Quo Vadis, Aida?

Here's a gripping, rage-inducing film about a UN translator during the Bosnian War in 1995. It starts with Aida (played by Jasna Djuricic) sitting on a couch, looking at three men. Nothing is said, and we don't find out who they are until they're shown evacuating their home in Srebrenica. Before this, the die is cast with a great scene of the mayor of the city (Ermin Bravo) pleading with the UN representative, Colonel Karremans (Johan Heldenbergh) to protect his citizens. Aida translates the Colonel as he promises air strikes on Bosnian-Serb posts if they continue their attacks. 

The resulting horror-farce has been well documented historically but this film puts a human face to the Srebrenica massacre. The director, Jasmila Zbanic, is from Sarajevo and grew up amidst the Balkan splintering, post-Tito. She keeps a very steady hand on the rudder, where it might be forgiven were she to go all revenge-berko. The docu-drama style keeps the tension levels peaking, and the frustration, turning to panic, felt by Aida is palpable.

Scenes of refugee squalor are intercut with the those of the Dutch UN soldiers attempting to negotiate with Mladic for some sort of resolution. The creeping sense of helplessness is well conveyed, and the focus on Aida and her family as a microcosm of the atrocity is an apt way to personalise the massacre. The whole film is a difficult watching experience but the climax is a real kick in the guts. 

Quo Vadis, Aida? is an important film, not entertaining of course, but required viewing, especially by people who think this shit couldn't have happened so recently. It runs at the UWA Somerville Auditorium from Jan 10-16 as part of the Perth Festival.

See also:

Michael Winterbottom's Welcome to Sarajevo (1997) is fantastic, as is No Man's Land (2001), directed by Danis Tanović.

House of Gucci

Ridley Scott, who was 84 in November this year, will give absolutely zero shits if I didn't think much of a film of his. He has over 50 feature directing credits to his name, with a couple of the best films ever made under his belt. He is a dead set master. But, in saying all that, he has the odd average delivery in his arsenal. There are wicket taking balls, definitely. and there are some half-trackers to be put away over the mid on fence. But House of Gucci is simply a dot ball. It doesn't excite but it also isn't awful.

The film is a biopic of the Gucci fashion house, centring on Partizia Reggiani, the wife of the head of the company, Maurizio Gucci. They're played by Lady Gaga and Adam Driver, and this relationship is the focus of the movie. Many folk will know what happened to the main players in reality, so I'll leave all that alone. I feel the film is let down by bog standard plotting, there's nothing imaginative going on. Maybe the writers - Becky Johnston and Roberto Bentivegna - were constrained by the historical details outlined in the book by Sara Gay Forden. Also, it's very hard to warm to any of these characters (with the possible exception of Jared Leto's Paolo Gucci, but that's closer to pity).

Sir Ridders has a steady rein on the structure (though it could be trimmer) but he seems to be letting his cast run riot, save for Driver, who is the most calm and mannered. Leto, Gaga, Al Pacino and Salma Hayek, all dial it up to eleventy fuckkles. Leto is at least having fun with his down-trodden, wannabe designer, even if he seem like he's in another film to the rest of the cast. Oddly, he likens his testicles to (at least) two different types of fruit. His performance actually reminded me of a halfway meeting of Roberto Benigni in Down by Law, and Jim Broadbent in the Blackadder episode, 'The Queen of Spain's Beard'. Especially when he says things like, "I will flyyyy....like a peeeegion." Apart from Leto's full-bodied prose, the dialogue is fairly trite. Try these on - "Gucci needs new blood. It's time to take out the trash." OR "You picked a real firecracker." followed by "She's a handful." Not the most original.

The veracity of events covered in the film have been called into question by Tom Ford (played weakly in the film by Reeve Carney - no, me neither) and several surviving members of the Gucci clan, which goes to show you can't please everybody. But look, if you're keen on fashion, 'true-crime' and melodrama, this might fit your parameters. 

House of Gucci opens in cinemas on New Years' Day.

See also:

Adam Driver was in another, better, Ridley Scott film this year, The Last Duel. Paul Thomas Anderson's The Phantom Thread (2017) is only tangentially similar, but weirdly great.

(Film stills and trailer ©Universal, 2021)

The Matrix Resurrections

Almost 20 years after the Matrix sequels - Reloaded and Revolutions - were released, comes the fourth film of the franchise, The Matrix Resurrections. Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Anne Moss return as Neo and Trinity, but Laurence Fishburne and Hugo Weaving are noticeably absent (apparently scheduling issues for Agent Smith and no contact for Morpheus). Joining the cast in place of these guys are Yahya Abdul-Mateen 11 and Jonathan Groff, and despite the size of the shoes, they fill them well. Another casting success is Jessica Henwick as Bugs, best of the bunch here for my money. As a nerdy sidetrack, I wonder how many other actors have been in Game of Thrones, Star Wars, Marvel and now Matrix franchises. 

So, I've been stalling, as you may be able to tell. This is mainly because I can't quite remember what the hell happened in the previous films, especially the aforementioned sequels. Even a quick Wikipedia plot summary didn't help much. This middle-aged amnesia shouldn't detract from the enjoyment of this film, though, and for the most part, it stands on its own feet. As far as I can tell, Neo has been back in the matrix for some time, living as a video game designer, occasionally bumping into Trinity, as family-woman Tiffany. Let's rewind a bit, because the opening shows us Bugs and her crew chancing upon a strange code or something, replaying old scenes on a loop (I think). After a bit of a scrap, she confronts a program of Morpheus and they realise that Neo is still alive and inside the matrix. But did he make the 'modal' program so they could find him? Does he know he's in the matrix? These are not rhetorical, leading questions - I actually have no fucking idea. Help me.

If you can live with the confusion, there's enough to like about this film. Writer/Director, Lana Wachowski clearly knows her IP (maybe too well) and the constant visuals from the first film are a nice touch. They act as reminder for the viewer, while also helping Neo remember his past life. Pretty clever doubling up. The whole round table brainstorming session in Neo/Anderson's office is a knowingly self-referential dig at the zeitgeist around the franchise, and the intercutting of Anderson slowly cracking up is well done. Making Anderson the creator of a video game called The Matrix allows for all this surface sagacity, but also gives the story the freedom to (sort of) explain how and why he's able to 'recall' things that he maybe shouldn't.

