combat pictures with the gut-munching gospels of Lenzi and Deodato.

MERCENARY doesn’t really have the gross-out factor of that which it imitates, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.  Most of the gnarlier effects are disgusting less for their realism than because whatever the crew used to accomplish said effects (slimy goopy something-or-other) simply looks disgusting.  The worst things ever get is when Wilson’s small company of soldiers happens upon a maggot-covered head hanging from the trees.  While the majority of the company is taken aback, one soldier grabs a handful of maggots and starts chowing down.  It’s not the first time a Thai film gag has made me do just that.

Speaking of Thai humor, this film follows in the country’s proud cinematic tradition of scatelogical jokes.  Wilson’s commandos take temporary refuge under a foot bridge and are peed on by a pair of drunken Viet Cong for their troubles.  Later three of the troop is captured by disgruntled townspeople and tied down with stakes before being peed on again.  One of the locals is obviously unhappy with just urinating on his captive and insists on squatting down to rub his crotch in their face as well.  I’m happy to say that, in stern opposition to the work of Sampote Sands, nothing in CANNIBAL MERCENARY is ever seen crapping on anything else.

Scat jokes aside, this is a relentlessly grim if utterly ludicrous action film that refuses to sink into self parody even with an army of gun-toting cannibalistic martial arts masters running, leaping, and swinging through the trees.  Lead Wilson starts the film as a messed-up vet, having lost his wife in the war and now watching his daughter slowly crippled by polio, and ends the film in even worse shape.  Watching his new brothers-in-arms die a veriety of gruesome deaths at the hands of cannibal booby traps and worse has devastating effects, and the film ends with Wilson institutionalized and utterly mad.  That his daughter is saved by money earned for his troubles and that the army recognizes him as a hero seems of little consequence when said father and hero is so obviously out of his mind.

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His fellow mercenaries receive far less in the way of characterization, and several are never really introduced at all.  What we do learn about them is in keeping with the grimness of the rest of the picture.  One is rightly tormented by his murdering of his own cheating fiance several years in the past while another does little but try to rape every woman who wanders past.  The lackeys of the drug lord fare worse if that’s possible, hanging people for fun and finding child murder an acceptable past time.  Whatever picture of humanity CANNIBAL MERCENARY may be trying to paint, it’s not a pretty one.

Action direction could best be described as kinetic.  The tag team hand-to-hand combat blends well with the over-the-top firefights, and a bit of well placed slow motion and frame-snipping certainly helps.  The level of on-screen violence is certainly at the high end, and one can expect to see toes blown off, men blown up with grenades, decapitations, dismemberments, and lots of spurting blood.  Handling of the more dramatic elements is rather bland, and the director stretches many a suspense-building moment with endless repetition of quickly cut footage.  It’s not necessarily bad, especially considering the industry and time period, but it grows quite tedious by the end of things.  The soundtrack is comprised, as were those for many a south Asian film of the time, entirely of unlicensed tracks.   Cues from Goblin’s score for ZOMBI: DAWN OF THE DEAD are frequently called upon and suit the violent action well.

There’s really not much else to say about this, other than that it was one of many films imported by Tomas Tang’s Filmark company and bastardized for increased Western appeal.  In this case CANNIBAL MERCENARY was trimmed of its gore and edited to fit a new story concerning a treasure hunt, then re-released as THE JAGUAR PROJECT.  The only legitimate English-friendly home video release for this one is a way out of print VHS from the ’80s, and a Thai VCD release under the odd title of EMPLOY FOR DIE appears to be out of print as well.  I didn’t mind this one as much as the above review may indicate, but it’s certainly not for all tastes.  Those interested should be able to find it at cinemageddon or elsewhere without much issue.

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Eagles Over London – Blu-ray

Wednesday, October 7th, 2009

a.k.a. Battle Squadron / La Battaglia D’inghilterra
company: Fida Cinematografica
year: 1969
runtime: 112′
country: Italy
director: Enzo G. Castellari
cast: Frederick Stafford, Van Johnson,
Francisco Rabal, Ida Galli, Luigi Pistilli
disc company: Severin Films
retail price: $34.95
release date: October 13, 2009
disc details: Region A / Single Layer BD25
video: 1080p HD
audio: Dolby Digital 2.0 English
subtitles: none
Order this film from Amazon.com
reviewed from a screener provided
by Severin Films LLC

In 1940, the Nazi army attempts an insidious plot [is there anything other than an insidious Nazi plot?].  A command of German soldiers, dressed as Englishmen and with papers stolen from the recently dead, are to infiltrate England and sabotage the new radar system that has been put into operation there.  It’s up to the suspicious Captain Stevens [Stafford] and his unwilling allie Air Marshall Thompson [Johnson], with whose mistress Stevens is having an affair, to foil the plot before it’s too late – and before the full force of the Luftwaffe can be amassed against them.

