The Fall Guy

This filmic celebration of stunt performers throws a lot of ideas at the wall. Luckily, most of them stick. Renowned 'stuntie' David Leitch, who got his break as Brad Pitt's double on Fight Club, directs this script from Drew Pearce, the pen behind one of the best Marvel outings, Iron Man 3. If you're older than, let's say 45, you might remember the well-watched TV series, The Fall Guy, created by TV ploymath, Glen A. Larson. I still recall a truism from Colt Seavers (Lee Majors) to his offsider about not driving down a hill on an angle, else you're liable to flip the car. Why I have retained this nugget is beyond me but the show certainly left a mark (I'm sure it hasn't aged well, though). Would the film version live up to 10-year-old me's expectations?

My reservations were assuaged pretty much as soon as Ryan Gosling started his voice-over. The film opens in a classical 'good spot', where Colt (yes, they kept the name) is enjoying his job as stunt double for dickhead star Tom Ryder (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), but more so, enjoying his romantic time with camera operator, Jody Moreno (Emily Blunt). This opening sequence sets the film's tone - breezy, charming and, crucially, very funny. But soon disaster strikes. An error in a 'high fall' sees Colt in hospital with a broken back. Cut to 18 months down and out in rehab and a call from Ryder's producer, Gail (Hannah Waddingham) entices him back to location, the news that the film is being directed by old flame, Jody, an obvious sweetener. On arrival - and after a frankly bonkers car cannon roll - he learns the main reason for his return is to find the missing movie star, Tom. Dut dut daaaah.

Look, there's enough story to fill three of four episodes of the old TV show here, but that's really not the point. In fact, the plot wouldn't look out of place in any 80s programme of this ilk; Knight Rider, B.J. and the Bear, Magnum P.I. or a couple referenced in the film, Miami Vice and The Six Million Dollar Man. In a nutshell, it's a fucking ludicrous potboiler. But here's the twist - as a kid, I loved every one of those shows. And that's what this film is here for. Nostalgia. 

But like so many other 80's 'cover' films that have sunk (hello, Joe Carnahan's The A-Team), I reckon this has much more going for it. For one thing, it's riding the Gozzle popularity wave, and to a slightly lesser extent, the Blunt ripple. The Sydney location adds a level of interest, especially here down under. But mostly, Pearce's script crackles. Blunt and Gosling have a screwball comedy vibe going on, Blunt in particular snaps off lines like a modern-day Rosalind Russell or Katherine Hepburn. Gosling brings his The Nice Guys comic timing to this, he takes insult and injury extremely well, and his line delivery is brilliant ("I never forget a fist").

Teresa Palmer also has a smashing little cameo as Ryder's girlfriend - and she gets to bring the word 'povvo' to world audiences. Pearce also plants a line in this scene that pays off triumphantly later in the film. The film-in-a-film device gives free reign to play around with parallelism - Colt and Jody are represented by the characters in the film she's trying to finish, MetalStorm (incidentally, this is an actual film from 1983, MetalStorm: The Destruction of Jared-Syn, right down to the fantastic/shit tagline, 'It's High Noon at the End of the Universe').

Of course, there are some amazing set pieces: a fight within a skip bin truck chase, a drug-induced, fluorescent night club brawl (and how do you know when the drug wears off?). The final confrontation is quite naff, albeit with a nifty car jump and some fun helicopter scuffling. Music also plays a role, with some cheesy tracks including the Phil Collins classic, Against All Odds and Kiss's I Was Made for Lovin' You. I swear I even heard a snatch of Zimmer's Dune soundtrack in one scene.

Not for everyone, but if you give yourself over to the nonsense and sentimentality, you'll have a blast. The Fall Guy opens April 24th around the country.

See also:

Gosling is great with Russell Crowe in Shane Black's The Nice Guys (2016). And for some more tasty screwball, have a look at His Girl Friday (1940), directed by Howard Hawks.

(Film stills and trailer ©Universal, 2024)

Abigail

Abigail follows in the tradition of using a woman's name for the film title: Carrie, Christine, Coraline, Mandy, M3gan, Pearl (with MaXXXine on her way), and these are only from the horror genre. Titling is not the only thing lifted from elsewhere. The story sees a gang of crims carrying out a kidnapping only to find the tables turned when they realise the victim is not so....fragile.