The fight scenes are suitably fine, especially the multi-player brawl with the new Smith and a returning Merovingian (Lambert Wilson, who, in fact, does pretty much bugger all, aside from spout indiscernible shite). The subsequent Neo vs Smith fight in a toilet block is top drawer, mainly due to Groff's excellent performance - I'm putting this down to only seeing him before as Holden Ford in Mindhunter, quite the polar shift here. The stuff with Morpheus manifesting in the real world as 3D pin art and the flying synthetics helping the humans add style to the film, but, much like me, it gets a bit flabby around its middle, and crucially, the beats of the film seem all a bit too familiar.

Keanu is still a ropey actor but I feel bad about saying that, as though I'm slightly missing the point. He seems likeable fella and this is HIS role. Moss is great and I'm kind of surprised she didn't get better parts post-Matrix. Aside from Memento and perhaps Red Planet, there's not much else to speak of on her CV. I have more questions about machines interacting with humans and other machines, as well as how Neo and Trinity are able to do stuff, but I'll let them lie and just be mildly satisfied with the overall product. Look, I don't know how my phone works, what hope do I have with the Matrix?

The Matrix Resurrections opens Boxing Day in Australia.

See also:

The animated fill-in stories in The Animatrix (2003, various directors) are worth looking at, and you could try to make sense of the previous three films, should the mood take you.

(Film stills and trailer ©Warner Bros, 2021)

Sing 2 (Me) (Kids)

There's nothing new in Garth Jennings' Sing 2 but that's not really the goal here. It's all about small bums on seats, and if the crowd for this preview screening is any indicator, that's what they'll get. The kink of 'peopling' the film entirely with cartoon animals, in the vein of Zootopia or Kung Fu Panda, gives the animators and writers a lot to play with. Realism is not an issue here, and fair enough. If you have someone use an apple as a false eye, narrative rigour is the least of your concerns.

This film sees koala impresario, Buster Moon (Matthew McConaughey) still running his theatre show from the first Sing, but aiming higher. After a snooty talent scout leaves a showing of Alice in Wonderland, Moon gathers the cast (Scarlett Johansson, Reece Witherspoon, Taron Egerton, etc.) and heads to Redshore City to try out for media guru, Jimmy Crystal (Bobby Cannavale). Drawbacks (obviously) appear throughout but eventually, they're tasked with putting on a sci-fi musical, 'Out of this World', the brainchild of camp German pig, Gunter (Nick Kroll). The caveat is that music legend, Clay Calloway (Bono) must be in it. Only, they haven't asked him AND he's a famous recluse. 

The story rides these peaks and troughs in a pretty formulaic manner, and the outcome isn't in any doubt, but again, that's not what this type of film is going for. Warm fuzzies and animated slapstick are on the bingo card and each get a check mark. The thematic keynotes of humility (Porsha Crystal, voiced by somebody called Halsey - ask your kids?), grief (Calloway) and perseverance (Moon, Rosita and the whole cast) stick out like hazard lights, avoiding any nuance.

There were a couple of catchy tunes - a bit of Prince, a dash of Steve Winwood, a pinch of System of a Down, and a whole dollop of stuff this 80s child had never heard of. The voice cast are solid to great, with highlights being Leticia Wright, as street dance cat Nooshy; Dr. Buccles, as monkey Klaus Kickenklober; Peter Serafinowicz, as Big Daddy gorilla; and Kroll's Gunter (following on from his theft of the first film). Having Bono as the music legend might have some people with musical taste raising an eyebrow, but really, I wonder who else could have fit the parameters. Voice-wise, Tom Waits or Iggy Pop would have been good shouts, but their songs aren't as well know as U2s. Bryan Ferry? Morrissey? Robert Plant? Come to think of it, Jagger probably would have been my pick, but Bono worked well enough, schmaltz notwithstanding.

Dads-eye view - mildly diverting, occasionally annoying.

Kids-eye view - fun, noisy and interesting.

Sing 2 opens in cinemas on Boxing Day.

See also:

The whole Calloway angle reminded me of the underseen Brad Pitt sci-fi, Ad Astra (2019), directed by James Gray, and the progression from Sing to Sing 2 put me in mind of the (not great) fitbah films Goal! The Dream Begins (2005), directed by Danny Cannon and (strangely) Michael Winterbottom, and Goal II: Living the Dream (2007), directed by Jaume Collet-Sera. And there was a third of those, too. A heads-up for Sing 3?

(Film stills and trailer ©Universal, 2021)

Dune

Denis Villeneuve's long-awaited Dune finally arrives in Australian cinemas and it's a technical marvel. To start with, there's the amazing production design by Patrice Vermette. A lot of the sets and machinery have been physically created, to add weight to the visual effects. A highlight is the appearance of the 'ornithopter', a clunky, dragonfly of metal, that flaps its wings to fly. The scale of the buildings and cities is mammoth, many of them made on a studio lot in Budapest (see this Architectural Digest article for more). The cinematography, by Melburnian, Greig Fraser, is suitably magic, in keeping with Villeneuve's stylistic requirements, For example, desert scenes have a tendency to go all wind-whipped and blurry, but even when a dragonfly enters a storm, acuity is admirably maintained. 

The visuals are just a part of Villeneuve's signature language - the almost ethereal long shots across vast rooms and landscapes; the measured, even slow pacing to convey emotions, while juxtaposing these with flurries of well-rehearsed action; the shimmery close-ups on faces; the high levels of spectacle, which are many in Dune. Small pods leave a giant, cylindrical mother ship; huge transport ships (some ball-like, some triangular) land on planet surfaces; other behemoths emerge from fjords (though, in this case, I'm not sure why); an ambush occurs; and of course, fecking giant Sarlacc worms feed on anything with a vibration. 

Another string to Villeneuve's bow is his use of sound and music, and Hans Zimmer brings the big guns out here. The music is probably the best of many very good parts that make up this whole. I usually only notice the score if it's discordant or 'bangy', and while these can be good, this Zimmer stuff is from another drawer (the top one). Here are some words from him in an interesting Indiewire article:

"I asked for more things to superimpose the sonic quality of one instrument onto another so you would [create] these impossible sounds. The characteristics of a Tibetan long horn on a cello and let a cellist play it so that you've invented a new instrument. I wanted it to be things that would float across the desert dunes and penetrate between the rocks, and I wanted things to sound dangerous."

