No.271 : Worzel Gummidge (TV) (2019)

Wozrel Gummidge at the IMDb

Look out scruffy kids - you’ll be getting a new nickname at school in the new year!

I always liked the creepy Jon Pertwee adaptation of the classic children’s books featuring the lively scarecrow, so I was interested to see were this reboot would go. Overall it was a good effort, but some elements had been sanitised and a few modern issues had been added in, in a not so subtle manner.

I’ve only seen the first episode which aired on Boxing Day 2019 with one more standalone story to follow. That one features Michael Palin as The Green Man, so that may be the pick of the litter.

Anyway, we open with two inner city kids heading into the countryside. We learn that they are foster children heading to a new home. It seemed a bit strange that they were travelling alone and that their new ‘parents’ weren’t exactly welcoming, but I guess twenty minutes of a social worker filling in forms and going through the house’s drawers would slow the narrative somewhat.

On the way in the boy, John, captures a scarecrow waving at him from a field on his phone - of course, his older sister Susan doesn’t believe him. On arrival they are met by grumpy foster Dad Steve Pemberton and his slightly nicer wife whom you’ll recognise off ‘Peep Show’, ‘Mid-Morning Matters’ etc. Farmer Pemberton says ‘Look what they sent us’ making us immediately wonder if he’s a big racist. Don’t worry, he’s only moaning about their weediness, meaning he’s in to child slave labour, which is seemingly OK.

The kids head off to Ten Acre Field where they encounter Worzel, played by Gareth from ‘The Office’. Worzel shouldn’t be talking to humans but he takes to the kids and lets them know he’s worried about the environment - the crops haven’t ripened as expected and the family of robins in his jacket are overdue their flight from the nest.

They establish from Aunt Sally that a key is needed to unlock the season and, after massing all of the local scarecrows, Worzel tries to save the day with the additional help of his erstwhile enemies, the crows.

This was good family fun with no real peril and a heavy handed message about saving the environment. To be honest I preferred the creepier Jon Pertwee version who was horny for Aunt Sally and who could change his turnip heads to suit his moods.

Gareth's Worzel was a bit more humble and naive and I think he could have done with being a bit more bombastic - I didn’t get the sense that scaring a crow was within his powers. The two kids were decent but didn’t really convey the wonder that a real life scarecrow would inevitably bring.

I did like the summoning of the other scarecrows and felt that this could have been developed more. Some of their designs were fun but we didn’t really meet any characters amongst them.

There was a long side quest were Worzel had to enlist the help of crows to gets some carrier bags out of a tree that was too heavy handed. As the twentieth bag was pushed by a bird into a recycling bin, even the most pissed up Christmas hangover induced viewer would be shouting ‘I get the message’ - I knew I was!

The design, music and feel of the show was reminiscent of ‘Detectorists’ which is no bad thing. I just wish they’d added a bit of edge or humour to make this more than just an educating outing for pre-teens.

Best Bit : Scarecrows Assemble!
W Rating 15/23

No.270 : Why Him? (2016)

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No.269 : Wheelman (2017)

Wheelman at the IMDb

Following our last offering of ‘Win it All’ this is the second in our double bill of cheap Netflix films starring and produced by actors you’ve never heard of. Can’t say we’re not niche here at The ‘W’ Movie blog!

The double threat here is Frank Grillo who looks like a slightly less McDreamy Patrick Dempsey. At least he’s better for you than Frank Friedo. This film focuses almost entirely on the single character of ‘Wheelman’ and you’d better take to him fast as you’ve got 80 minutes in his passenger seat coming your way! I found him annoying and shouty with too many swears and not enough empathy, so it was a tough ride for me!

We open with a dull five minute scene as Wheelman gets his hot car for a job. The camera stays in the car as Wheelman gets out and talks money and then goes for a spin. It feels like the film is struggling to get out of first gear? Nervous anticipation or just a bit of dull padding - you decide.

Wheelman soon picks up his two passengers one of whom was Nucky’s brother in ‘Boardwalk Empire’. He’s not much for the chat which is fair enough when you’re off to visit a bank full of customers in the middle of the night with your sawn off deposit slip.

