No.344 : West of Hell (2018)

West of Hell at the IMDb

 

All aboard Rick & Morty’s Story Train for this trip to Disappointment with stops at Nonsensical Parkway, Confusion Central and bypassing Narrative Structure and Illumination Broadway.

We set off on a midnight train to Atlanta. At first it seems like a regular train with a bunch of murderous and mysterious characters, but there is more afoot that initially meets the eye. The train carriages themselves are set up like well appointed drawing rooms so that’s probably your first clue that things are not what they seem - there are no discarded copies of ‘Metro’ lying around and Baz hasn’t tagged the entire carriage.

We meet Jericho, who in another life was ‘Candyman’. He’s an ex-slave on a mission to kill all former slave owners and their first born children. One such child who is on-board is Annie, who has engaged the bodyguard services of ex-civil war soldier Roland. Candyman and Ro-land come to blows early on, but retreat to different carriages when things don’t go to plan - bullets don’t seem to be working for some reason.

We meet some other passengers, such as one chap who has a penchant for strangling prostitutes and another lady who has her ex-slave employed as her maid. They all have a past to hide but secrets are slowly revealed when they are joined by a shape shifter. As you have probably guessed things moved away from a conventional western when this chap appears, and employs ropey special effects to become each of our character’s dark secret.

After their pasts are laid bare the gang decide that the train they are on is on its way to Hell. Is there anything they can do to save their souls? Well, Lance Henriksen is in the last carriage and given he’s the Devil there may be some deals to be done…

This wasn’t a terrible film but it doesn’t have much to recommend it either. The production values were pretty low despite a couple of familiar faces such as the ‘jump to conclusions’ guy out of ‘Office Space’ making a brief appearance complete with unconvincing diabolical laughter. The lighting was poor in places with it hard to make out the action, and one character, who has a bag over his head, is virtually unintelligible. 

From the start I thought the twist was that they were on the road (tracks) to Hell and this proved correct - to be fair they didn’t really dress it up as anything else, so it wasn’t even a surprise never mind a twist. Lance was a pretty laid back Devil and offered little in the way of menace. As is standard, he offered the characters deals to get out of their predicament - terrible, lop sided deals! We did get a chance to see some of our characters in flashback and were able to decide for ourselves who was worthy of the visit to the flames and who was a victim of circumstance. Some were evil and went down that path whilst others made noble sacrifices having come to terms with their crimes. There were no real surprises in anyone’s arc with redemption liberally sprinkled about whilst the real baddies got their just desserts.

There were a couple of decent ideas in play, but the film was limited by its scope and budget. The Devil must have better things to do with his time as did Lance who clearly only spared half a day for the production.

The film only lasts about 80 minutes and the story would have been better used as an episode of ‘The Twilight Zone’ or the like rather than a half baked full feature.

You will see a lot worse and there was enough to garner half marks although that hooded guy, whose dialogue I couldn’t make out a word of,  cost them a chunk on his own. Overall it’s not a train to catch but if you find yourself on-board, you may as well stay on for the predictable and undemanding conclusion.

Best Bit : What’s this noose doing here?  'W' Rating 12/23

No.343 : What We Wanted (2020)

 

What We Wanted at the IMDb

Time for another session of Alan Partridge’s ‘Problem People’ as we spend 90 minutes in the company of Austrian couple Alice and Niklas. As we meet them they are receiving bad news from their fertility clinic. Their fourth and final state sponsored session of treatment has failed and they have to face the prospect of remaining childless.

Their therapist suggests a trip away to recharge their batteries and so they set off for Sardinia, despite being in the midst of a large building project at their home. Their prickly chat over directions suggest all is not well and their fully loaded credit cards imply they have money issues also.

They arrive at the Italian resort, but their quiet time is quickly interrupted by an Irish family and their screaming daughter and emo son. They try to move apartments but politeness means they stay and slowly get to know their neighbours - and experience the highs and lows of having children.

The young daughter speaks stark truths through her innocence and the son’s issues make our couple wonder if kids are worth the trouble. The Irish man isn’t shy about flaunting his wealth and his younger wife spouts a lot of horoscope nonsense which hits surprisingly close to home.

All the while our couples’ relationship is crumbling and home truths and long buried resentments are aired in private and soon in public. Will a potential tragedy show them the error of their ways or are they conditioned to accept their miserable and emotion free existence?