The cast get the job done, with far less camp than David Lynch's 1984 iteration, but a whole lot of serious. Sure, intergalactic politics and war don't lend themselves to frivolity, but it's really only Jason Momoa's Duncan Idaho who gets to have a giggle here and there. Timothée Chalamet, as the lead Paul Atreides, is a strong enough presence, staring down the heavy hitters like Oscar Isaac, Josh Brolin and Javier Bardem. Some of the best turns come from sideliners like Stellan Skarsgård and Charlotte Rampling, in roles with nasty meat to them. And Rebecca Ferguson is imperious as Lady Jessica, anxious at times, handy with a blade at others. The only minor issue with the cast is the fact that Zendaya is all over the promotion for this film, yet she's in it for all of 10 minutes. 

Which brings me to one of my bugbears with Dune. I was going along with the film (see above), when I realised quite some way through, that if this was to finish, it would be a 5 hour plus movie. And then Zendaya mutters something naff like, "This is just the beginning" and the screen cuts to black. Well, that's some beginning. Yes, I'd heard there would probably be another Dune film, and I did see the big PART ONE at the start, but my overriding feeling at the 'end' of the film was disappointment. This, I think, is due to the fact that Villeneuve is one of my favourite directors (of any era), and I just wanted him to make a self-contained movie, not have to wait until 2023 for the finale. I guess this is where the Herbert nerds jump in and say 'you can't make a 3 hour film of this material, look what happened to Lynch (and Jodorowsky before him), THINK OF THE TEXT!!!, etc.'

A final word on the writing. I think the world building was fantastic, the details like the compass and sand compacter, the stillsuits they wore on Arrakis, the odd nice touch like the desert mouse using its ears as reservoirs, this stuff is mint. And probably all (or mostly) thanks to Herbert. Thanks, Frank. But, unfortunately, he's also responsible for the wrung-dry trope of the Chosen One, which is beginning to tear me a new orse. Sure, large form story-telling, high stakes, maybe it's a requirement - and yep, they couldn't rightly disavow this crucial angle, but I'm just getting weary of it. There's my grumble all done.

The issues just mentioned luckily don't detract from the film as a whole, though I'd be happier watching this and the future second part back to back. Dune is quite the ride and it'll be a hard act to top this, but if anyone can do it, Villeneuve can.

Dune is showing in loads of cinemas NOW.

See also:

Of course, track down Lynch's Dune (1984), if only to see Patrick Stewart and Sting in the same film. The Ghibli film Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984), directed by Hayao Miyazaki, takes a lot of cues from Herbert's book.

SPOILERS AND SPICE-AFFECTED MINDS IN POD.

The Lost Leonardo

This art world doco, by Dane Andreas Koefoed, is a nicely constructed look at the most expensive painting in the world, Salvator Mundi, by Leonardo Da Vinci - or is it? By Da Vinci, I mean. The film begins with a preamble about how a group of fellas bought this painting at an auction in New Orleans in 2005 for $1175 USD, and the film then sets up the chapters by starting with The Art Game. This section talks about the 're-discovery', the level of overpainting that took place and questions on its provenance.

Following is The Money Game, which shows how the original (2005) guys ended up selling the painting to a Swiss businessman called Yves Bouvier for $83 million, who then sold it on to a Russian oligarch for $127.5 million. Nice little earner. This part is probably the most interesting, as it also explores Bouvier's interests in freeports (the thing a plane was driven into in Tenet), where he houses millions of dollars worth of goods that rich knobs don't want to pay taxes on. The oligarch, Dmitry Rybolovlev, eventually got wind of Bouvier's stunt and took him to many courts, but not before giving him the task of selling his art collection.

The Global Game looks at the putrid amount of money floating about the industry as the painting is sold at Christie's Auction House for the tidy sum of $450 million. With questions on its authenticity still queering the pitch, it seems surprising that someone would fork out that much for it. Maybe not when it's revealed that the buyer was one Mohammed bin Salman, notoriously iffy Saudi crown prince, with more moolah than morals. The presumed reasoning being that this push for 'soft power' will give the Saudi regime some semblance of agency, or even respect in the world outside of simply oil and beheadings. Something like their recent purchase of Newcastle United football club, only the 'sports-washing' exchanged for 'art-washing' in this case.

The film is a well paced, maddening look at the state of the high-end art caper, with many folk coming out of it looking less than pearly. And the central question regarding the veracity of Salvator Mundi isn't really solved - but I guess the point is that this doesn't matter when the value moves into the stratosphere.

The Lost Leonardo is now showing at Luna cinemas and Palace cinemas.

See also:

Another 'Is it legit or not?' art film, My Rembrandt (2019), directed by Oeke Hoogendijk, and Chris Nolan's Tenet (2020), for the freeport stuff. It's a cracking film, too.

Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn

Winner of the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival, this film by prolific Romanian writer/director Radu Jude is a mixed bag of satire, realism and surrealism, and porn. Let's get that out of the way - as one character says, "It's not porn because there's no transaction taking place", but he's IN the film, we're watching, having paid the ticket price. Confused? The first few minutes of the film are taken up with a shakily-filmed, clearly amateur sex-tape - and it's extremely graphic - 'featuring' a Romanian school teacher and her husband. Said tape (or video file) somehow finds its way onto the internet and pretty soon, outrage occurs.

The film is broken into three distinct chapters. The first is basically Romanian New Wave, with a meandering camera following Katia Pascariu's Emilia around Bucharest while she attempts damage control. As she makes her way to the apartment of her school Headmistress (Claudia Ieremia), she fields calls from her husband regarding the video, all the while dealing with toxic humanity in the streets. This section, as prosaic as it sounds, is nonetheless fascinating, giving us a weirdly voyeuristic angle on the life of a city. The camera often seems to forget it's trained on Emilia, instead lingering over some unimportant signage or a decrepit building façade. 

The second chapter is less accessible. It's basically made up of dictionary entries, all of which have something to say, but admittedly, many of which went sailing over my head into Bay 13. Each one is subtitled with explanatory text (oddly without vocals, meaning they were written in Romanian originally?) and accompanied by what seems like stock footage. These are all reasonably short but they add up to a fair old chunk of the film, and I feel this is where 'art' and comfort parted ways slightly.

The third section is the parent/teacher meeting, and I hope I never have to go to one like this. Emilia is forced to sit at a desk outside - masks are worn and social distancing is being observed, making this one of the first COVID-era films I've seen - while receiving insinuations and insults from her students' parents. It's a fine example of where we're positioned as a society - hypocrisy, self-interest, perceived affront and faux-outrage, it's all here. Also present are the aggressive, intolerant, wildly right-wing views of some self-proclaimed community leaders. Checked off the roll are misogyny, anti-Semitism, homophobia, Romaphobia (anti Gypsy sentiment) and just pure fuck-headed-ness. And we all think this shit only goes on in Eastern Europe.