Wheelman hasn’t heard of CCTV or the tracing of mobile phones so he rolls up outside the bank without a mask and takes calls whilst the robbers do their thing. He gets a mysterious call from ‘Out of Area’ who tells him he’s going to be shot after the job. He’s a trusting soul and takes off with the money in the boot leaving the robbers behind.

What follows is a long round of calls as Wheelman talks to Clay- his fixer, his annoying daughter, his annoying wife and the ever present Out of area. There are too many double crosses to go into but eventually Wheelman has the chance to swap the money for his ex-wife and freedom from his debt to the gang bosses he works for. While he wheelspin into the sunset a freeman or will he regret freeing the ex-wife?

This was a pretty dull affair that had lost my interest after an hour. It mined a familiar seam of getaway driver movies but was nowhere near as good as ‘The Driver’ or even ‘Baby Driver’. My main issue was I didn’t care about Wheelman or his motivations. He’s clearly underworld scum so who cares if he gets double crossed? It was hard to track who could be trusted and although that’s the intention it just comes across as a bit of a mess with no cohesive narrative.

The film reminded me a lot of ‘Locke’ with endless phone calls queuing up to keep our man occupied. His catchphrase ‘Shut the fuck up’ was spouted endlessly and I was hoping that Wheelman would take his own advice.

Some of the gun play was decent and there was a good motorbike crash, but apart from that it was just a ‘who’s screwing who?’ set up with the viewer having no investment in the outcome.
Towards the end the daughter showed up and it was interesting that we took her perspective for a few minutes whilst Wheelman went off to do the drop. I say ‘interesting’ but the handover was being built up for ages and then it happened largely off screen.

It seems like Netflix have a bag of money for any aspiring actor/producer with a cheap, contemporary set feature in mind. This may be worthy but I think I’ll be looking for something with a bit more substance going forward. That and frat house sex comedies.

Best Bit : Ooow that’s gotta hurt! ’W’ Rating 12/23

No.268 : Win it All (2017)

Win It All at the IMDb

Eddie Garret is a gambler, and not a very good one, in this Netflix film.

We see him losing his cash in a low rent poker game in the back of a Chinese restaurant leaving him so broke he has to cadge his breakfast from the local shopkeeper. It’s clear that this is not an unusual event.

It makes it back to his modest apartment and is met by a criminal acquaintance who has let himself in. He has a proposal for Eddie : watch a holdall for him for the six months that he’ll be in prison for and, when he gets out, Eddie will trouser $10k. This seems a mental thing for the friend to ask given Eddie’s gambling addiction is well known, but we need a plot so let’s go with it.

Eddie doesn’t immediately rifle the bag to see what’s in it but after a bit of deliberation he dives in and it’s no surprise to anyone apart from Eddie that it’s full of cash. The amount isn’t spoken but it’s about $100k. It also contains some pretty nasty kidnap tools but that aspect is brushed aside as are any moral questions, never mind the legal ones, about being caught with a bag of contraband.

You can probably guess the rest. Eddie thinks he can dip into the cash and make a profit before returning the stake money ahead of the felon getting out of jail. Initially things go well with Eddie winning $2k which he immediately invests in a night down the pub with his pals. He meets meet Mexican lovely Eva who gives him a sight of what a better life could look like. Before he invests in that there’s more reckless gambling to do and Eddie finds himself $27k in the hole.

With a rare bit of clarity Eddie decides to get his life in order and takes a job with his brother’s landscaping company. The deal is that if Eddie can work for 6 months with no gambling, his debts will be paid. It goes well for a while but when the gangster calls and advises he has been freed early, Eddie has to make some decisions - stick, twist or run away?

This was a decent Netflix offering, starring, written and produced by Jake Johnston. I didn’t know him but he has a decent CV of mainly small roles on TV. Obviously if you make a cheap Netflix film it’s a good chance to show your leading man chops. He does well with a slightly tiresome character who keeps making the same mistakes. It’s hard to root for him when he keeps pissing his cash away but his quest for redemption is well realised and although a bit easy, it’s a fun ride. He’s a bit like a less buff Ant Middleton and is likeable in a ‘glad he’s not my friend’ kind of way.