It's very difficult to speak about this film without giving the game away, and that's possibly one of the reasons why it didn't grab me. It really would have been enhanced had the marketing not laid out the 'twist' but these are the times we live in. By plugging this as a vampire ballerina film, the gang's surprise is not shared by the audience.

Once that realisation is out of the way, it settles into a pretty tread-worn rhythm. Expendable members are dispatched, relationships are made and betrayed, blood and viscera are spilled. The film goes through the motions until the final act, when it picks up the pace, almost too quickly. A lot seems to happen without much time to take it all in.

Melissa Barrera is great as Joey - it's the first time I've seen her in anything, she has a bit of star quality, I reckon. Alisha Weir as Abigail is precociously talented, sweet and petrified one moment, snarling and rabid the next. Dan Stevens, Giancarlo Esposito and Matthew Goode add nasty vibes support.

The background colouring is of bad parenting and of mistakes made, some unfortunate and some avoidable, that differentiate who we - and Abigail - are allowed to exonerate. There's even an ugly little hint of a domestic violence scenario with Dan Stevens' Frank as a monster father preying on Joey and Abigail's mother and daughter. That is until the real dad shows up to elevate the menace.

Through this film, we are reminded of others, a bit of a constant in recent pop culture movies. There's a little whiff of Keyser Söze to the Kristoff Lazar character. The dabs of From Dusk Till Dawn are all over it. And the overarching style places Abigail in the newish sub-genre of Gore-com, joining the likes of Cocaine Bear and Violent Night.

There's nothing too original about Abigail but it should hoover up the teenagers' pocket money, and if you like seeing folk projectile spewing blood or people falling into pools of offal (and who doesn't?), then this is right up your splatter alley.

Abigail is showing around Australia now. 

See also: 

Now, I haven't seen this, but Merv highly recommends a previous film from Abigail's directing pair, Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, called Ready or Not (2019). Matthew Goode's late appearance reminded me of a much better film, Park Chan-wook's Stoker (2013).

(Film stills and trailer ©Universal, 2024)

The Teachers' Lounge

The Teachers' Lounge was Germany's entrant for Best International (Foreign Language) film at the 2024 Oscars, beaten by the equally fine, The Zone of Interest (the UK's nominee, though also in German). Leonie Benesch plays Carla Nowak, a young, slightly idealistic maths (and sports?) teacher at a primary school in Germany. There's been a spate of thefts at the school, in class as well as in the teachers' room. When a lad of Turkish origin is wrongly accused, Carla defends him and disagrees with the methods used by the school authorities. This doesn't endear her to some of her colleagues but when she finds evidence of a theft in the teachers' room, the scheiße really hits the fan. 

Benesch, seen before in The White Ribbon and Persian Lessons, is incredible. She really sells her sincerity and in the moments when the tension rises, her expressions are priceless. In one almost unbearable scene at a parent/teacher night, Carla is passive-aggressively confronted by some of her students' parents, then accused not so passively. I felt awfully clenched during this scene, and was glad when it was over. It's reminiscent of Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn, but with less vulgarity and more vertigo.

The students are great too, especially young Leonard Stettnisch on debut, as Oskar, Carla's key adversary and most promising student. Eva Löbau, as Oskar's mother, Friederike Kuhn, is inscrutably excellent, and Michael Klammer brings the arrogant righteousness as fellow teacher, Mr. Liebenwerda.

Director and co-writer (with Johannes Duncker), Ilker Çatak imbues the film with a creeping sense of alienation, not just in the classroom, but also in the teachers' lounge, and logically, within society itself. At one point, Carla has to ask a fellow teacher to refrain from speaking Polish with her, at least at work, just for the sake of the other teachers. The snide remarks, accusations and marginalising tactics keep coming, leading to a readjustment in the audience - might we be wrong to side with Carla after all? Çatak has said that the film is not about making a statement "but about asking a question." Well, he hasn't made this question an easy one to answer. 