This is a depressingly common story of bigoted attitudes that Jude has decided would be best served up as blackly comic farce, with some explicit sex to act as the motivating agent. Not the greatest film of the year, but almost without peer in originality. It's unlikely you'll see anything similar anytime soon and for me, that's a win.

Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn opens at Luna Cinemas on Nov 25th.

See also:

I'll suggest two more Romanian films here, firstly, the excellent Collective (2019), directed by Alexander Nanau, and secondly, Police, Adjective (2009), directed by Corneliu Porumboiu.

SPOILERS (AND PORN TALK) IN POD!!

Titane

Here's this year's Palme d'Or winner and it certainly underlines Cannes' predilection for 'envelope-pushing' films. Broadly, it's a sweet story of two people who are searching for love, it's just that it's dressed up in body horror and violent killings. Don't let that put you off (unless you find long, bone hairpins in orifices beyond the pale), because this film has some pretty fine things going for it. 

Director, Julia Ducournau, in only her second feature, shows a steady, confident hand. Oddly, for a film that's so provocative, she lets the audience assume details and, maybe reluctantly, accept certain events. Alexia, played by newcomer Agathe Rouselle, is involved in a car accident in her childhood, and is patched up with a titanium plate in her head. Fast forward 10 years or so and she's an exotic dancer at underground car shows (least, that's what it looks like). After one such show, a sleazy dude tries it on her, much to his detriment, and thus begins (or perhaps it had already begun?) Alexia's sloppily brutal spree. On the run, with Un Flic closing in, she - stay with me - convinces Vincent Lindon's Vincent that she's his missing son, gone for 10 years but now returned, scarred but alive. Oh, I've forgotten the car sex thing, and I don't mean sex IN a car, but.... anyway, aside from convincing people that she's a young man, she must try to conceal a growing baby, through the means of some tightly wound bandages. Actually, now that I write about it all, I can kind of see why some filmgoers fainted and/or vomitted during screenings. It's probably worth mentioning that I did find myself curling a lip and feeling slightly uneasy at times. 

Titane has some special scenes, specifically one of young firemen dancing in slo-mo to a fantastic song (Future Islands - "Light House"). It's one of those moments of repose in a film like this that can act as a super mellow counter-balance, and it's top notch film-making. Vincent Lindon is great, as usual, in his strange role of not seeing the nose on his own face (is this even a saying?), and his relationship with Alexia (or, as he knows her, Adrien) is the weird heart of the film.

This is a confronting, often shocking film, and while I didn't love it in its entirety, it had enough moments to satisfy, if only for the utter ballsiness of it. 

Titane opens at Luna cinemas on Nov 25th.

See also:

The missing person element reminded me of the uneven, but thoroughly watchable The Imposter (2012), directed by Bart Layton. For more great work by Vincent Lindon, check out Fred Cavayé's Anything For Her (2008).

Last Night in Soho

Edgar Wright's newest film is something of a return to his early days, but without the comic elements. Last Night in Soho, starring Thomasin McKenzie and Anya Taylor-Joy, is an astral projection murder mystery set in London, now AND in the 1960s. McKenzie's Eloise gets a bursary to study at the London College of Fashion and leaves her country town for the big smoke. She quickly gets fed up with her student digs and takes a room in a house in Goodge Place owned by Ms. Collins - Diana Rigg in her final film. The first night she dreams (travels?) herself as hopeful music star, Sandie, with Taylor-Joy's image reflecting back at her through the mirrors in the Café de Paris. So far, this is all exciting stuff, but things start to go pear-shaped for Sandie/Eloise when Matt Smith's Jack shows his true, nasty colours.

Now, unlike some folk, I went along with this film. It's very clever, plot points are set up to pay off later, the story by Wright wears it's influences openly, and the screenplay by Krysty Wilson-Cairns does the job of keeping us on the edge and not being too outrageous - for example, there are always 'real' characters to anchor us in the present day. Wright is a proper film nerd, and his references are such that I could recognise them, without knowing where I'd seen them before. The ones I can recall would be Don't Look Now (Ellie's second sight and raincoat - white though, not red); Peeping Tom (all the voyeurism and Soho setting); Blowup (London 60s setting), Shaun of the Dead (zombie ghosts?); and possibly Blade Runner (overhead shot of rain falling on a body in the street) and some Giallo stuff (eyes reflected in a bloody knife). The last two are guesses because I'm not at Wright's encyclopaedic level of film memory, the bastard.

The street scenes are beautifully shot by Chung-hoon Chung (Park Chan-Wook's regular collaborator), with some wonderful wet work, perfect for the viewer who misses London as much as I do. Going by the end credit photos of London's streets, it's pretty clear this film was Wright's love letter to the city. The music is also crucial to the big picture. Like James Gunn and Tarantino, Wright puts a lot of stock in finding just the right tracks for his films, and he's picked some old gems here, with a special mention for Barry Ryan's, Eloise. The scene where the excellent Terence Stamp sings along to this at the bar is worth admission alone. I have some minor quibbles about the general story outcomes, but I'll leave that sitting there, and just say that the same issues I had with the end of Baby Driver resurface here. Maybe that's been Wright's modus operandi since Spaced and Shaun but I just loved those too much to pick any negatives.

Last Night in Soho opens on Nov 18th.

See also:

It would be remiss of me not to plug the best TV show of all time, Spaced (1999-2001), and this film was oddly similar to the film I saw the day before (see previous entry), Tigers (2020), directed by Ronnie Sandahl, in that a young person swaps home for the big time and has to deal with mental health issues. And, yes this is irregular but for a third choice, the body inhabiting element brings up Spike Jonze's Being John Malkovich (1999).

(Film stills and trailer ©Universal, 2021)

Tigers

This film by Swedish writer/director, Ronnie Sandahl is based on the book In the Shadow of San Siro, Martin Bengtsson's autobiography. Bengtsson was a footballing prodigy in the early 2000s and this is the story of how he tried to deal with going to a professional club at an early age. The club in question is Inter Milan, but it could probably have been any big club in Europe. A disclaimer of sorts in the end credits says how these clubs are improving their handling of mental health issues, and I guess we take their word for it.

