Cell Out
With Mark Russell; he's a stank job.
When inviting a mate to watch The Square, all that I told him about it was that it was Australian. “So is it about bogans or criminals or both?” he asked. This would be much funnier if he hadn’t nailed the fi lm’s genre. I like a mulleted gangster as much as the next guy but how many times can you watch a character with a shotgun in one hand and a VB can in the other before it gets old? Surely the entire gamut of Aussie inventiveness didn’t go into the hills hoist did it?! The Bank Job The words ‘based on a true story’ tend to have the same generous boundaries on the truth as your average political campaign promise. This tale of a bank robbery and its repercussions for London’s crime, crime-fighting and espionage communities could be frame for frame accurate, but it’s unlikely. The set-up is plausible though extreme: an unnamed female royal is photographed in an incredibly compromising position and the prints are kept in a safe deposit box deep within a bank vault. MI5 (or MI6) can’t be linked to any attempts to get the photographs back so they surreptitiously hire some low-level crims, headed by Terry Leather (Jason Statham), to do the place over.
Wanted Wanted, to be frank, is nothing but bullet holes and plot holes. While I did find it quite entertaining, to say that this film pushes the limits of basic believability would be a vast understatement. I’m all for bending the laws of the known universe, and it is a ‘superhero’ type movie of sorts, but more than once I found myself going, “Oh, come ON!” Based (oh-so-loosely) on a graphic novel, Wanted follows the mundane activities of Wesley, a downtrodden nohoper in a dead-end job and crappy relationship. One day while going about his dull-as-dirt business, Wesley finds out from the coy and mysterious Fox (Angelina Jolie) that a) his absentee father was some sort of awesome assassin - before he got
The Square The events of The Square take place in the quiet community of Haven Cove, which was built in a timewarp near Sydney where the cars, haircuts and most of the population haven’t progressed past the early '90s. Director Nash Edgerton seems to be a local here as well, evidenced by his wish to cover so much ground all aptly depicted many, many times since the late Heath Ledger first screwed up a money drop-off for Bryan Brown. Ray (David Roberts) is a married construction foreman who’s conducting dodgy dealings on site and dodgier dealings off it with Carla (Claire van der Boom), the wife of a local thug/gangster-type Smithy
"How the hell did that happen?" Kevin Swain (Stephen Campbell Moore) "Fucked if I know. Just keep walking." Terry Leather (Jason Statham): The Bank Job
The problem is that these deposit boxes are the closet where many infl uential and insidious people keep their skeletons. The robbery itself is pretty uninteresting on the whole and is given far too much of the film’s running time. What is of interest is the fallout as the many dirty secrets, and the dirtier secretkeepers, come out of the woodwork. Pretty soon everyone’s after Terry and his gang and it’s a race against time to see who can kill them first. The ‘true story’ card goes a long way towards making this film work. These guys are way out of their depth going into a bank to open an account, let alone to rob it. Add in an international scandal and a lot of pissed off neighbourhood heavies and they’re in
very hot water. Other than the odd hiccup, Terry generally handles these new circumstances with aplomb, though some of his plans seem to be based almost entirely on luck. Statham is solid in this role and gets good support from most of the cast, though femme fatale Saffron Burrows offers little more than a gorgeous bit of eyecandy who kills every line she’s given. There are still many moments that will test your belief, common sense and attention span, and many of the threads are not satisfactorily cleaned up, but The Bank Job is worth watching for the conniving final third alone.
capped; b) his anxiety attacks are actually <insert bullshit exposition> which allow him to slow down reality and perform superhuman feats; c) he can ‘bend bullets’; and d) he is being recruited into an ancient group called the Fraternity, headed by Sloan (Morgan Freeman), to hunt down his father’s killer. Yes, this is one of those vendetta stories, where the ‘everyman’ suddenly pulls off something amazing and sticks it to the man. The concept of the Fraternity is fl imsy to say the least – not only do they work out of a filthy warehouse, they kill people they don’t even know in order to possibly (yes, possibly) ‘save a thousand’. Oh yeah, and they take their orders from a prophetic loom that knows binary code.
Wanted is high speed, and unapologetic in its action. Director Timur Bekmambetov has a slick style (see Night Watch, et. al), which suits this ridiculous story. Plot holes abound, but instead of pretending to explain things, Wanted merely gives you the finger and launches into another explosive action sequence. There is also a nifty gratuitous shirtless scene of McAvoy – why is it that in films, people always seem to get dressed while their rippling torso is still wet from a magical, healing wax bath? Overall, this is a really bad film that is really good to watch. Oh yeah, and Morgan Freeman says "motherfucker." If anything, see Wanted just for that.
(Anthony Hayes). When Carla presents Ray with the opportunity to steal the proceeds from Smithy’s latest enterprise, he has to decide whether he’s man or mouse. Things get a little hectic from here. There is brilliant tension to The Square. As the events gradually pull you into the spiral of shit that Ray’s life becomes, you can’t help but wince at the strain he’s under. The only motivating factor to be sucked in however, is a vague general sympathy for another human being, as otherwise there’s nothing here to care about. Personally, I need a film to have at least one major character who is either intelligent, or likeable. It definitely doesn’t have to be both but without a
fl icker of one of these characteristics, I fail to care what happens. Ray is underhanded, selfish, usually stupid and a prick to those he has power over. Carla is kind when she’s getting her way but a manipulative bitch when she isn’t. There is slightly more depth to Billy who is played by Joel Edgerton, Nash’s brother and the writer of the piece. However, he doesn’t command enough screen time to utilise this. Add in a lot of clunky dialogue and the predictability that comes from basing a story arc on stupidity and greed, and you’ve got another unfortunately forgettable Australian crime thriller.
MARK RUSSELL
MEGAN McKEOUGH
MARK RUSSELL