violence Archives - Page 11 of 11 - Jeremy C. Processing

Director – Christopher Smith – 2016 – UK – Cert. 15 – 97m

****1/2

Should I stay or should I go? Smart thriller wherein a man’s life is literally split in two as he chooses between an ill-advised road trip to Vegas or staying at home with his hated stepfather – now on DVD and VoD

Opening with a lengthy, single locked off camera shot title sequence of a woman pole dancing, this then switches to law student Harper (Tye Sheridan – Ready Player One, Steven Spielberg, 2018) visiting his comatose mother in hospital. He’s convinced his stepfather is cheating on her using out of town business trips as a cover. Hitting a bar to drown his sorrows, he overhears a conversation in which Johnny Ray (Emory Cohen – Brooklyn, John Crowley, 2015) explains how his girlfriend Cherry shot a man who cut her face. Johnny Ray berates Harper for eavesdropping and drags him to the pole dancing joint where Cherry works and whisky gets Harper talking.

Brief echoes of Strangers On A Train (Alfred Hitchcock, 1951) are played up in the film’s trailer (at the bottom of this review) as Johnny Ray offers to take care of his stepdad at a price.… Read the rest

Batman
(1989)

Director – Tim Burton – 1989 – US – 12 – 126 mins

****

Batman amalgamates Blade Runner, Brazil, Star Wars and Vertigo while giving more screen time to its villain than its title character – UK release: August 11th, 1989

“What kind of a world is this where a man in a bat costume gets all my press?”, a confused Joker (Jack Nicholson) asks his aides. A fair question since Batman gives more screen time to its villain than its title character. Actually, it’s a movie that looks not unlike Brazil (Terry Gilliam, 1985), although it lacks that movie’s depth, with elements of Blade Runner (Ridley Scott, 1982), three scenes from Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958) and one from Star Wars (George Lucas, 1977) thrown in for good measure. The screenplay compresses an incredible volume of action and about the right amount of necessary plot into its two hours, ensuring the audience gets its money’s worth.

Curiously, Batman (Michael Keaton) himself is simultaneously a peripheral, shadowy character in the background and the film’s main protagonist; this leaves much scope for further character development. Visually, he’s a vigilante Devil who drops in on unsuspecting criminals to mete out justice – an image at odds with the script’s paradoxical portrayal of him as a hi-tech policeman or James Bond figure.… Read the rest