The film is neatly blocked into seasons, starting with his impending arrival in Italy in spring and finishing in winter. Along the way, he encounters hardships; such as envy, bullying (though not as much as I'd expected), alienation and loneliness. He also seems to be getting some things right: friendship with an American keeper in his team, and crucially, a love interest in the form of a Swedish model, Vibeke (a fantastic Frida Gustavsson). Bengtsson himself is played by Erik Enge, and though he nails the distress, it's pretty hard to warm to him. 

The animals in captivity theme is rife throughout - Martin freaks out some party-goers by replicating a pig squeal he heard from another player back in Sweden; there are finches, seen on a wire when Martin is kicking seven shades out of a skip bin AND in the cage at the young footballers' share house; and of course, the tiger of the title. This relates to a story told to him by Vibeke where a tiger bided years of his time in a zoo until his trainer dropped his guard once and, well, chewy, chewy.

Martin drives himself to the limit, and his burning ambition, coupled with a lack of adult support, are potential reasons for his mental decline. There aren't enough football scenes for my money, but there is one nicely delivered scene of how lost he was on his first team debut. Whiplash is a touchstone, especially in his, frankly hard to understand decision to ditch his girlfriend to concentrate on football. Methinks this is a dramatic flourish, it's not like the lad was being tempted at Maradona levels.

Overall, Tigers is a well structured, biographical docu-drama cataloguing of the life of a small fish with a big future in a big pond. It also acts as a cautionary tale for young footballers (or any young people, really) who exchange home life for a vastly different one, when they clearly aren't ready. I guess for every Messi, there are more Bengtssons.

See also:

Damien Chazelle's Whiplash (2014) for character similarities, and Gabriela Cowperthwaite's Blackfish (2013) for thematic ones.

Eternals

This latest Marvel edition is on a slightly different tack, in that this crew predate the MCU by a few thousand years (leaving aside all the wunderbar time travel malarkey). A Celestial called Arishem sends the Eternals to Earth around 5000 BC to protect humanity from a breed of monsters called Deviants. The Eternals are slightly in thrall to a semblance of the Star Trek 'Prime Directive', meaning they can't interfere in disputes (or even genocides) but can, and must, stop the Deviants killing people. After wiping out these buggers around 1500 years ago, our space Highlanders are kicking their heels, waiting to be told what to do, when some shit starts to go down again. 

The urge to do things differently in this phase of Marvel output is clear, perhaps due to the director Chloe Zhao, fresh off an Oscar for Nomadland. She brings a sense of balance to proceedings, and even manages to be slightly more serious, albeit with some comedic touches. She has A LOT of characters to deal with and giving them all something to do is tricky. The main immortals are Sersi, played by Gemma Chan, and Ikaris, played by Richard Madden, and they bear the weight of the narrative, while Angelina Jolie's Thena, Salma Hayek's Ajak, Kumail Nanjiani's Kingo, and Lia McHugh's Sprite add much of the filling. The tough unit from Train to Busan, Ma Dong-seok, and Dunkirk's Barry Keoghan, are both standouts for me, though I kind of wish Keoghan hadn't thinned out his Irish accent. He's too easy to understand.

Thematically, there are strong links to another Marvel story thread - one that pitted one side of friends against the other - you follow, I'm sure. In this film though, the stakes are slightly higher, and the agents potentially more nihilistic. On that, I'm just about done with the old story beat of 'humanity is capable of such great things, to laugh, to love, to dream, etc.' When will a film like this just accept that we're planetary fuck-ups and leave the Celestials to their obliterating whims? Only a thought.

Robb Stark comes across very Ozymandias from Watchmen, by way of Cyclops from the X-Men. Meanwhile, Jon Snow hides his light under a drippy bushel until the very end, hinting at a IP to get his Longclaw into. The powers of this crew are oddly mismatched. Lauren Ridloff's Makkari is super fast, Thena is great with her magic blades, and Gilgamesh (Dong-seok) has a massive smashy fist, but Druig (Keoghan) can only do mind control and Bryan Tyree Henry is good at making stuff. Not the best in a scrap, though they make do in concert with one another, and I guess that's the point.

About halfway through, we see one of these lovely brawls, this one in the Amazon jungle, between Deviants and Eternals, where the later marginalised monsters show some odd behaviour. They now seem to be draining the powers from our heroes. Anyway, this thread is pretty much abandoned when the bigger fish need frying. That Celestial fish, once filleted, is only the start of the trouble for the Eternals, but these issues will likely get ironed out sometime during the coming phase. The MCU will outlive us all.

See also:

There are echoes of Ridley Scott's Prometheus (2012) in the whole 'ancient off-worlders designing our fate/future' thing, and it looks like Highlander is getting a reboot soon, so let's revisit the 1986 original, directed by Aussie Russell Mulcahy. With my sword and head held high, got to pass the test first time...

No Time to Die

The best Bond films have always been more than what we associate with 007 - the theme, the women, the gadgets, the villains, the song, etc. Which is why No Time to Die may go down as one of the best of the franchise. It stands alongside Casino Royale, On Her Majesty's Secret Service (keep an eye out for echoes of this film) and From Russia With Love as a high water mark, mainly due to what's going on behind the veneer of glitz and cool. This fifth film of Daniel Craig's tenure wraps up a lot of the threads that began with Casino Royale and continued on and off through the subsequent films. It acts as a pretty perfect bookend to that first film.

Running over the plot seems irrelevant. On paper, it's as you were with 007 films - uber-villain has nefarious plans for world domination or, at least, some sort of large-scale crime; Bond is called in to stop him; there are great action set-pieces; Bond cheeks it up with M, Moneypenny and Q; the CIA get involved; and of course, there are gorgeous women floating about. But in this case, the women are, for the most part, integral to the story. Lashana Lynch, as another double-O agent, Nomi, is excellent, perhaps poised to strike out on her own in the future. Her early entrapment of Bond, and henceforth continual annoyance with him, are superbly done, not over-played but showing them as begrudging equals. Léa Seydoux, as returning Madeleine Swann, has some of the toughest emotional lifting to do, and is terrific too. Only Ana de Armas seems slightly under-used here, for all the poster/trailer work she does for the film, you'd think she'd be in it for a tad longer. 

Rami Malek's baddie, Safin, is creepy and recalls a few past Bond villains, as does his volcanic lair, complete with moving parts. And I'm almost certain that his main henchman also plays second keeper for Spurs (check the pics, it's uncanny). It's the motivation for Safin's master plan that was a bit wooly. There are weaponised nanobots and DNA involved but his ultimate goal eluded me. Just the classic Bond film nutter excuse might be acceptable, I'm willing to overlook that script vagary. The cinematography is lush, especially the action sequence in a misty Norwegian wood, and the Raid-inflected staircase rumbles near the end. DOP Linus Sandgren has pulled out all the stops here. 