There are two key points that enhance the quality of the film: the set/location and the music. Aside from one breathless sortie, the action never leaves the school. We see no hint of an external life for any of the players, teacher, student, nor staff. It's almost claustrophobic, and this doesn't allow the viewer any form of escape or relaxation. And Marvin Miller's plucking, buzzing score is terrific at heightening the suspense and tautness. All the while, we're evaluating where we stand in this spiralling situation - who are the victims? Who, if anyone, are being slighted, unfairly treated? 

Depending on your worldview, you may see the climax as a victory for progressive education, or a school pandering to little shits and 'monster' parents, or maybe the traditional trope of an over-caring teacher breaking through to a troubled student. The final shots of the empty school and the situation's resolution, if you can call it that, show that Çatak has a satirical mischief to him. Certainly, The Teachers' Lounge will resonate with teachers. At the final credits, a woman behind me commented that it was a "very accurate documentary." Whether taken as fact or fiction, this is a brilliant, must-see film. 

The Teachers' Lounge opens April 25th at the Luna and Palace cinemas. There are also Afternoon Tea screenings at the Luna on April 20th and Luna on SX in Freo on April 25th.

See also:

There are lots of similarities to Thomas Vinterberg's The Hunt (2012) and Laurent Cantet's The Class (2008), but the tension levels were almost akin to Damien Chazelle's Whiplash (2014).

Monkey Man

Dev Patel introduced this preview himself (remotely - he's not pitching up in Cannington!) and he says he's been sitting on this story of the Monkey God, Hanuman fighting against the demon king for about a decade. He covers all the bases here - star, (debut) director, co-writer and co-producer under Jordan Peele's Monkeypaw Productions banner. It's a fairly rudimentary tale of revenge which plays out in Yatana, a pumping metropolis somewhere in India. I guess not naming the city (cough...Mumbai...) kept things a bit less problematic, considering 'yatana' means something like torture or serious pain in some languages. A rose-tinted tourist video this is not.

The film opens in a scummy, crowded boxing arena where a dude in a monkey mask is taking a pounding from a snake fella, both part of Tiger's (Sharlto Copley) stable of fighters. Kipling-influenced characters, Shere Khan and Baloo are introduced in later scraps. Kid, (Patel, AKA Monkey Man) is taking these constant lickings to save money for a greater purpose - the reason unfolds as the blood flows. While its pared down revenge core is age-old, the spiritual angle and exotic setting give the genre a bit of a spruce up. The brutality is full on but comical enough not to be repelled. On more than one occasion, Kid is forced to use his teeth mid-brawl, and there's an oddly out of place axe fight that felt pretty spurious.

As Kid works his way up the ladder of Kings nightclub, inching towards his target(s), we get more info on why he's on this path and how this society has been irrevocably rent asunder. It's the usual rich scum at the top, poor maligned folk at the bottom but the whole caste system twist adds layers here. An interesting/modern take on this is the introduction of a group of transgender people who side with Kid, what with the authorities displacing them too. The coming federal election and likely victory of the right-wing nationalist leader (Modi, in all but name) shines a critical light on the BJP in India, but not too starkly. 

Monkey Man is shot by Sharone Meir (Whiplash) in a very dingy, frenetic style, though there are a few moments of great poise - slow motion tracking past the boxing ring, a zoom down the side of the nightclub, one superbly choreographed kitchen fight, as well as the climactic battle when Diwali enters the cocktail bar. The music here (by Aussie Jed Kurzel) seems out of place, but in a kooky way. It sounded to me like peacefully plinky sitar behind a lot of slicing and whacking, followed by Indian-style thrash metal. But music's not my strong suit.

This has been called a sub-continental John Wick facsimile (they even name check that franchise is one scene) and while there's some accuracy to that, it really takes more from films like The Raid and even Kurosawa's classic Yojimbo. It's a desperate revenge tale that doesn't go easy on the victims, but also doesn't reward the avenger. There are no winners in this murky bloodstorm.

Monkey Man opened yesterday (April 4th) around Australia.

See also:

For similar up and down story beats, check out the peerless, Yojimbo (1961), directed by legend Akira Kurosawa. And for a less violent but equally bonkers film set in India, try Ashutosh Gowariker's Lagaan (2001), an 'epic period musical sports drama' film (according to Wikipedia). Just a heads-up, about half of this film is a cricket match. Great fun.

(Film stills and trailer ©Universal, 2024)