ENTERTAINMENT
cinema Reviews BY JOHN CAMPBELL
LONDON HAS FALLEN If there is one thing we learn from this blast of pulverising propaganda, it is that the AK47’s accuracy is not worth a pinch of poop if fired at a target more distant than point-blank range – Gerard Butler has at least a g’zillion rounds shot at him, but not one of them finds its mark. Which is ironic in the extreme, given that the arch-villain here is the world’s most infamous and prolific arms dealer. It’s hardly good advertising for his product, is it?
Seeking revenge for a drone attack that killed his daughter at her wedding in Pakistan years earlier, Barkawi (Alon Aboutbul) has orchestrated a massive terrorist attack on London, where the heads of state from all over the western world will be attending the funeral of the British PM. US president Asher (Aaron Eckhart, speaking in a raspy whisper throughout) arrives with his bullet-proof minder, Mike Banning (Butler). All hell breaks loose at a synchronised moment when scores of gunmen disguised as coppers and
grenadiers indiscriminately slaughter all those around them (we didn’t know Paris 13/11 was so entertaining, did we). There are a host of cleverly executed effects, including the demolition of one of the towers of Westminster Abbey and a wing of Parliament House, but none is more breathtakingly accomplished than the explosion on the Albert Bridge. You can bemoan the overbearing reliance on CGI in mob entertainment these days, but you must concede that it is thoroughly convincing. There is some rudimentary dialogue and a mole to be exposed (he was obvious to me), but it is more or less Gerard versus the barbarians and, after surviving a helicopter crash and crushing car roll, he gets the job done and manages a manly chuckle with Aaron at the end. The bad guys’ headquarters is in Yemen, but great care is taken not to mention a particular religion – the filmmakers wouldn’t want to be seen to be further inciting Islamaphobia would they? … If only I didn’t enjoy it so much.
10 CLOVERFIELD LANE
This is one of the strangest movies I’ve seen in some time. It begins with Michelle (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) arguing with somebody over the phone. We are unable to hear her words, for the audio is submerged beneath the unsettling soundtrack. Next we see her driving on a dark and lonely highway, and the car radio is reporting power outages in the area. The heavy portent reminded me of Janet Leigh’s fateful flight in Psycho. Michelle has a prang – jarringly shot by director Dan Trachtenberg – and she wakes up chained to a pipe and wearing just her knickers and a singlet. The bare room is not in a neglected motel, but a bunker built by Howard (John Goodman), a sort of fat Norman Bates in a flanny. Howard is obviously not the full quid, but he insists that he has saved Michelle from the apocalypse outside. Can it be true? His hideaway is fitted with all mod-cons, including an air purifier and a jukebox that builds on the kinkiness by playing Tommy James’s Think We’re Alone Now. Howard half-convinces Michelle and Emmett (John Gallagher Jr), another captive, that the event he has described has actually happened and when a crazed, blood-splattered woman comes bashing at the door it appears to them – and the audience – that his story must be fact. This is what keeps you on edge. Is there really a deadly nuclear cloud hovering outside? Or worse, mobs of alien invaders? A bearded Goodman is frighteningly sincere as the former navy man with a paranoid mindset – and let’s face it, if the news is anything to go by, there are a hell of a lot of similar wackos armed to the teeth and fanging their pick-ups around America’s god-fearing Midwest. Winstead, whom I’ve not seen since the marvellous Scott Pilgrim vs The World (2010), is the twenty-first century’s typical heroine, displaying in equal measure susceptibility and guile, tenderness and toughness. She is one resourceful chick and Michelle’s ultimate liberation arrives in a rip-roaring climax. I loved it.
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The Byron Shire Echo March 23, 2016 75