Where No Time to Die elevates itself is in the writing, specifically of the humanising of James Bond, though this process admittedly began at the start of Craig's arc of five films. The script was done by old Bond hands, Robert Wade and Neal Purvis, with extra polish added by the director, Cary Joji Fukunaga and Fleabag's Phoebe Waller-Bridge. If you are old-school 007, and you want your man to be granite, with absolutely no sign of human frailty, then best you dig back into the Connery or Moore films. Here, Craig portrays Bond as a vulnerable, desperate man who has been burned many times and is angry, yet searching for a semblance of happiness. This even stretches to weeping on occasion, though he can still dispatch dudes with a flourish. Needless to say, Craig is excellent, his delivery of "You can imagine why I've come back to play" is one of the great lines of recent times. A suitably fitting end to the Daniel Craig Bond-era, and one of the best 007 films to date. 

No Time to Die opens on Nov 11th almost everywhere.

See also:

I'd once again recommend Casino Royale (2006), directed by Martin Campbell, and let's stick with Bond and take a look at On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969), directed by Peter R. Hunt.

BEWARE!! QUITE A NUMBER OF SPOILERS IN POD!!

(Film stills and trailer ©Universal, 2021)

Ali & Ava

The preview for this year's British Film Festival was a warm, inclusive relationship drama in the Mike Leigh vein called Ali & Ava. This is directed by Clio Barnard and stars Adeel Akhtar and Claire Rushbrook as our titled pair. It's probably the simplest plot to explain - guy slowly separating from his wife, meets a woman from another circle. They get along, but will respective influences allow them to be together? That's pretty much it, but it's the kind of film that doesn't require plottage - a functionally viewed genre pic. If we can assume the likes of Barnard, Shane Meadows, Leigh, Ken Loach, and going further back to Lindsay Anderson, Karel Reisz, Tony Richardson, etc, all worked on and off in the Kitchen Sink Realism genre, then these lines from Warren Buckland (in Teach Yourself Film Studies) seems apt:

"The genre film sets up hopes and promises and brings pleasure if these hope and promises are fulfilled. In studying genre films, we first need to isolate the patterns and themes that appear repeatedly in them. For genre critics, these recurring patterns are not merely formal patterns; instead, they reflect the basic questions, problems, anxieties, difficulties, worries and, more generally, the values of a society and the ways members of that society attempt to tackle those basic questions and problems."

Barnard's film follows these 'patterns' but with an added racial and cultural angle. Ali is from a Sub-continental background, whereas Ava is Irish Catholic (it's notable that she once mentions her father was angry when she took up with not her daughter's Indian father, but her son's English one). The multi-cultural setting of Bradford, Yorkshire, makes this pairing likely but it's all a world away from John Osborne's kitchen.

The two leads are very natural, unsure of themselves at certain points, comfortable in other situations (Ava doing a karaoke number on 'Dirty Old Town' is a highlight). They're just a couple of middle-aged, working folk, trying to get by in the bleak north (apologies to northerners but, jeez, Bradford looks like a miserable old place). It's not too often you see a couple so normal, so 'unfilmic' on the big screen, and this is probably the main reason to see Ali & Ava.

Ali & Ava is now showing at Luna and Palace cinemas. See the above link for details.

See also:

Some potential highlights from the 2021 British Film Festival. Such as:

• The Duke (2020) Roger Michell
• Belfast (2021) Kenneth Branagh
• Best Sellers (2021) Lina Roessler
• Boiling Point (2021) Phillip Barantini
• It Snows in Benidorm (2020) Isabel Coixet
• Last Night in Soho (2021) Edgar Wright
• Operation Mincemeat (2021) John Madden
• The Electrical Life of Louis Wain (2021) Will Sharpe
• The Last Bus (2021) Gilles MacKinnon

As well as '7 from the 70s':

• A Clockwork Orange (1971) Stanley Kubrick
• Barry Lyndon (1975) Stanley Kubrick
• Sunday Bloody Sunday (1971) John Schlesinger
• Quadrophenia (1979) France Roddam
• Straw Dogs (1971) Sam Peckinpah
• The Go-Between (1971) Joseph Losey
• The Railway Children (1970) Lionel Jeffries

The Last Duel

As per the film's title, this is all about the last legally sanctioned duel in France. In 1386! Wikipedia gives a more recent 1547 and Ridley Scott himself directed a film (his first) in 1977 called The Duellists, set around the early 1800s, though I take it the duels in this film were not judicial. Anyway, The Last Duel is a pretty fine film. It's neatly structured into three parts, though crucially, not three acts. Each part is named 'The Truth According to....', covering the main characters, played by Matt Damon, Adam Driver and Jodie Comer. These are Jean de Carrouges, Jacques Le Gris and Marguerite de Carrouges respectively. Add Ben Affleck's delicious portrayal (replete with quality swears) of Count Pierre d'Alençon, and you have some excellent turns; just the right side of smallgoods.

The 'three truths' structuring will, of course, conjure thoughts of Rashomon (and the many examples of  films or TV shows using the Rashomon Effect), but the icing on this cake is the resulting similarity to an especially fine Game of Thrones episode, with Marguerite as the Tyrion proxy. You'll know the one. The crime that underpins the whole film, and the reason for the duel, is the rape of Marguerite. This obviously isn't seen in the first telling, as Jean is away when it occurs, so we get the reporting of the act from wife to husband. Jean's reaction is immediate disbelief but his reaction from his 'memory' isn't as ugly as from the third part - Marguerite's side of things. 

The second and third tellings show the rape in all its repugnance. Here's where I blanched a little - I didn't think a second version was warranted, even though I can see the absolute need to show the subtle changes before and during the rape that explain how a person (Le Gris) could completely believe his own story. His actions are virtually the same from part 2 to part 3, but Marguerite's are clearly different (she ACCIDENTALLY loses her shoes; she screams for help many times, NOT only once; she's visibly crying during and after, NOT just breathing heavily, etc). It's a smart way to let the audience see how viewpoints can crucially differ, but it's uncomfortable viewing nonetheless.

Another point of note is that the film was written (and produced) by three people - Damon, Affleck and Nicole Holofcener. As Damon told Entertainment Tonight, 

"It's a story about perspective... So, there are two knights and then there's the Lady Marguerite. So Ben and I wrote the male perspective and Nicole Holofcener wrote the female perspective. That's kind of the architecture of that movie."