From the moment the leader of the German saboteurs [Luigi Pistilli, Tucco's brother in THE GOOD THE BAD AND THE UGLY] angrily demands that his comrades speak English, and not German, I knew EAGLES OVER LONDON was going to be a ridiculous good time.  It seems that Pistilli’s order made it all the way to Nazi high command, as the generals there speak English as well!  THE LONGEST DAY this certainly isn’t, but Enzo G. Castellari’s [THE INGLORIOUS BASTARDS] war-epic-cum-pulp-espionage-thriller is no less fun for its utter brainlessness.

POSTERThe narrative for EAGLES is a mish-mash of epic war scenes, traditional spy nonsense, and imaginatively conceived mid-air showdowns set around the Battle of Britain during World War II.  While the majority of the film’s 112 minutes are taken up by that middle thing, Castellari does manage to mount a few genuinely impressive combat sequences – namely the massive evacuation of Dunkirk seen early on.  There’s nothing so big as this to be seen in his later and better known THE INGLORIOUS BASTARDS, and its obvious that there was at least some heft to the budget.  In traditional Castellari style, action is staged for minimal repetition and maximum coverage then effectively edited into much larger scenes, this time with the added benefit of the sparse use of split-screen.

The aerial battles that crop up from time to time are less believable, accomplished with forced-perspective studio shooting, some minor miniature work, and the split-screen addition of tinted period library footage – if I’m not mistaken there are also a few miniature shots from the Errol Flynn and Ronald Reagan war picture DESPERATE JOURNEY thrown into the mix.  It all works better than one might expect, but pales in comparison to the earlier Dunkirk sequence.  There are other neat effects moments to be had, like the mining of a bridge and the explosive sabatoge of a radar tower.

Dramatically speaking EAGLES is rather inert, though the pace is swift enough that the two-dimensionality of the [many] characters is rarely much of an issue.  Faring best among them is Francisco Rabal as Martin, who is about as sympathetic as I imagine a murderous Nazi spy ever should be.  Renzo Palmer [Father Lucion in Fulci's THE EROTICIST] is likeable enough in the thankless role of Sgt. Mulligan, the film’s dubious comic relief.  His claim to fame is an immensely entertaining sequence in which he initiates a fist-fight between French and English forces.

Castellari’s direction is solid, if hilariously camp at times.  When it is revealed the the double agent Martin is in love with must be sacrificed for the good of the Nazi cause, we see her through a succession of three zooms accompanied by a perfectly timed “dun dun dun!” music cue.  It also features one of the most audacious moments I’ve seen in the director’s work to date – an extended love scene set to an explosive blitz attack.  The entire effort is played in good fun with a minimum of stage blood expended, and should make for an amusing time-waster for fans of the genre.

RevSeverin Films has pulled out all the stops in releasing this lesser known Castellari picture to both DVD and Blu-Ray, and while the results aren’t quite as satisfying as on their loaded THE INGLORIOUS BASTARDS disc it’s still quite strong.  It’s important to note that the back of the box lists the running time for the feature as 104 minutes – the actual runtime for the feature on-disc is just a few seconds shy of 112 minutes.

The 1080p HD transfer is in excellent shape, presenting the film in its original 2.35:1 Techniscope aspect ratio for the first time on domestic home video.  Image quality is fine but shows the limitations of the shooting format – detail is moderate and grain heavy, while colors fluctuate between vibrant and somewhat dull.  Damage is minimal, limited to a few speckles here and there.  I have no real complaints about the image and suspect it’s a fair representation of how the film would have looked theatrically.  Audio is presented in a serviceable Dolby Digital 2.0 English option – as with THE INGLORIOUS BASTARDS, no uncompressed options have been made available.  Supplements are limited but fun, and include a conversation with directors Enzo G. Castellari and Quentin Tarantino [14'], footage of a recent presentation of the film in Los Angeles [16'], and a brief deleted scene [32 seconds].  Trailers for both EAGLES OVER LONDON and THE INGLORIOUS BASTARDS are included – all supplements are in HD.