It must have been a deliberate choice not to show any of the poker hands with only the bets being announced. This is probably so that non-gambling types don’t feel excluded but how many of them are watching a gambling film? It would have been good if the reality of poker was shown, with two deuces beating an Ace high rather that the full house beating the flush that poker films usually show, but it probably helps the editing if we don’t see the cards on the table.

The love interest was well played by Aislinn Derbez and she must have had good chat as our man had to wait weeks before sealing the deal!

I liked the captions showing the money ups and downs but they didn’t appear after every win or set back which grated a little. The supports were good  with the brother and the gamblers’ anonymous sponsor both being in the ‘I know his face’ category. The sponsor was the worst ever, suggesting a game our man could play in when the money started to run dry.

The film has a ‘cinema verite’ style which is probably meant to look gritty and realistic but it just looked like they were filming some scenes in a boat as the characters bobbled about on the screen. It was obviously low budget but how much is a tripod?

The running time was less than 90 minutes - even if you include the mid credits sequence- so it doesn’t outstay its welcome. Some of the gambling behaviours were well observed and it was a million miles for the glitz of Vegas or even The House.

Best Bit : We’ve got an hour… W Rating 16/23

No.267 : War of the Wildcats (1943)

War of the Wildcats at the IMDb

There are so many wonderful films out there across Netflix and Amazon Prime, not to mention the limitless offerings of the hundreds of channels of terrestrial TV as well as the internet. But let’s forget all that nonsense and watch a faded black and white western that I found in the depths of Film 4. Well it saves you having to!

Made in 1943, but looking a lot older, ‘War of the Wildcats’ is a forgettable western starring John Wayne who was at the height of his draft dodging powers at the time. He got a deferment for being a father of four so that’s all right then - at least he didn’t make loads of films pretending to be people who did the actual fighting. Oh he did? Very poor.

This film isn’t quite ‘very poor’ but I will have to up my typing speed if I’m going to finish this review before I forget it entirely.

We open on a train car full of people heading to the oil fields to make it rich. ‘I’m gonna get one of those new cars’ says one. ‘Did you hear about the Wright brothers’ says another, hoping to let us know it’s 1906 and to save the money for a caption. At the back of the train is the private car of Jim ‘Hunk’ Gardner. He’s an oil baron and a real sleaze ball, with comely wenches coming and going from his car. One almost showed an ankle.

At a small town he hauls on board Kathy, a teacher who is being run out of town for writing a scandalous book. He says hello and then plants a big kiss on her. Bit rapey there mate. She doesn’t like it, but doesn’t leave either and soon the two are getting on famously. Any chance of him getting his end away quickly evaporates when John Wayne shows up. His horse has died and he’s after a lift.

They all end up in a small oil town with the two men vying for Kathy’s favours. She initially goes with Jim and professes undying love. When he reasonably says ‘well maybe not forever’ - he has known her 20 minutes - she flounces off to Wayne.

Wayne manages to get a job as Jim’s bodyguard after besting the incumbent Cherokee but this proves to be a terrible decision when Wayne tells the Indians that they are getting ripped off by Jim’s 12% royalty deal for the oil on their land. Wayne offers 50% and after agreeing terms with Teddy Roosevelt himself, Wayne starts the task of getting 10,000 barrels out of the ground before a 4 month deadline expires.

Will he get the oil? Will he get the girl? Will there be  dirty tricks afoot and a mad dash to the finish line in Tulsa? Yes on all counts!

This was a long and mostly dull film, but it was enough of a curiosity to keep me interested and, to be fair, there were a couple of decent action sequences.

The whole film hangs on Wayne which is a shame as he’s a terrible actor. Lots of soft focus close ups and dire dialogue about what his granny used to say. He is versatile though - a singing scene in the bath showed that he can’t sing either.

Albert Dekker was better and a sure lift for the Hedley Lamarr character in ‘Blazing Saddles’. His schemes were so despicable as was his moustache twirling. He never had a chance with the dame but made up for it with some scene chewing acting and a few punch ups.