And that architecture shines a light on the fact that the 'male perspective' hasn't changed a whole hell of a lot for many blokes. Affleck's Count (minus an 'o', if you like) is a prime example of the kind of dick that still muddies the waters of society. He's a charismatic enabler - encouraging his protégé in his carousing ways, and then covering up for him when the accusations are brought to light.

Sir Ridders needs mention here too. The old dude has still got the chops. His directing is custom-made for this kind of film - confident, showy, grandiose. The climactic duel is fantastically gripping and I'm sure the lead-up made it all the more so. Also, I'd been a bit of a Comer agnostic before this performance but I was put rightfully in my place and into the Comer Corner (Comer Corner, Karma Comer, Comer Chameleon?). Her withering look at the back of Damon's head near the end of the film is priceless.

The Last Duel is showing now at Palace (and other) cinemas.

See also:

I won't suggest the obvious GoT episode (alluded to above) but see that again, by all means. I also can't recommend Scott's early duelling film (mentioned above too), as I haven't seen it. So instead I'll give you two of my favourite duels in cinema, namely the fight at the top of the Cliffs of Insanity in The Princess Bride (1987), directed by Rob Reiner, and the gun vs knife duel in The Magnificent Seven (1960), directed by John Sturges.

LIGHT SPOILAGE IN POD!

Persian Lessons

This is a functional, yet tension-building film set in an internment camp in France during the Second World War. A Belgian Jew, Gilles, played by Nahuel Pérez Biscayart, trades a sandwich for an old Persian book, which turns out to save his life. Just prior to being shot, he proclaims to be Persian, not Jewish. Luckily, one of the local camp commandants is looking for a Persian to teach him lessons, and thus begins the high stakes bluff. Haupsturmführer Klaus Koch, played by Lars Eidinger, wants to open a restaurant in Tehran after the war and is eager to learn the language before he gets there. His excitement is moderated slightly by his suspicion that Gilles - or Reza, as he calls himself - is a fraud.

The beats are all here. After some initial hesitancy, Koch accepts the likelihood that Reza is legit, but then a word (invented by Reza) is repeated and Koch loses his shit. Reza convinces Koch that some words can have two meanings, and things return to an uneasy balance. Until the next dip on the tension rollercoaster when an English airman of PERSIAN descent is brought to the camp. The filmed events are exciting but there's an equal amount of satisfaction to be gained from the performances, especially of Eidinger and Biscayart. They spark off each other, their nerves are bristling to snap out - both of them being somewhat weak, maligned men. Koch worries that he'll lose the respect of his colleagues, though Reza obviously stands to lose much more should he be found out. They get additional support from Jonas Nay, Leonie Benesch and Alexander Beyer, but the spotlight is trained on Biscayart and Eidinger, and rightly so.

Much of my enjoyment came from the invention of the 'Farsi' language. At first, Reza is tasked with teaching Koch a new word every day, then more and more. Bread is 'radj', wind is 'lom', and so on. He stumbles upon a mnemonic method of remembering these words - by using the names of camp prisoners he is forced to record in Koch's ledger. This ultimately pays off in the emotional climax where he's being interviewed by Allied officers about his time in the camp. Writer Ilja Zofin (adapting from a novella) and director Vadim Perelman have turned out a nerve-wracking, moving, fresh angle on the Jewish experience in WW2.

[Added notes - Eidinger looks like a slightly less chiselled, young William Hurt. And Night Watch director, Timur Bekmambetov was a producer on this.]

Persian Lessons is screening now at the Luna.

See also: 

 

Perelman's first feature was the underrated House of Sand and Fog (2003), and Eidinger was also great in The Bloom of Yesterday (2016), directed by Chris Kraus.

Three Perfect Daughters

The St. Ali Italian Film Festival opens this week and one of the offerings is this old-fashioned family comedy by co-writer/director, Rolando Ravello. I say old-fashioned because it seems to have come from a vault, at least in the case of the fathers. The daughters in question are 2020s women, trying to get on with things, but their dinosaur dads hatch plans to thwart their love lives. The wives are sisters who just happen to have married these three buffoons. I'd like to think the whole thing is taking a satirical angle on this type of Italian father, though the sentimental way they're ultimately treated doesn't fill me with too much hope. The fact that it's a remake of an equally farcical looking Spanish film called It's For Your Own Good, seems to indicate it's not solely an Italian affliction, though.

Marco Giallini, Vincenzo Salemme and Giuseppe Battiston play the dads, and play them very broadly at that. The mums - played by Isabella Ferrari, Claudia Pandolfi and Valentina Lodovini - are cast as angry harridans or stern but sexy matriarchs, so if you like that kind of thing, have at it. The daughters - played by Matilde Gioli, Alice Ferri and Eleonora Trezza - are probably the pick of the performances, but in reality, the whole cast essentially blend together in this kind of cinematic potato salad.

I'm kind of at a loss to say much more about Three Perfect Daughters. It's not the worst film I've seen all year, and it has a kind of antiquated charm, but it's all so groaningly unlikely (or is it?) that it's hard to take much away from it. Also, as Merv noted, some of the translations seemed to be slightly off. That, or there are certain Italian phrases that just make bugger all sense in English.

See also:

As I can't really think of too many relevant film I've seen, I'll instead run you through some of the films from this year's festival that caught my eye (see link above for details):

• Rome, Open City (1945) Roberto Rossellini - (an amazing film) 
• Cam's War (2020) Laura Muscardin
• Hidden Away (2020) Giorgi Diritti
• Padrenostro (2020) Claudio Noce
• The Predators (2020) Pietro Castellitto
• Tigers (2020) Ronnie Sandahl
• You Came Back (2020) Stefano Mordini

Minari

This was a film that I didn't get to during its initial run last year (2020) but we needed to choose a film as part of a quiz night win so we landed on Minari. As you can guess from my lack of enthusiasm, I didn't necessarily have high hopes for this but I was impressed on the whole. It's an engaging family drama set in the 1980s about a Korean family who immigrated to California some time before, but are now trying to take a stab at country life in Arkansas. 

The dad, Jacob (The Walking Dead's Steven Yuen), is the driver of this attempt to go bush, while mum, Monica (Yeri Han), is less impressed. Throughout, their relationship appears to be entering the final innings. The kids range from hating the move, to putting up with it, to enjoying it - in no particular order. Regarding the kids, there's a lot for Alan Kim to do as David, much less for Noel Cho as Anne. She basically plays the family crutch; looking after younger bro, helping mum and dad, tolerating crazy granny when she comes to live with them. It's a pretty under-written role but she does what she can with it. Granny Soonja is played by Korean star Yuh-Jung Youn, and her supporting role Oscar is well-deserved. As you can imagine, she gets most of the laughs, as well as a hefty share of the pathos.