This film wasn’t as grim as my summary suggests, but it’s certainly one to watch with your partner unless you want to be examined over every remark and action in your last 20 years. The lead couple are good independently of each other but I didn’t think they were a great match. They were like an Austrian (actually German) Tilda Swinton and Mark Ruffalo and they didn’t seem to have much of a spark. I guess that was the point given their floundering relationship, with the partnership seeming somewhat uneven.

Small snippets of their past are peppered throughout and although the big revelation wasn’t a total surprise, at least it had been earned given what had gone before. The little girl, Denise, was a real cutie and she was a good device for getting to the heart of things that the adults would skip around. The sub plot with the overbearing Dad and emo son was less well developed and the impact of the big finale was a bit underwhelming.

It was nice to spend 90 minutes in sunny Italy in the company of some good looking people - it was just a pity they were all a bit needy and didn’t leave their troubles at home. There was a lot of metaphor and symbolism flying around and I’m sure a lot of big points were being made, but for the most part it did look a lot like privileged people having a hard time of their own making.

Best Bit : Pool Night  ‘W’ Rating : 15/23

No.342 : Wicked Spring (2002)

 Wicked Spring at the IMDb

The American Civil War lasted for about four years - this film felt slightly longer.

We open in 1861 with a long and meandering introduction to our characters. It is the golden time before the war, and we are treated to bucolic scenes of the harvest and people courting. We know it can’t last and are eventually transported to a battle in 1863 where the Blues and the Greys are facing off, in a small scale battle, in some woods.

The battle scene is the highlight of the film but it does highlight the small budget that is in play, with the 20 odd soldiers, who comprise each army, struggling to make the scene look epic. It looks daft that they are all crammed together to try and show scale as it’s clear that they would have fought better by spreading out a bit.

The battle isn’t well choreographed with at times it being unclear who is shooting who. This may be deliberate to show the horrors of war, but for me it just looked a bit unfocused and messy. There were several kills with the actors being shown to be hit many times from different angles in slow motion. This was a strange choice by the director as it took you out of the moment and made the thing look like a rap video.

With one side routed the soldiers flee into the woods and are detached from their units. Our main hero, Harrison, is with another soldier and they meet up with four others and set up a camp. Over an never-ending night the men share stories and food and we learn that Harrison hasn’t read any of the letters he received from his sweetheart, as he doesn’t read too good and that.

His new friend reads all his letters for him and sadly there’s no juicy stuff. There is however plenty of violin music accompanying the endless letter reading so we have that at least. I was expecting a bit more during this section to be honest, but maybe I just missed what was happening in the dark. “I can’t see a damn thing!“ someone exclaims at one point - I hear you brother, but obviously I can’t see you.

The next morning Harrison is awoken by a kick to the ribs. The nasty one with the medical background has discovered that the soldiers are from different sides and decides to take those from his enemy prisoner, so that he can return to his lines without being branded a deserter. A great plan, but one that quickly flounders as the upper hand switches back and forth between the two sides.

Who will win the day? And will the night of bonding help heal the schism between the two groups and across America as a whole? Probably not, as the battle is still raging and those extras seem keen to get home…

This was an awful film that looked like some Civil War re-enactor’s pet project that somehow found its way onto Amazon Prime. Fair enough it was based on a true incident, but one thing this effort will teach you is that not all true events are deserving of being recreated. There probably was a decent story in here to be fair, but the execution was just plain awful.

I was expecting some great revelation or horror, but in the end it was the old 'futility of war' message rote large for no entertainment or learning benefit whatsoever.

It didn’t look like there was a profession actor on show at all, which is fair enough as they also dispensed with a writer, editor and director too! Some scenes rambled on forever with the fireside letter reading section taking up an inordinate amount of the film for zero benefit whatsoever. You may say it built up Harrison’s character but alas there was none to begin with and all this added was that he couldn’t read.

The attempts at healing the divides were ham-fisted as was the conclusion which basically shouted ‘That’s the budget done, bring back the re-enacting guys’. Overall this was a painful watch and it’s just a pity Lincoln isn’t about to free this guff from my consciousness.

Best Bit : Opening Battle Scenes - ‘W’ Rating  : 8/23

No.341 : Warrior Queen (1987)

Warrior Queen at the IMDb

Time to class things up here with this historical drama which charts the last days of Pompeii. OK, the Frankie Howerd version may have been more accurate and had better sets, but this has Sybil Danning and a man being killed with a Frisbee.

We open with Sybil arriving in town in a small bandwagon. They are attacked by some brigands who quickly see off her soldier escort. They didn’t bargain on Sybil however, as she manages to kill three of them without breaking a sweat or looking a bit interested.