The love interest was Martha Scott who, whilst only 31 at the time of filming, looked a lot older. This was probably down to her wardrobe that contained a few cast offs from Morticia Addams. She had bigger shoulder pads than an NFL quarterback and showed so little flesh that a suit of armour would have been sexier.

It was also good to see Gabby Hayes who delivered some genuine frontier gibberish.

The film built up to a big dash at the end when Wayne tried to deliver his oil by wagon after the baddie bought up all the pipes. He sets off with about 20 wagons and we see about 15 blow up and one goes off a hill. It’s a miracle therefore that he still manages to get 20 over the line!

I was surprised about the fairness to the Native Americans (well it is the movies!) and the frankly socialist values that Wayne was trotting out. No wonder he didn’t fight in the war - Joe Stalin never called!

There is some fun to be had in ‘War of the Wildcats’ but not as much as in a ‘Shake n Vac’ commercial.

Best Bit : ‘I’ll call you Kitten and give you a big kiss‘. ‘OK then‘.
‘W’ Rating 11/23

No.266 : Wake Wood (2009)

Wake Wood at the IMDb

Lord ‘Littlefinger’ Baelish stars in this creepy horror from 2009 - the first release from the Hammer Studios brand in over 30 years.

The film opens with flashbacks of a young Irish couple’s life with their young daughter. One day she feeds her ham sandwich to an Alsatian and gets bitten to death for her troubles - shouldn’t have forgotten the mustard I guess.

The distraught couple move to the town of Wakewood (Not clear why it’s one word and the title is two - annoying!) with him working as a vet and her at a chemist shop.

One night their car breaks down and they head towards the home of local worthy Arthur who knows a mechanic - Arthur or ‘Barry off ‘Auf Wiedersein Pet’ as he’s better known, is having a few friends over. Only for a satanic mass! Young Mum Louise gets a good look at the strange goings on which look like a man being born out of a large husk. Probably not got broadband out in the sticks and they have to make their own entertainment.

Barry soon shows up at the couple’s house and, apropos of nothing, offers to resurrect their daughter. He has more clauses than a timeshare contract though, the most onerous being that the girl can only return for 3 days and the couple must stay in Wakewood for ever. Rather than call him a nutter they readily agree. Seeing as they have gone this far they also agree to dig up their dead daughter for some of her hair and desecrate the corpse of a man who recently got trampled by a bull. All in a day’s work in rural Ireland.

After a grim and pretty full on ritual the girl is returned to them and all is good for about 20 minutes. Soon they realise that something isn’t right about the little girl - maybe something to do with all those murders she’s committing? The couple soon realise that this unholy deal wasn’t perhaps the best idea, but what price must be paid to put things right?

I really liked this film. It had a creepy, unsettling vibe throughout with even the scene setting moments, such as Baelish doing his veterinary work, being overly graphic and visceral. There were a few clichés to dance around such as the whole town being part of a coven and some very specific rules about what can and cannot be done - 'don’t go beyond the wind turbines’ can't be in the ancient scrolls surely?!

The last half hour goes a bit bat shit crazy and it isn’t explained where the power behind all the events come from or who laid down the rules. I guess it’s the usual lesson in ‘don’t mess with the supernatural’. The story was similar to the excellent Strontium Dog story ‘The Moses Quest’ albeit with a bit more blood letting.

The study in grief of the young bereft parents was well handled and you could almost give them a bye for getting involved once you’ve seen the pain they were in. Barry did well to avoid an Irish accent and just went for ‘stuffy English laird of the manor’ instead. The main couple were excellent with the right balance struck between overly emotional and buying our sympathy.

The violence ratcheted up towards the end and as it was being carried out by a ten year old girl it was mostly done in quick edits - they must have told the young actress it was a video about kittens or something.

I think it’s a film that will stay with you and, despite being far fetched and a bit too gruesome to feel real, it was good disturbing fun and is well worth a look.

Best Bit - Man suffers from a lot of bull ‘W’ Rating 19/23