The 'fish out of water' trope with Minari is familiar but it's given a splash by the pieces in play. I can't remember ever seeing a film focussing on a Korean family in the 'hillbilly' region of the US. This freshness almost papers over the forced ending, which is kind of hard to reconcile with the rest of the film. Would minds be changed so quickly - surely, if anything, the situation has become worse?

In essence, the minari plant of the title explains writer/director Lee Isaac Chung's feeling towards the family (and perhaps Korean people in general), in that they're resilient and can 'grow' anywhere. Jacob's ultimate acceptance of the minari, and thus, his mother-in-law, shows that he can finally compromise. 

See also:

A couple of films spring to mind relating to farming troubles. The excellent Jean de Florette (1986), directed by Claude Berri, and the also brilliant Honeyland (2019), directed by Tamara Kotevska and Ljubomir Stefanov.

Lamb

Lamb is a foggy creepshow about a farming couple in the Icelandic foothills who happen upon a 'gift' from nature in the form of a child, and....well, urm, let's continue. Noomi Rapace and Hilmir Snær Guðnason star as Maria and Ingvar, the childless couple, and their routine has them miserably plodding along with the farm chores in this oddly treeless and rocky land. As dull as this might sound, it's actually a quietly fascinating start to the film, which may be down to the oft-mentioned 'otherworldly' landscape. Icelandic folk must be well pissed off with everyone going on about their topography. 

The opening is a slow tracking shot through a snow-swept exterior, via a herd of tiny horses. We end up in a barn full of frightened sheep (I guess they're always frightened) with the hint of something off screen - the eyes of the sheep are a clever way to suggest this. Later, as Maria and Ingvar are birthing lambs, an 'arrival' puts their gobs well into smacked position. For a good further 15 mins or so, I'm thinking, 'nah, surely not' until, yes, we finally see the child. Now, I'm sure the writers (Sjón and director Valdimar Jóhannsson) didn't plan for there to be titters and snorts, but unfortunately, at least at the reveal of the child, Ada, quite a few were had (I felt a bit immature but my mind wandered to Marenghi once more and Skipper, the Eyechild). 

The 'family' are content, except for the annoyance of the birth mother - A SHEEP - constantly bleating outside Ada's window. Maria sorts out this problem and things are going well until the visit of Ingvar's brother, Pétur, played by Björn Hlynur Haraldsson. Pétur is pretty much every member of the audience when he asks, "What the fuck is going on here?" some time after encountering Ada. Ingvar's reply of "Happiness" doesn't quite scan with Pétur, but after his initial shock, he reluctantly accepts this situation. 

There's a lot of food for thought on the intentions of the filmmakers here. I'm guessing it has its roots in Nordic folk tales, but it could be read as an anti-disablist statement or a pro-nature tract. Maria's insistence that "Ada is a gift" is no doubt magnified by the loss of her children (we see her tending to a small plot of graves at one point - one of which has the name Ada on the cross), but nature takes an alternate view on her understanding of this. And here's where I'll keep my trap shut, suffice to say, this is an odd, captivating film that will stay with you days after watching. 

Lamb opens on Oct 14th at the Luna and Palace cinemas.

[A slightly different version of this review was published on Film Ink - https://www.filmink.com.au/reviews/lamb/]

See also:

Try Hlynur Pálmason's A White, White Day (2019) for more Icelandic atmosphere, and Guillermo Del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth (2006) for no reason at all...

Riders of Justice

This is a Danish film from Anders Thomas Jensen, and starring the guy who has been in every one of this director's films, Mads Mikkelsen. And that's basically all you need to know (though I'll waffle some more). The presence of Mads inserts just about any film into the 'worth a look' category. Mikkelsen is incredible in Riders of Justice, as a grieving husband who can't accept the fact that he probably needs help - he's all grey bearded intensity, and the slow unravelling of his machismo is fascinating to watch.

There are loads of elements to this film. On the surface, it's a blackly comic, revenge drama, with aspects of farce and slapstick, but deeper in it develops - in no particular order - into a gangland thriller, a crime procedural and a meditation on bullying and abuse. It doesn't end there. There are nods to family troubles, parental responsibility, freedom to choose ways to deal with grief (including violence and religion), depictions of mental health and the mathematics of probability. Oh, and even some odd Estonian-based bookends, which appeared to be based on fairytale imagery. It sounds like they've overdone it, but it works, regardless of how many of these strands you want to focus on.

The story has army tough guy, Markus (Mads), coming home from action overseas when his wife is killed in a train explosion. It's accepted that said explosion was a terrible accident until a passenger on the same train (who gave up his seat to Markus' wife - oh, I forgot, there's guilt as well) uncovers something more sinister involving bikie gangs and an assassination. Telling Markus this news sets the revenge angle to rampage level and the scene of Markus and his three awkwardly anti-social co-conspirators confronting the suspected train bomber is one of the best in the film. 

Nikolaj Lie Kaas as Otto is the counter-balance to Markus, more placid, more reasonable, and the development of this relationship is almost as important to the film as the one between Markus and his daughter, Mathilde, played by Andrea Heick Gadeberg. This father-daughter connection is the fulcrum of the story, where the theme of revenge is supplanted by one of self-honesty and acceptance. It's also the way to get the three nerds into the house - Mathilde mistakes them for the counsellors she has been asking her dad to accept. One of these guys is Lennart, played by Lars Brygmann, who was part of that great Danish police series, Unit One. In fact, he and Mikkelsen play extremely heightened versions of their characters from that show, La Cour and Fischer.

The only real misstep is the fist-pumping climactic standoff, though even this is allayed by the gang leader's final line of dialogue. The penultimate scene (not the Estonian bit) was a cracked mirror of About a Boy, where the camera pans around characters in a loungeroom who have found a new equilibrium. The actual end of the film is a nice little gazump but it happens around 20 minutes before the credits roll. 

Riders of Justice is showing at the Luna and Palace cinemas.

See also:

It'd be just plain wrong to not mention another Mads film here, so I'll go with Thomas Vinterberg's superb The Hunt (2012). And if revenge is your thing, check out Park Chan-Wook's Oldboy (2003), part of his vengeance trilogy.