Meanwhile in town, the slave auction is in full swing and the director wastes no time in setting out his stall for his target audience. Let’s just say the bidders insist on a full inspection of the goods.

A ‘Ben Hur’ wannabe shows up and has a bit of a scrap with a non copyright ‘Hercules’ and Donald Pleasence takes the pay cheque as Emporer Clodius who fawns over Sybil a lot and does little else. The plot here is as thin as the slave girls’ tops but essentially we get a few days ‘slice of life’ entertainment before Vesuvius blows its top in magical stock footage fashion.

Sybil’s motivations aren’t clear but she does befriend one slave girl and takes a necklace off her and gives it back at the end. I guess she’s meant to be some sort of emancipation figure but she hardly has any lines and zero character development. Ben Hur and the slave girl we follow have a small romance arc that sees him killing folk in the arena whilst she gets raped in the woods. They all come through it unscathed, although the same can’t be said for their wardrobes.

There isn’t any real social commentary here with the elaborate fighting games and freely available sex doubtless meant to signal that this society was too bloated and due a bit of cleansing. Some of the exposition may have been lost in the 68 minute cut I saw on Amazon prime, but I doubt it. This was a ‘Caligula’ type soft porn with history used to dress up a bit of smut. Alas the production values were not matched with stock footage obtrusively appearing for the crowd and eruption scenes, and many of the sets looking distinctly wobbly despite the Rome locations.

This is just short enough to not be a total waste of time as you will get a couple of cheezy laughs and some titillation for your hour long investment. Don’t be basing your thesis on it though, unless its titled ‘Crappy & Inaccurate Boob Fests I Have Seen’.

Best Bit : I bid 1000 Sesterti! ‘W’ Rating 8/23

No.340 : Wonder Wheel (2017)

Wonder Wheel at the IMDb

Towards the end of this film Kate Winslet’s character says “Save me the bad drama” - if only she’d given this advice at the start! This offering, from writer and director Woody Allen, was decent but a bit derivative and for the most part, poorly acted.

The film, set in the 1950s,  starts with Justin Timberlake addressing the viewer and telling them he has a story for them. This breaking the fourth wall approach is rarely a good idea and I’ve no idea why it was employed here. Justin plays Mickey, a lifeguard at the beach on Coney island, near to where the titular ‘Wonder Wheel’ fairground ride is situated. Winslet is a waitress in a clam bar and she’s married to Jim Belushi who operates the merry-go-round. They live in a small apartment at the fairground with Winslet’s young son, who has a penchant for fire raising.

Their set up is disturbed when Belushi’s daughter, Juno Temple, shows up. She hasn’t seen Pop for five years since she left to marry a mobster. She has now left the hood and is on the run from his retribution, given she’s spoken to the Feds and all. After some reconciliation Juno moves in and gets a job at the clam bar. She wants to better herself however, and starts attending night school. Winslet meanwhile is approaching 40 and is resentful that her fledgling acting career has given way to a life of washing dishes.

Things look up for Kate however when she’s spotted walking the beach by Timberlake who quickly starts boffing her under the boardwalk. Kate falls for the lifeguard who himself is looking to further his writing aspirations. Things reach a head when Trousersnake takes a shine to Juno and the mob, in the shape of Paulie Walnuts and Bobby Bacala, start to zero in on their target. While the doomed love affair(s) survive and can happiness be found while the wheel keeps on turning?

I was hoping for more from this film given its decent credentials, but it turned out to be a sub par ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ with all of the shouting and lost ambition but none of the drama or characters.

Winslet was decent in the lead but she fell apart at the end with her motivations flying all over the place. “I’ve been drinking” she slurs at one point - well that’s no excuse really. Jim Belushi basically yells his whole script in a dirty vest and I was expecting him to bellow ‘Stellla!’ at any point. Timberlake’s character was thinly written - they tried to pitch him as a wannabe Eugene O’Neill but he was basically an extra from ‘Baywatch’ banging the local talent.

The script, which saw laughable mob hit men stalking the boardwalk, was poor and the line between drama and comedy was breached several times. I think this was mostly unintentional, although the fire raising child did have a couple of moments of levity to break the kitchen sink drama.

The costumes and locations were decent although the main apartment was obviously a set and the summer set film looked like it had been shot in the middle of the winter.

Overall it was a decent distraction, but ultimately a disappointment and another to add to the lengthy footnotes of Allen’s career.

Best Bit : Under the Boardwalk with Kate ‘W’ rating 13/23