I found the film to be quite amusing, though I suspect many will want to go the rent-first route with it.  There’s nothing at all wrong with Severin’s Blu-ray treatment, and fans of EAGLES OVER LONDON will certainly want to indulge.  This one gets a strong recommendation for fans of Castellari and spaghetti cinema in general.

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THE HURT LOCKER – a movie you need to see

Saturday, July 11th, 2009

So, I’ve spent the past hour and a half starting and restarting a  review of this film, but it’s just not happening.  I fully intend to provide an article for it, perhaps after I see the film again, but it’ll have to be at a later date.

For now it will suffice to say that THE HURT LOCKER is a movie that positively demands to be seen, and I will echo the critical consensus out there in saying that it is quite probably the best non-documentary production to deal with the Iraq war.  I went to see it with a friend who served in the conflict, who told me that it pretty well encapsulated the experience of being on the ground there.  High praise indeed.

As far as I’m concerned this is the best film seeing theatrical release at present and fully deserving of recommendation.  Those of you living in Minneapolis can see it at Landmark’s Uptown Theatre.  Hulu has been so  kind as to provide the intense opening scene for online viewing – I’ve embedded it below.

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Night Train to Mundo Fine

Friday, June 26th, 2009

a.k.a. RED ZONE CUBA
Hollywood Star Pictures [ 1961 ] 85′
country: United States
director: COLEMAN FRANCIS
cast: COLEMAN FRANCIS, ANTHONY CARDOZA,
cast: HAROLD SAUNDERS, JOHN CARRADINE

“Griffin . . . ran all the way to hell with a penny and a broken cigarette . . .”

Coleman Francis never directed a happy film – I suspect that this has a lot to do with the fact that the director, who spent his most formative years in the midst of the Great Depression and is purported to have been an alcoholic, was never quite happy himself. All three of his bizarre films focus on the very worst aspects of human nature – greed, corruption, and the desire to harm others. NIGHT TRAIN TO MUNDO FINE [better known as RED ZONE CUBA] is no exception. Produced in 1961 and released in 1966, the film is a catalog of man’s inhumanity towards man.

The thin yet convoluted plot [a trademark of all three of the films Francis directed] follows Landis [producer Cardoza] and Cook, two down and out ex cons just trying to make right by themselves and the law in the desert southwest. Enter Griffin [Francis himself], a career criminal on the run from the law. Motivated by greed alone, Francis convinces the other two to sign up with the army, currently offering $1000 for troops to mount an invasion of Cuba [given that the film is set in 1961, this is obviously a stab at the failed Bay of Pigs invasion in April of that year]. The plan is to take the money and run, but things go bad and the poorly trained troops are sent off to Cuba just the same.

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J’Accuse

Monday, February 18th, 2008

a.k.a. THAT THEY MAY LIVE / I ACCUSE
Forrester-Parant Productions [1938] 125′
country: France
director: ABEL GANCE
cast: VICTOR FRANKEN, LINE NORO,
cast: MARIE LOU, JEAN-MAX

An overturned statue of the crucified Christ lies in a contaminated fountain – a dead dove, downed by a stray bullet, sits at the fountains edge. A mortar unceremoniously rips through the head of the statue and tosses the dove into the filthy water of the fountain, where it sinks slowly to the bottom. “Shit! Aren’t you tired of playing around with my carcass!” screams a wounded soldier, tossed about by shell fire, in the opening line. We are then introduced to other soldiers – tired men in haggard uniforms forced to clean themselves as best they can in the polluted water of the fountain.

So begins I ACCUSE (the literal translation of the French title J’ACCUSE – the film was released in a truncated form in the USA in 1939 under the title THAT THEY MAY LIVE), less a remake than an expansion of the latter two thirds of director Gance’s 1919 film J’ACCUSE! The thesis of the piece is evident from the very beginning: This is what war looks like, Gance tells us. This is what you’ve all forgotten. Further evidencing this latter point is the handwritten introduction by Gance himself – it reads, roughly, “This film is dedicated to the war dead of tomorrow, who will no doubt watch it without recognizing in it the face of their own times.”

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